Yoram Gat

Government quality and government selection

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Yoram Gat

[M]en err in two ways, either by ignorance or by malice.

Francesco Guicciardini, Dialogue on the Government of Florence

A model of government quality and government selection mechanism quality

The two chief desirable characteristics of government are

representativity (r): the government is representative when its efforts are aimed at promoting the general interests (rather than personal or narrow interests), and
competence (c): the government is competent when it is able to enact effective policy in accordance with its aims.

A representative, competent government enacts policy that effectively promotes the general interest.

Modeled in this way, the quality of a government is a function of its representativity and its competence, q = q(r,c), increasing in both arguments (e.g., q(r,c) = r c). The quality of a mechanism for selecting a government is measured by its tendency to produce high-quality governments.
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Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 29 Comments »

newDemocracy

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Yoram Gat

newDemocracy is an Australian website that introduces itself as follows:

Citizens are seeking Parliaments that are less adversarial and less short term in outlook. The newdemocracy Foundation researches and publishes alternative democratic methods that seek to deliver this. We pursue alternatives more likely to identify common ground, end the continuous campaign, and return representatives to focus on issues, not opinion polls.
We don’t need better politicians. We need a better system.
Read about these options here, and get involved.

Under “Alternatives”, newDemocracy presents various ideas, including “Demarchy” – following John Burnheim and Brian Martin, “A Senate Drawn by Lot” – following Alex Zakaras and linking to a post by Keith Sutherland on this blog, and “The Popular Branch” – following Ethan Leib.

The force behind the website is apparently Luca Belgiorno-Nettis. The website also lists various luminaries among its supporters including Prof. Lyn Carson.

One item that I find particularly valuable is the slogan mentioned in one of the entries: Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages Them!

Filed under: Opinion polling, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Karatani on sortition

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Kojin Karatani writes in his book, Transcritique (2001, translated by Sabu Kohso, p. 182ff):

There is one crucial thing we can learn from Athenian democracy in this respect. The ancient democracy was established by overthrowing tyranny and equipped itself with a meticulous device for preventing tyranny for reviving. The salient characteristic of Athenian democracy is not a direct participation of everyone in the assembly, as always claimed, but a systematic control of the administrative power. The crux was the system of lottery: to elect public servants by lottery and to surveil the deeds of public servants by means of a group of jurors who are also elected by lottery. […] My point is that the core of the system invented to stop the fixation of power in Athenian Democracy lay not in the election itself, but in the lottery. Lottery functions to introduce contingency into the magnetic power center. The point is to shake up the positions where power tends to be concentrated; entrenchment of power in administrative positions can be avoided by a sudden attack of contingency. It is only the lottery that actualizes the separation of the three powers. If universal suffrage by secret ballot, namely, parliamentary democracy, is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the introduction of a lottery should be deemed the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Disappointingly, Karatani steps away from sortition, without providing a real reason – off-handedly blaming “the people” for not being ready for a radical solution:

Can we choose all representative by lottery in all elections? That is not realistic; the system itself would be too arbitrary to gain the trust of the people.

Instead, he offers a lottery among top vote getters, claiming it will reduce factionalism, and making a vague unexplained promise that such a mechanism will “free the power center from fixation in the long run”:

[W]hat is preferable to us would be to choose the most crucial post by lottery: namely choosing three candidates by secret vote (three in one choice) and then finally electing one by lottery. Because the last and most crucial stage is determined by contingency, factional disputes or conflicts over successors would not make sense.

Filed under: Athens, Books, Elections, Proposals, Theory | 1 Comment »

More on the going-ons in Syntagma Square

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Yoram Gat

I recently linked to a WSWS story about the Indignants in Syntagma Square. The Kathimerini newspaper has a story as well. As can be expected, the tone is much more equivocal.

In Syntagma Square, some see the dawn of a new politics

As Indignant protests enter second month, opinions divided about nature and future of the movement

[…]

Costas Douzinas, a law professor at Birkbeck, University of London, recently penned one of the most flattering profiles of the Indignants in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, after being invited to speak in Syntagma. For him “this is the most political movement we have had in Greece, and perhaps in Europe for the past 20 years. It is totally political and in a way it changes our understanding of what politics means,” he says.
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Filed under: Athens, Sortition | 2 Comments »

U.S. presidential elections: a perpetual cycle of disappointment

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Yoram Gat

The Wall Street Journal has a chart illustrating the pattern of high approval rating for incoming U.S. presidents followed, almost invariably, by disappointment. Bill Clinton seems the only clear exception to this pattern since WWII.

Filed under: Elections | 1 Comment »

Prof. Fishkin is keeping busy

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Yoram Gat

A deliberative poll for California’s future:

What’s Next California is an unprecedented attempt to bring the people into the process in a new way—one that is representative and thoughtful. A scientific random sample of the entire state will be transported to a single place for a weekend of face-to-face discussions, in small groups and in dialogue with competing experts. In California’s first statewide “Deliberative Poll,” the people will be supported by factual information and will consider the critical arguments on both sides of issues, then will articulate their priorities for fixing the state. A number of Deliberative Polls have been conducted at the national and local levels in sixteen countries around the world, including Britain, Australia, Denmark, and the United States. The deliberations will take place in Torrance on the weekend of June 25th. More than 300 citizens representing every region of the state will spend the weekend working in small groups and posing questions to public officials and policy experts. These in-depth discussions will likely range over legislative representation, taxation, whether local governments should have more autonomy and control over public services, and the initiative process.
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Filed under: Opinion polling, Sortition | 5 Comments »

Indignant, fumbling, drawing lots

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Yoram Gat

The WSWS has a critical report about the “indignants” movement in Greece:

Greece: The Syntagma Square movement—no real democracy

It is not easy to report on the “Indignants”, the protesters in Athens’ Syntagma Square. We spent almost an hour trying to find someone responsible who could tell us about the goals and character of the movement, without success.

[…]

There was no one willing to provide information about the objectives and purpose of the movement, and take responsibility for this. This game of hide and seek is not a coincidence. It is justified by reference to the principle of “genuine” or “direct” democracy, according to which the people take decisions directly, without the mediation of political representatives or parties. In fact, it serves to hide the real political objectives of the Indignants.
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Filed under: Athens, Participation, Sortition | 14 Comments »

Mickey Edwards: Fill congressional committee vacancies by lot

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Yoram Gat

One of the six steps that Mickey Edwards offers for “fixing Congress” is to fill congressional committee vacancies by lot.

Edwards’s critique of elected government starts promisingly enough:

Angry and frustrated, American voters went to the polls in November 2010 to “take back” their country. Just as they had done in 2008. And 2006. And repeatedly for decades, whether it was Republicans or Democrats from whom they were taking the country back. No matter who was put in charge, things didn’t get better. They won’t this time, either; spending levels may go down, taxes may go up, budgets will change, but American government will go on the way it has[.]

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Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

The New International Encyclopedia on Elections

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Yoram Gat

The 1905 edition of the The New International Encyclopedia opens its entry on elections with the following paragraph:

ELECTION, in politics, is the choice of public officers by the vote of those who are entitled to exercise the elective franchise. This is to be distinguished, on the one hand, from the appointment of officers by a superior, as by a king, a president, a governor, or a mayor; and, on the other hand, from their selection by lot. The last-named method of choosing public officers was considered by Aristotle one of the characteristic features of a popular government. It has been advocated by other writers, because of its tendency to prevent the formation of political parties. Party organization, the caucus, the coalition of different factions, the corruption of voters, the falsification of election returns, the interest of a particular candidate and kindred evils, it is argued, will all be swept away if officers are selected by lot.

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Daniel Hannan: selection by lot – better than appointment

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Daniel Hannan, a writer, journalist, and Conservative MEP, writes in the Telegraph:

Lord Steel now proposes to make the House of Lords wholly appointed. In other words, one of the two legislative chambers would be nominated by the executive. Of all the alternative models – direct election, indirect election, selection by lot, heredity or, indeed, unicameralism – surely appointment is the worst.

At least one of the commenters, “erikbloodaxe”, picks up on the idea of sortition:

I think the Lords should be appointed by lot, from among the general population. Professional politicians (with the odd honourable exception) are completely out of touch. Give them about £100k pa and make them turn up.

To which Hannan replies: