Rothchild: “Ancient wisdom” in MI’s new redistricting process

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Yoram Gat

John Rothchild, Professor of Law at Wayne State University, writes approvingly in The Conversation about Michigan’s new allotted electoral redistricting commission. Rather naively, Rothchild seems to believe that democratic redistricting could result in the selection of “representatives who truly reflect [citizens’] political preferences”. Alas, this is more than mere redistricting can deliver, however well done.

How, then, should Michigan’s decision to assign unskilled members of the public the job of drawing nonpartisan election districts be evaluated?

Redistricting is a complex task. Michigan’s Constitution says that the districts must be drawn in compliance with federal law. That includes a requirement that voting districts have roughly the same population. It also requires that the districts “reflect the state’s diverse population and communities of interest,” and “not provide a disproportionate advantage to any political party.”

Dividing the map to meet all of these criteria is not likely to be within the capabilities of a group of randomly selected citizens.

There are several reasons to think that the redistricting commission will nevertheless prove adequate to the task.
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Filed under: Academia, Applications, Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Ferey: Populism against science: a new political cleavage?, Part 1

Posted on October 4, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Camille Ferey is a doctoral student at the Université de Paris-Nanterre where she is writing a thesis about theories of participative democracy and democratic social movements. She wrote the following op-ed in BibliObs back in July.

Populism against science: a new political cleavage?

Rarely does science provoke as many hopes and controversies as it has been doing over the last few months.

It is a matter of great importance: upon the progress of science depends the neutralization of a disease that has confined half of humanity, upon its instructions and warnings depend our rights to travel, to meet and to kiss. However, many commentators talk about the threat of “distrust” that undermines the authority of science, if not of the authority of Truth itself, in our democracies. Furthermore, this dominant narrative confounds this phenomenon of skepticism (which is very real) with a different phenomenon, a political one: populism. The political cleavage is then reduced to a binary opposition between reason and populism, and consequently all criticism of scientific and political institutions is ruled out.

Mistrust of science and political non-conformism: a problematic confounding

It is a widely circulated narrative, with its opinion polls, its statistical studies, its indicators and its media talking points: democracies are suffering because of the irrational acceptance by a growing number of citizens of a mass of fake news, alternative truths and conspiracy theories (vaccines are bad for your health, the theory of evolution is a lie, climate change is a hoax). Yet, this narrative never asks whether what is taking place is a rejection of scientific theories, of scientific protocols, of scientists, of institutions of research, of technical applications of science or of its political uses. This vagueness allows to systematically associate this distrust with a specific phenomenon: populism, which is designated willy-nilly as both a cause and an effect of the regime of errors and lies.

The latest CEVIPOF poll on the relations between science and society establishes a correlation between, on the one hand, “an indicator” of mistrust calculated based on questions such as “Do you think that science brings more good than bad, as much good as bad, or more bad than good?”, and, on the other hand, “and indicator of populism”, based on the following questions: “Politicians are generally corrupt? A good political system is one where citizens rather than a government decide what they think is better for the country? Democracy functions best if the representatives are allotted citizens?”. A surprising definition of “populism”, which rather resembles the definition of democracy, or maybe of common sense.
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Filed under: Academia, Press, Sortition, Theory | 6 Comments »

Are there measurable benefits in using a lottery to select leaders? A scientific experiment

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Conall Boyle

Short answer: Yes, and no!

Longer answer:

Hubris is a tendency of leaders to hold an overly confident view of their own capabilities and to abuse power for their own selfish goals, sometimes with disastrous consequences for organizations. A major reason for hubris is the rigorous selection process leaders typically undergo. This study proposes a governance mechanism used successfully in history to tackle hubris: partly random selections, which combine competitive selections by competence with lotteries. A frequently voiced concern about the use of lotteries is that it takes no account of the competence of the leader chosen. We propose that partly random selections can mitigate the disadvantages of both competitive selections alone and lotteries alone and reduce hubris in leaders. We conduct a test of this governance mechanism by means of a computerized laboratory experiment. Our results show that partly random selections significantly reduce the hubris of group leaders. [my emphasis]

This is the Abstract from the Report. The full citation is: Joël Berger; Margit Osterloh; Katja Rost; Thomas Ehrmann (2020, May 13) ‘How to prevent leadership hubris? Comparing competitive selections, lotteries, and their combination’ The Leadership Quarterly, ISSN: 1048-9843  http://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101388 (paywall)

In order to test their theory, this group of Swiss and German scientists conducted an experiment, using a method instantly recognisable to experimental economists (and others, but they are the ones I’m familiar with). Their hypothesis was that a lottery could play a useful part in limiting hubris when selecting leaders.

We conducted a computerized laboratory experiment   ….  864 students of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, were randomly selected from a pool of students who had volunteered to participate in behavioral experiments for monetary compensation. Participants on average gained USD 30 for 45 min……The 864 participants were randomly selected into groups of six and randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions.

Wow! As you can see, this sort of experiment is not cheap, so well done to the guys in Zurich to obtain the funds from the Swiss government to conduct an experiment on lotteries-for-jobs. Note, too, the use of a randomly selected sample and sub-samples. Ok, so it’s students, it generally is in these scientific tests, but for obvious practical reasons.

Briefly, the experiment proceeded thus: A leader for each group were produced by one of three methods. 1. Using a general knowledge test and appoint the top scorer; or 2. Same test, but select at random from the top three scorers; or 3. A simple lottery where every member of the group has an equal chance.

How ‘hubris’ of the selected leaders was measured was complicated, and if you want know, you’ll have to read the article, but it did involve the well-known ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma Game’. It was from this, and 11 pages of statistical analysis of regression models that the conclusion was reached.

Our study follows a pioneering approach to investigate an unusual selection method for appointing leaders in organizations, partly random selection. This selection method has been extensively used in history but has nearly been forgotten. Today, random decisions are considered by many people to be “irrational”. Our study shows that purposeful random selection, in particular combining competitive selections with a random component, is a rational and promising way of recruiting leaders that tackles hubris in overconfident leaders. Our proposal to “draw your CEO by lot” is provocative but may be promising.

Most of the members of this group engage in philosophical discussion, where the merits of a proposal are a matter of persuasive rhetoric. Elsewhere, exhortations to ‘follow the science’ abound, and mere rhetoric is treated with caution. Even calling in aid ‘common-sense’ can be suspect.

This is, I believe, the first time any hypothesis of us Kleroterians has been subject to what has been described as ‘The gold standard of science’. I have another example from Levitt of Freakonomics fame which almost constitutes Science, which I will post about later.

Filed under: Academia, Distribution by lot, Employment, Experiments | 10 Comments »

Chumbley: Abolish student government elections now

Posted on September 26, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Robert Chumbley writes in the Tulane Hullabaloo:

Elections are detrimental to the establishment of diversity of thought in any given student government. Cognitive diversity is more important to the success of political leadership than relying solely on demographic diversity, which can potentially foster differences in thinking but does not guarantee it.

When individuals with varying opinions interact, these relationships are more conducive to innovation and the development of problem solving abilities. Given that cognitive diversity and the ensuing boon to collective problem solving should be a higher priority than the maintenance of elections for traditional-ideological purposes, Tulane ought to replace USG elections with sortition, the random selection of individuals for offices.

The reason for that logical jump may not be intuitively obvious, but the fact is that random allotment of political offices promotes cognitive diversity and improves problem solving ability.

Random selection does not produce a mob of unqualified commoners. In truth, those who object to sortition on the basis of “lack of qualification” are effectively dividing the population into commoners and elites, the former of whom deserve to be managed and the latter of whom deserve to manage by virtue of their special “qualifications,” whatever those are alleged to be.
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Citizen initiative review in Switzerland

Posted on September 26, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Grégoire Baur reports in Le Temps about “Demoscan” – a Swiss experiment with citizen initiative review initiated by Nenad Stojanovic, a University of Geneva political science professor:

The concept of the Demoscan project is simple: “ordinary citizens” inform their peers during a referendum campaign. An allotted panel representing the population, having had the opportunity to hear the experts as well those pro and against the proposal put up for a referendum, write a report which is sent to the citizens together with the voting materials.

“Very encouraging” results

At Sion [the capital of the Swiss canton of Valais], 20 people took part in the experience as part of the campaign regarding the popular initiative proposition “More affordable housing” last February. “The objective of the pilot project was to see to what extent could information provided by citizens encourage people to vote, what level of confidence the citizens would have in an allotted panel. The result are very encouraging”, says Nenad Stojanovic.

Whereas usually the turnout in Sion is low, in this case the turnout was somewhat higher than the average in the canton. The confidence accorded to the panel by voters was higher than they have in the federal parliament. In addition, the citizen report was the second most consulted source of information, behind the official brochure of the Federal Council, but ahead of the media and the campaign party slogans. “The citizen panel will not replace the democratically elected authorities, but it can complement them”, emphasized the political scientist.

Stojanovic is already engaged in another experiment in Geneva and hopes to launch others.

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

People in “increasingly autocratic” regimes show confidence in “democracy” in their countries

Posted on September 19, 2020 by Yoram Gat

The Centre for the Future of Democracy is based at Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge aims “to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by democratic politics over the coming century”. Back in January, the Centre has published a report [PDF] titled “Global Satisfaction with Democracy 2020”. The report is based on what seems like a very useful data set created by combining multiple survey data sources comprising 3,500 surveys from many countries around the world over the years 1973 to 2020 asking citizens whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with democracy in their countries.

The key findings are not surprising:

Across the globe, democracy is in a state of malaise. In the mid-1990s, a majority of citizens in countries for which we have time-series data – in North America, Latin America,Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australasia – were satisfied with the performance of their democracies. Since then, the share of individuals who are “dissatisfied” with democracy has risen by around +10% points, from 47.9 to 57.5%.

This is the highest level of global dissatisfaction since the start of the series in 1995. After a large increase in civic dissatisfaction in the prior decade, 2019 represents the highest level of democratic discontent on record.The rise in democratic dissatisfaction has been especially sharp since 2005. The year that marks the beginning of the so-called “global democratic recession” is also the high point for global satisfaction with democracy, with just 38.7% of citizens dissatisfied in that year. Since then, the proportion of “dissatisfied” citizens has risen by almost one-fifth of the population (+18.8%).
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Filed under: Academia, Elections, Opinion polling | 1 Comment »

Jacquet, Niessen and Reuchamps: Sortition, its advocates and its critics

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Yoram Gat

A new paper (full text) in International Political Science Review by Belgian academics Vincent Jacquet, Christoph Niessen and Min Reuchamps titled “Sortition, its advocates and its critics: An empirical analysis of citizens’ and MPs’ support for random selection as a democratic reform proposal” is a useful survey-based study comparing the attitudes of Belgian citizens towards sortition to those of Belgian MPs. As may be expected, and as can be seen in the figure above, MPs are much more reluctant than citizens to hand off power to allotted bodies.

Abstract: This article explores the prospects of an increasingly debated democratic reform: assigning political offices by lot. While this idea is advocated by political theorists and politicians in favour of participatory and deliberative democracy, the article investigates the extent to which citizens and MPs actually endorse different variants of ‘sortition’. We test for differences among respondents’ social status, disaffection with elections and political ideology. Our findings suggest that MPs are largely opposed to sortitioning political offices when their decision-making power is more than consultative, although leftist MPs tend to be in favour of mixed assemblies (involving elected and sortitioned members). Among citizens, random selection seems to appeal above all to disaffected individuals with a lower social status. The article ends with a discussion of the political prospects of sortition being introduced as a democratic reform.

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Opinion polling, Press, Sortition | 2 Comments »

A lottery for top jobs is not such a crazy idea

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Conall Boyle

So says Amanda Goodall in an article in the Financial Times 9 Sept 2020.  You can read the article in full here (dodging the FT paywall!).

http://www.amandagoodall.com/FTRandom2020-09-07_101201.pdf

Dr Goodall of the Cass Business School, London has produced many papers on management and HR. She has tried to promote the idea of Lotteries for Jobs with Margit Osterloh, a Swiss academic.

Amanda tells me “It is a hard one [the idea of lotteries for jobs] to get off the ground. It has been hard to publish our article.”

It is very rewarding to find others in the field working on this form of ‘Local Democracy’ as Elster calls it. There are further developments which I will post here shortly.

Filed under: Academia, Distribution by lot, Employment, Press, Proposals | Tagged: , , | 8 Comments »

Cirone: Lotteries in Political Selection

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Yoram Gat

A 2019 paper by Alexandra Cirone, Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University, is titled “When democracy is broken roll the dice: Lotteries in political selection”.

There is a long tradition in political science and law that analyzes the benefits of lotteries in political selection (Manin 1997; Elster 1989; Engelstad 1989; Dowlen 2009; Duxbury 1999; Ober 1993 among many others). Most readers will be familiar with selection by lottery – also called sortition – where individuals are randomly chosen for political office.

The element of chance in a lottery has always captured our imaginations. Yet from a policy perspective, lotteries are now being proposed in various forms to address democratic deficits. Lottery-based selection of high-ranking politicians have been suggested for the national parliaments of the UK and France, as well as for the supranational institutions of the European Union. Citizens assemblies have been implemented in a wide range of countries, at both the local and national levels (Fishkin 2011).

However, lottery-based political selection is no panacea. There are a number of shortcomings to these processes. First, no matter which selection rule, it is likely that elites can still be disproportionately involved in politics, and lotteries don’t insulate all democratic institutions from partisan or corrupt pressures. Second, politics benefits from investment in expertise and career politicians; the uncertainty inherent in random selection of permanent institutions could disincentivize potential candidates from acquiring skills or experience. Alternatively, problems with recruitment and attrition from selected citizens will always be an issue with lottery-based selection; and randomly chosen officials might lack democratic legitimacy, which could impair their ability to do their job well. Third, even implementing lotteries in the form of temporary citizens assemblies require time, resources, and careful design of the process. Lotteries are also difficult to endogenously implement, particularly at top levels of governance — political parties and other groups are too invested in current systems of selection, so it is unlikely we will see a return to the pure sortition of ancient times.

Still, there is distinct promise to the use of lotteries in political selection, to help include more citizens in the democratic process. By examining unique institutional experimentation in the past, and by adapting democratic initiatives based on more recent instances of lottery-based selection, it may be possible to alleviate current democratic shortcomings.

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Will blames everybody

Posted on September 3, 2020 by Yoram Gat

George Will writes in the Washington Post about the troubles democracy is having. It seems everybody is to blame: the people and their unrealistic expectations of self-rule fed by careless descriptions of democracy, the French revolutionaries and their nationalistic “fraternité”, the former captive nations of the former Eastern Bloc that are illiberal, U.S. universities, new media, right-wing and left-wing extremists, protesters and their assertions that the U.S. was founded upon genocide and slavery, the infantile panic of liberal Democrats, elections themselves that produced a floundering elite.

Aristotle told us (or at least told Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield) that elections are aristocratic and aim to produce the rule of the best. That seems hard to believe. Maybe selection by lot should be considered?

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

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