Equality by lot

Let’s do some sightseeing and go to Saillans. A small village in a South of France tried something unusual, and I belong to a collective in Paris wanting to reproduce their experiment. A member sent a bunch of links to videos about Saillans.

Two images to help locating Saillans. Romain Cazé CC-BY

Saillans’ town hall uses sortition massively. 12 randomly selected citizen control the elected official (check 5:00 of this video). They also use random selection to build action groups on specific topics, like designing the city’s urban plan. The experiment demonstrates how we can use chance to enhance citizen involvement. They demonstrate at least two points: (1) Citizens can perform executive functions, and (2) Citizens can be used to control the executive power.

Of course, some locals speak against this method and for them things were better before. And some mayors around look on Saillans with a judgemental eye. They argue that people should not decide on topics unknown to them. We can answer this argument in two ways: people can become experts through action, and certain mayors didn’t have any prior training before their elections.

But the easiest criticism of this experiment is about its scale (Saillans’ population is around 1,200 inhabitants). Hey, we need to start somewhere and better start at the smallest scale possible. I like the bottom-up approach and believe that a revolution should be done one step at a time. The town hall has worked this way for four years now. A story to be continued…

Thank you for reading! Write below, if you want to add information about Saillans or why you agree or disagree.

This post was originally published on http://www.stochocratie.org.

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Sortition | 4 Comments »

A post by Tomas Mancebo. English translation by Pablo Segundo.

Internal elections were held at the end of May 2017 in the Valencian Community branch of the Spanish party Podemos. The alliance called “A Tide to Deepen Change” (Una marea per aprofundir el canvi / Una Marea para Profundizar el Cambio) composed of three inner groups: Democratic Deepening (Profundización Democrática), Valencian Tide (Marea Valenciana), and Deepen the Change (Aprofundir el Canvi), won the General Secretary post for Antonio Estañ, and set the branch’s new Organizational Statutes.

The new organizational model introduces more internal democracy in this regional branch: new participation mechanisms, preferential voting methods, and sortition for the selection of members of key directorial boards, committees and assemblies. These organizational innovations were pushed for by the group “Democratic Deepening” (Profundización Democrática), that has been championing new organizational and democratic mechanisms as the key to real change since the founding of the Podemos Party.

Salvador Mestre, co-founder of “Democratic Deepening” had a key role in securing the alliance between the three groups. He explains:

“The goal of ‘Deepening Democracy’ has always been to couple organizational efficiency with the integration of the different areas, sectors and spaces inside and outside the Party, as we understand this is a strong need for a new party like Podemos. The only option is to push for innovation. We seek to integrate the plurality and diversity of the 15M Plazas [the Spanish spontaneous political street assemblies that exploded in 2011], their transversality and abundance of ideas, inside a flexible and multi-purposed structure, permeable to the collaborative and creative energy of activists, supporters and social movements. It’s funny how part of this innovation is based in the age old mechanism of sortition, but quite probably Van Reybouck is right when he affirms that sortition is the only chance of medium-term survival for our political systems called ‘democratic’ in spite of their representative character, survival that has to be a renewal and a true evolution towards real democracy. In the 15M Plazas we cried for ‘Real Democracy NOW!’ and it is evident that sortition must be an important answer to that call.”

“During the formation of the alliance sortition had to be explained, defended and motivated. It was accepted as a superb method to integrate the party bases within the executive party decisions, and among other measures we agreed for a significative part of the Directorial Board to be drawn by lot.”
Continue reading →

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Sortition | 15 Comments »

A post by Tomás Mancebo. An English version is here.

En la tercera semana del pasado mes de mayo, se celebraron elecciones internas en Podemos de la Comunidad Valenciana (CV). Una alianza de tres corrientes denominada Una marea per aprofundir el canvi (Profundización Democrática, Marea Valenciana y Aprofundir el Canvi), consiguió triunfar al salir elegidos tanto su candidato a la Secretaría General, Antonio Estañ, como su modelo de organización interna para el partido en esta región. El nuevo modelo organizativo introduce más democracia interna en el partido, sobre todo por la influencia ejercida en la coalición por el grupo «Profundización Democrática», que desde el principio de la constitución de Podemos como partido político apostó por propuestas innovadoras. Se refuerzan los mecanismos de participación, se proponen sistemas de votación preferencial y, sobre todo, se prescribe el sorteo profusamente para designar miembros de varios órganos y espacios.

Salvador Mestre, co-fundador de «Profundización Democrática», ha desempeñado un papel fundamental en el proceso de confluencia con las otras dos corrientes internas Transcribimos unas declaraciones de Mestre cuando contactamos con él: “el objetivo de «Profundización Democrática» siempre ha sido aunar la eficacia organizativa con la integración de todos los espacios, ámbitos y sectores tanto internos como externos, pues entendemos que esta debe ser la aspiración de una organización política nueva como Podemos. Eso nos lleva necesariamente a una exigencia de innovación. La idea que nos guía es integrar la pluralidad y diversidad de las plazas del 15M, su transversalidad y riqueza de ideas, dentro de una estructura versátil y flexible, permeable a toda la energía colaborativa y propositiva de la militancia, de los simpatizantes y de los movimientos sociales. Es curioso que, como parte de esa innovación, echemos mano de un recurso tan antiguo como el sorteo, pero la realidad es que quizá Van Reybouck tenga razón cuando sostiene que el sorteo es la única posibilidad de supervivencia a medio plazo de los sistemas políticos que han venido llamándose democráticos a pesar de su cariz tan representativo. No solo de supervivencia, sino de renovación y de evolución realmente democrática. En las plazas del 15M pedíamos “Democracia Real Ya” y es evidente que el sorteo debe ser parte importante de la respuesta a ese clamor.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Sortition | 4 Comments »