Today (27 Nov 2013) in a series about reforming democracy, a listener proposes picking MPs by lot. A panel of Bogdanor, Runciman and Clare Fox sympathise but don’t think it would solve anything.
It starts at 25 mins in, and runs for about 5 mins at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jdw6p
[BBC sometimes does not allow access outside UK]
Filed under: Applications, Athens, Sortition | 9 Comments »
In chapter 16 of his 1988 book The World Solution for World Problems, A Concept for Government, L. Leòn presented a protocol for mondial lottocracy.
At the moment, this blog, Equality by Lot, is all about an endless stream of opinions, opinions, …, and discussions, discussions… Would it not be an idea to start with a rules based protocol, such as L. Leòn’s protocol, and to ask people to add rules or to eliminate rules (with a short explanation of why)? It would make things much more down-to-earth and much more exciting.
Filed under: Academia, Action, Applications, Athens, education | Tagged: democracy, Government BY the people, sortition | 18 Comments »
Sortition is proposed as a remedy to some pathologies in our present constitutional systems, but if not done well, it could introduce some pathologies of its own. Some of these have been discussed, but we need to focus for a moment on how it could go wrong, and what we could do to avoid that.
Sortition and pillage
Sortition is often offered as a way to avoid having those elected pillage the public fisc for their own benefit or that of their constituents, sometimes called patronage. Public choice theory examines how special interests invest more than most others to influence public decisions for their benefit, by both the selection of decisionmakers and pressure on them to favor those interests to retain office or advance in office. Once elected, officials become a special interest unto themselves, and public choice processes operate within government institutions as well as on elections.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Sortition, Theory | Tagged: public choice, sortition, special interests | 15 Comments »
Ad van der Ven wrote to draw attention to David Van Reybrouck’s argument in favor of sortition. Van Reybrouck is a prize winning Flemish Belgian author writing historical fiction, literary non-fiction, novels, poetry, plays and academic texts.
His latest book is Tegen verkiezingen (Against elections) (machine translation with my touch-ups):
Our representative democracy is increasingly in the doldrums. Its legitimacy is affected: fewer and fewer people vote, voters are less predictable in their choice, and the membership of political parties is decreasing dramatically. It is the efficiency of less democracy: since long term government is problematic, politicians increasingly align their policies to the next election. It all leads to what is called by David Van Reybrouck democratic fatigue. But how do tackle it? Papering over the cracks – that is what is happening now mainly. There are some renovation trends here and there. Reybrouck fears that this kind of marginal solutions is no longer sufficient and that the existing system will result in more and more crises.
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Filed under: Athens, Books, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: David Van Reybrouck | 71 Comments »
A message I sent to Paul Jay and Chris Hedges:
Dear Paul and Chris,
I am writing to you after watching the Reality Asserts Itself interview. I share the abhorrence you express toward the ruling elites and their oppressive policies. I share the rejection of the electoral system as a means for achieving the political ends of the 99%, and I support the call for creating a mass movement to effect change – to overthrow the system.
I would like, however, to point out that an important piece is missing from this agenda. Overthrowing the system would just be the beginning. Something needs to replace the system once it is overthrown. Until the Left articulates a credible alternative to the existing system it would be difficult to mobilize support for the revolutionary movement. Why would the people risk overthrowing the system (with all of its oppression and criminality) if there is no expectation that the outcome would be different.
“Occupy”, with its vaguely anarchist ideology, tended to avoid the matter of proposing such an alternative system. It hardly ever went beyond the standard anarchist slogans about consensus-building mechanisms, popular assemblies and horizontal power structures. This, I believe, was the main reason “occupy” failed to galvanize the bulk of the public, leading to its fizzling.
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Filed under: Action, Athens, Elections, History, Sortition | 56 Comments »
Adam Cronkright sent the attached document and writes:
Here is a draft that I’ve put together to help explain the work we are doing here in Bolivia, and hopefully in other places in Latin America with time. Would love to get input/feedback from readers of the EqualityByLot blog.
In particular, I would love help with the citations in the section on ancient Athens. I’ve been a long ways from home for the last half a year, so I have no access to my personal computer, my personal library, nor any English public/academic library. So in putting this Overview together, I regularly cited a second/third-hand source (Arthur Robbins Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained: The True Meaning of Democracy), since it was one of the few .pdf’s I could access. But Robbins did not rigorously cite his Athenian history, and I would much prefer to cite primary sources when possible. So any help making that section more academically rigorous would be appreciated.
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Filed under: Applications, Athens, Books, Participation, Sortition | 23 Comments »
In chapter XLVII of his Discourses, Machiavelli tells two stories:
The Roman People having become annoyed with the Consular name, and wanting to be able either to choose as Consuls men of the Plebs, or to limit their authority, the Nobility in order not to discredit the Consular authority by either change, took the middle course, and were content that four Tribunes with Consular power be created, who could come from the Plebs as well as from the Nobles. The Plebs were content with this, as it seemed to them to destroy the Consulship and give them a part in the highest ranks. From this a notable case arose, that when it came to the creation of these Tribunes, and they could have selected all Plebs, the Roman people chose all Nobles. Continue reading
Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Theory | 12 Comments »
Post by Jon Roland.
A political or management system can be characterized by the kind of people it elevates to positions of authority. A number of terms have been proposed by cynics, such as plutocracy, rule by the rich, kleptocracy, rule by thieves, or kakistocracy, rule by the worst. But from this writer’s experience with the most influential legislators, bureaucrats, judges, and corporate executives, the finding is that what attribute is most important to the success of most of them is the ability to sell and make connections with other people. In Greek a salesman is a πωλητής, or poletes. This suggests a word, poletecracy.
In a few cases technical skills help enable someone to rise to power, but most people in high positions are not experts in anything but campaigning and dealmaking. Most are politicians (πολιτικοί) first and foremost. If they acquire any expertise, it is usually after being on a job for a while, not while they are climbing. Their personal assets are favors earned and paid, and being able to have other influential people take their phone calls.
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Filed under: Athens, History, Sortition | 7 Comments »
Sir: Peter Jones (25 May) is right to draw an unfavourable comparison between ancient and modern democracy, but he is focusing on the wrong institution. The Athenian council was merely the secretariat for the general assembly, and the legislation passed by the assembly was often as erratic as modern referenda. After the restoration of democracy in 403 bc, legislation was entrusted to nomothetai — large randomly selected juries that, unlike modern parliamentarians, were obliged to listen to the arguments of well-informed advocates for and against the proposed law before deciding the outcome by secret vote
If David Cameron wants the people do decide. . .
read on: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/letters/8921081/letters-285/
This proposal, written in response to André Sauzeau’s proposal for minimal reforms, was submitted as an article (see below) and originally accepted for publication by the Spectator, but ended up cut down into a short letter. The Spectator website has a comments section, so suggest we use that as an opportunity to kick-start the conversation on sortition there, rather than commenting on this forum.
Full article:
By Keith Sutherland
The answer to Britain’s EU problem is not a public referendum, it’s an adversarial judicial inquiry in front of a large citizen jury, selected by lot
The success of UKIP in the recent elections has led to unprecedented soul searching within the political class in general and the Conservative Party in particular, with no fewer than three former cabinet ministers arguing that Britain should leave the EU. David Cameron has committed the party to a referendum on EU membership, but the public often just use referenda as an excuse to put two fingers up to the government. There is an urgent need to find a more reliable mechanism to allow the people to make a well-informed decision on what is arguably the most important issue in contemporary politics.
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Filed under: Action, Athens, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 11 Comments »
An essay I wrote entitled: “Democracy Through Multi-Body Sortition: Athenian Lessons for the Modern Day” was just published in the new issue of JPD. I’m rather proud of it, and think it will be of interest to many readers of this Blog. Here is the link:
http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol9/iss1/art11
Terry Bouricius
Filed under: Academia, Athens, History, Sortition | 14 Comments »
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