90 minute lecture on sortition from Athens to today – by Ètienne Chouard

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Common Lot Sortitionist

One of the impediments to instituting sortitional selection is, I believe, the *dispassionate* nature of the proposal.  It is such a rational and egalitarian idea that I don’t see it igniting the fire of emotional conviction that seems to accompany major social change.

Ètienne Chouard’s lecture “Sortition as a sustainable protection against oligarchy” changes my opinion about that.

Some of his ideas appear on his website (in French): Centralite du tirage au sort en democratie:

La catastrophe financière et monétaire actuelle PROUVE tous les jours que les pires crapules, pourvu qu’elles soient RICHES, n’ont rien à craindre des élus. Je répète : la preuve est apportée tous les jours, partout dans le monde, que les canailles RICHES n’ont RIEN à craindre des ÉLUS.

Ce sont des FAITS. Chacun peut vérifier ces faits lui-même.

Je signale d’abord que les riches et autres aristocrates, eux, le savent depuis longtemps : dès le début du XIXe siècle, Alexis de Tocqueville avouait déjà : “Je ne crains pas le suffrage universel : les gens voteront comme on leur dira.” Étonnant, non? Ils le savent depuis longtemps, eux. Bien.

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Filed under: Athens, Sortition | 29 Comments »

Quirky French presidential hopeful offers clerocracy

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Quirky hopefuls liven up French presidential race

(Reuters) – From a peroxide-blonde stripper who wants to get bankers meditating to a Rastafarian advocating tantrism as a national religion, a string of colorful outsiders are vying for a place in France’s 2012 presidential election.

One wants to bring back the monarchy, another says leaders should be picked by lottery and a third is a clown who doesn’t actually have any campaign proposals.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, Press, Sortition | 21 Comments »

Role for Sortition in Selecting the Executive?

Posted on February 7, 2012 by tbouricius

Most of the discussion on this site has understandably been focused on the legislative function. What about the executive branch, whether a single president, or full executive branch?

In ancient Athens, we know, the executive magistrates (typically operating in boards of ten) were selected by lot, as was the Athenian president (though this office was primarily symbolic and rotated daily.) We also know that sortition was used as a step in a convoluted process of selecting executives in several medieval Italian City Republics.

Is there a beneficial role for sortition in selecting government executives in a modern democracy?

Some of the ideas that I have come across include:

1. Having an allotted body interview, hire, and fire the state executive, similar to the way that many city councils appoint a city manager.

2. Having a pool of voters selected by lot elect the executive, as a way of overcoming rational voter ignorance in  a mass election.

3. Selecting an executive by lot from among a pool of candidates who achieve a given threshold in a popular election.

Thoughts?

Filed under: Athens, Sortition | 29 Comments »

The San Francisco Chronicle: Fishkin promoting a citizens advisory council

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Lois Kazakoff, Chronicle Columnist, writes:

Concerned by California’s faltering government, a coalition of eight nonprofit good government groups conducted an experiment in June. They invited 435 Californians of every stripe from every corner of the state, from every political persuasion to spend three days in a Torrance hotel deliberating 30 proposals for government reform. The coalition raised $1 million to cover their travel costs.

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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 8 Comments »

D.G. Martin: Replacing elections with lotteries

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Yoram Gat

D.G. Martin, the host UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch,” writes:

There has to be a better way.

Some of us reached that conclusion after discussing the mess our congressional and legislative governing systems have come to.

[…]

How could we find a system that frees our elective representatives from the servitude of full-time fundraising, from the draining of energy and spirit that go with permanent campaigns, and from the tribal commitments to political caucuses and parties? How could we free them from these things so they could spend full time working on legislation to make our state and nation better?

Somebody asked, what about a lottery? Why not just select our representatives by lottery?

That suggestion sounded like a joke. At first.
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Filed under: Athens, Press, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Thomas Fleming: [W]e need to adopt the model of the ancient Athenian democracy

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Thomas Fleming advocates sortition in the Daily Mail, even though, with the sordid state of the national character, he seems unsure whether it would do any good:

If Americans ever needed a clear refutation of Churchill’s fatuous aphorism on democracy–an institution he, more than any man of his time, knew how to manipulate to his own benefit–they have it now. If modern democracy cannot do better than the presidential candidates of the two parties, we need to adopt the model of the ancient Athenian democracy, which selected political leaders by lot.

Even a national presidential lottery would not save us. We have the leaders we deserve, leaders who reflect the American character. American voters like to complain that they are dissatisfied with the politicians they elect, but Bush, Obama, McCain, and Gingrich are the political face Americans see when they look in their mirrors.

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

Tom Hodgkinson: Boris ought to know his Plato

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler, invokes Plato on the pages of The Independent:

[I]f Boris [Johnson] knew his Plato, which he ought to, having been to Eton and everything, then he would recognise in the protests, riots and strikes that have marked this year a sign that the people ain’t happy with the situation. He would also recognise himself as being a member of the short-sighted oligarchy – oligarchy meaning “control by a wealthy minority”. Reading Plato’s Republic, I was struck by the parallels with a typical cycle that he describes. In Platonic terms, it would seem that an oligarchy has taken over UK plc, and that this oligarchy has made too many loans, thereby pauperising the people, and now fails to see what is happening right beneath their noses: that the people are talking about revolution. The good news, though, is that a real democracy may be in store:

Plato writes that when the pursuit of riches remains unchecked, resentment breeds:

[…]

This is the situation that will lead to social upheaval: “Democracy originates when the poor win, kill or exile their opponents, and give the rest equal rights and opportunities of office, appointment to office being as a rule by lot.”

This is what the people want: a real democracy, government by the people, and not by a clique comprising top politicians and CEOs. […]

Filed under: Athens, History, Sortition | 46 Comments »

Athenian Democracy Reincarnate

Posted on October 13, 2011 by keithsutherland

Athenian democracy involved a combination of sortition (boule, juries and most magistracies) and direct democracy (ecclesia). Sortition fell into disuse in large modern states and direct democracy was replaced by representative elections. There has been a flurry of proposals recently for the reintroduction of sortition, but it is unclear how — or indeed if — this can be reconciled with mass democracy, as the latter is elitist, populist, undeliberative and frequently hijacked by rich and powerful elite interests, leading to sharp exchanges on this list. However a recent debate suggests an acceptable compromise, which I outline in this post. There would be three stages to the legislative process, with the relevant Athenian institution in parentheses:
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Filed under: Athens, Proposals | 90 Comments »

Fishkin: How to Fix California’s Democracy Crisis

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Prof. James Fishkin has an op-ed piece in the New York Times:

One hundred years ago today, California voters added the ballot initiative to the State Constitution, allowing citizens to use petitions to bring proposed statutes and constitutional amendments for a public vote.

In the article Fishkin entwines two themes. On the one hand, according to Fishkin, multiple cycles of legislation via the initiative system have encumbered California with various laws that cannot be overturned by the legislature, and make California “virtually ungovernable”. He cites the two-thirds rule for raising taxes, mandatory funds allocation (40% to education), the “three strikes law” and term limits for legislators. (He also originally cited a two-thirds rule for passing the budget – this reference was removed from the article since last year Proposition 25 eliminated this rule in favor of passage by regular majority.)

The other theme is the troubles with the Proposition system itself – supposedly the cause for the passage of the problematic laws.
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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 25 Comments »

New Paper on Appointment to office by lot in Ancient Athens

Posted on August 28, 2011 by gtridimas

“Constitutional choice in ancient Athens: The rationality of selection to office by lot” by George Tridimas (University of Ulster) is forthcoming in Constitutional Political Economy.

Abstract:

Contrary to modern democracies ancient Athens appointed large numbers of government officers by lot. After describing the Athenian arrangements, the paper reviews the literature on the choice between election and lot focusing on representativeness of the population, distributive justice, minimization of conflicts, quality of appointees and administrative economy. It then examines why in drawing up the constitution a self-interested citizen may give up voting for government officials and appoint them by lot. It is shown that appointment by lot is preferred when the effort required to choose candidates is less than the benefit expected from their actions as government officials. It is also found that, given the choice, office motivated candidates may unanimously agree to selection by lot but not to election.

Filed under: Athens, Elections, Participation, Sortition, Theory | 5 Comments »

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