Cartledge: Crypto-oligarchy

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Paul Cartledge is continuing his assault on the modern conventions about democracy:

To an ancient Greek democrat (of any stripe), all our modern democratic systems would count as “oligarchy”. By that I mean the rule of and by – if not necessarily or expressly for – the few, as opposed to the power or control of the people, or the many (demo-kratia).

That is the case even if – and indeed because – the few happen to be elected to serve by (all) the people. For in ancient Greece elections were considered to be in themselves oligarchic. They systematically favoured the few and, more particularly, the few extremely rich citizens – or “oligarchs”

[…T]here are a number of ancient democratic notions and techniques that do seem highly attractive: the use of sortition, for instance – a random method of polling by lottery that aimed to produce a representative sample of elected officials. Or the practice of ostracism – which allowed the population to nominate a candidate who had to go into exile for 10 years, thus ending their political career.

And comparison, or rather contrast, of our democracies with those of ancient Greece does serve to highlight what’s been called creeping crypto-oligarchy in our own very different (representative, not direct) democratic systems.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Why Not Choose Members of Congress by Lottery?

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Terrill Bouricius, David Schecter, Campbell Wallace, and John Gastil write on Zócalo on KCRW:

We Already Randomly Select Our Juries. Why Not Choose Members of Congress by Lottery?

Conflicts of interest, corruption, and systemic dysfunction are woven through American legislative history, from Tammany Hall in the 1780s to the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s and the recent federal government shutdown. One reason is that the electoral system itself often attracts the wrong kind of candidates and rewards unethical campaigning. Gerrymandered district boundaries, voter suppression efforts, and winner-take-all election laws serve to restrict voter choices. People who choose to run for election are too often driven by ego and personal ambition, qualities at odds with the genuine give and take of deliberation. Donald Trump may seem to stand out in this regard, but his character flaws are less distinctive than his willingness to parade them publicly as a kind of perverse populist brand.

So why not random selection instead? Yes, tossing Congress, en masse, out its own front door and refilling the chamber with everyday citizens might seem like a crazy idea. But when asked about this prospect in surveys conducted in 1999 and 2012, Americans place more trust in a randomly-selected body than in Congress.

So what if we took that idea seriously? Could we replace some of our elections with selection by lot, also known as “sortition?”

Filed under: Academia, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Paul Cartledge: The case for sortition is persuasive

Posted on April 1, 2016 by peterstone

Just read a short piece by Paul Cartledge in which he talks about the history of sortition, a topic treated more extensively in his book Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press). He even manages to plug my own book, The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making (also Oxford University Press) along the way. Check it out:

It is quite easy to compile a checklist, perhaps even a decalogue, of differences between their democracy (or rather democracies, as there was no one identikit ancient model) and ours (ditto). And in no respect did they and we differ more than on the issue of sortition, that is, the application of the lottery to the conduct of politics (another Greek invention, both the word and the thing, with – again – the accent to be placed on difference as well as similarity between theirs and ours). We today take the exercise of voting in either general or local elections to be the very quintessence of what it is to do ‘democracy.’ The ancient Greeks took the exact opposite view: elections were elitist and for the nobs, appropriate more for oligarchy (the rule of the few rich) than for democracy (the rule of the masses, most of whom were poor), whereas sortition, the lot, was the peculiarly democratic way of selecting most office-holders and all juror-judges to serve in the People’s jury-courts.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Books, History, Participation, Sortition | 5 Comments »

Rousseau’s Mistake

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Yoram Gat

A recent article by Hélène Landemore:

Rousseau’s Mistake: Representation and the Myth of Direct Democracy

Abstract: For Rousseau, democracy was direct or it wasn’t. As he famously put it, “the moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists. The day you elect representatives is the day you lose your freedom” (Social Contract, III, 15). In other words, representative democracy is no democracy at all. Rousseau isn’t alone in this belief, and today the disappointed of representative government have turned to celebrating anew the virtues of direct democracy as more true to the ideal of popular sovereignty, self-rule, and genuine political equality. This paper defends the thesis that Rousseau was, in fact, mistaken and that there is no salvation to be found in the ideal of direct democracy. If democracy as a political regime is always, in fact, representative, then the interesting question is not: direct or representative democracy? But instead: What kind of representation should we aim for? The paper argues that beyond the familiar electoral model there are at least two other models of representation that present attractive features: the first is based on sortition and the other on self-selection.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 5 Comments »

Book Review: Democracy’s Beginning

Posted on March 7, 2016 by roslynfuller

Greetings, everyone. Please excuse my long absence, due to – of all things – running in an election. I recently had the pleasure of reviewing ‘Democracy’s Beginning: The Athenian Story’ by Thomas N. Mitchell former Provost of Trinity College, Dublin for the Irish Times:

Alien and fascinating

It is common knowledge that democracy was invented in ancient Athens, but Mitchell explodes the myths of what that democracy was like. In Athens, all citizens had an equal say in public affairs (known as isegoria), staffed enormous citizen juries, were chosen for office by lottery, and were paid to participate in politics. In describing this way of life, Mitchell paints a picture of a society both alien and fascinating, underscoring the vibrancy of this long-lost civilization with a collection of maps and photos in the centre of the book.

His close scholarship shines in documenting the transition of Athens from financially and morally bankrupt oligarchy to emancipated democracy 2,500 years ago. It was not an easy or linear process, and the book tracks the many clashes of ideas and personalities with a commendable attention to detail that beautifully captures the essence of ancient Greek culture and politics.

From Solon’s economic balancing act, through the political reorganisation of Cleisthenes, the assassination of Ephialtes and, finally, Pericles, one of the most respected but sober leaders of the early democracy, Democracy’s Beginning explores this innovative and fearless experiment in “people power”.

Full review here. I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Athenian democracy. It is extremely comprehensive and highly readable.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Books, Elections, History, Sortition | 6 Comments »

Lasserre: Sortition in politics – the false good idea, part 1

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Yoram Gat

André Sauzeau referred me to a polemic against sortition by Tommy Lasserre. This text is the most elaborate argument against sortition ever written (as far as I am aware) and it is therefore of significant interest to sortition advocates. In view of that, and despite my essentially non-existent French I have undertaken to translate it from the original French to English. The first part of the outcome is below. If your French is better than mine I’d be happy with any corrections.

Sortition in politics – the false good idea

By Tommy Lasserre, September 2014

Immersed in scandals, disconnected from the realities of the majority in society, demonstrating every day their total submission to finance and the dogmas of liberalism, and therefore their complete incapacity to pull us out of the crisis, the political caste today is largely discredited, in France as in the rest of Europe. This is expressed well in record low turnouts and in the rise of false alternatives, but equally, fortunately,, reflection, shared by increasingly significant number of citizens, about the ways to change politics. Suggestions for changing the Republic through a constitutional process, proposals for giving citizens greater control over our elected officials, in particular opening the way for recallability, garner, therefore, significant response on the Web.

Among all the ideas that emerged in the blogosphere or on the social networks, one idea, that could appear absurd keeps appearing frequently: putting the reins of power in the hands of an allotted assembly. It is often mentioned in conversations on Facebook, or in argument between bloggers, the controversial intellectual Étienne Chouard has made it his battle cry and the political party Nouvelle Donne (“New Deal”) even made an argument for this idea during the European elections.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, History, Participation, Press, Sortition, Theory | 48 Comments »

Rethinking Athenian Democracy

Posted on October 13, 2015 by keithsutherland

I’ve just finished reading Daniela Cammack’s PhD thesis (one chapter was presented recently here by Peter Stone) and would warmly recommend it — it’s mercifully short and extremely readable (available to download on the Harvard website). Chapter 3: The Most Democratic Branch? The Assembly vs. the Courts is of particular interest as it seeks to overturn the view that a) the assembly was the primary institution of Athenian democracy and b) the fourth-century reforms were conservative in nature. Cammack’s interpretation supports Yoram and Terry’s view that the switch in emphasis to randomly-selected institutions was in order to enhance the rule of the demos, rather than being a juridical a check on popular sovereignty (the view of Hansen, Ostwald, Sealey [and myself]). The courts (both legislative and juridical) were much less open to manipulation by elites as a) speech rights were restricted to litigants and persons elected by the assembly, b) isegoria was balanced by the use of a water clock and c) secret voting meant that it was harder to intimidate citizens into voting in any way other than by their considered judgment (aided by the higher minimum age and need to swear the dikastic oath). She provides several examples of assembly decisions that were heavily influenced by factional and elite domination
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Distribution by lot, History, Juries, Sortition | 83 Comments »

Voting but not talking

Posted on October 2, 2015 by peterstone

I just wanted to recommend a working paper by Daniela Cammack entitled “Deliberation in Classical Athens: Not Talking, But Thinking (and Voting).” It’s available online here. It’s not directly about sortition, but it deals with a number of themes discussed on this blog. The paper argues that the Athenians maintained a careful distinction between the function of presenting arguments and the function of evaluating those arguments, and assigned the latter, but not the former, to the assembly. This distinction, Cammack argues, is conflated by those who use the term “deliberation” for both functions.

I found this passage particularly relevant to contemporary politics:

In Athens, then, as in modern democracies, an overwhelming majority of non-speaking voters attempted to control a minority of prominent political actors who took primary responsibility for advocating and carrying policies. The key difference between Athenian and modern democracy was not that all or even many Athenians took part in political discussion, but first, that large samples of ordinary citizens had the opportunity to vote on every political decision, and second, that the barriers to becoming politically influential were relatively low, while the risks associated with this position were high. This is the reverse of the situation today, where a high barrier to entry as a politician–largely financial–is combined with a low risk of losing one’s position once established. To be sure, one can fail to be reelected, but this pales in comparison to the mechanisms of accountability available in Athens, such as routine annual audits (euthynai) covering both moral and financial issues. In many modern systems, by contrast, a feedback loop is set up in which corruption becomes endemic, since the high costs of running for election are in large part met by supporters whose opportunity to shape policy then becomes significantly greater than that of ordinary voters, with very little way for those ordinary voters to hold the politician in question to account, either before or after the next election.

Worth a look.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, History, Participation | 12 Comments »

The ancient Greek view on what democracy is

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Yoram Gat

This topic came up recently. Here is the most thorough discussion of this matter in the primary sources that I am aware of. Aristotle is describing here (Politics, 1317a-1318a) what he considers as the conventional wisdom of his time:

And for this inquiry we must take into view all the features that are popular and that are thought to go with democracies; for it comes about from combinations of these that the kinds of democracy are formed, and that there are different democracies and more than one sort. In fact there are two causes for there being several kinds of democracy, first the one stated before, the fact that the populations are different （for we find one multitude engaged in agriculture and another consisting of handicraftsmen and day-laborers, and when the first of these is added to the second and again the third to both of them it not only makes a difference in that the quality of the democracy becomes better or worse but also by its becoming different in kind）; and the second cause is the one about which we now speak. For the institutions that go with democracies and seem to be appropriate to this form of constitution make the democracies different by their combinations; for one form of democracy will be accompanied by fewer, another by more, and another by all of them. And it is serviceable to ascertain each of them both for the purpose of instituting whichever of these kinds of democracy one happens to wish and for the purpose of amending existing ones. For people setting up constitutions seek to collect together all the features appropriate to their fundamental principle, but in so doing they make a mistake, as has been said before in the passage dealing with the causes of the destruction and the preservation of constitutions. And now let us state the postulates, the ethical characters and the aims of the various forms of democracy.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Books, Elections, History, Participation, Sortition | 57 Comments »

Linker: An absolute democracy would assign political offices by lot

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Damon Linker’s argument against compulsory voting weaves in Plato and the Socratic argument for aristocracy. His reasoning is an interesting modernization of the classical aristocratic mindset. His point about the contestability of excellence is good, and he makes use of it as a justification of electoralism.

A democracy gives every adult citizen a very small say in who rules. An individual doesn’t have to prove that he’s thoughtful or informed to exercise that right. As Plato argued 2,300 years ago, this makes democratic politics exceedingly peculiar. We don’t take a vote to determine the medical treatments that doctors prescribe, and neither do we ask for a show of hands about how to construct a bridge or a building. And yet we think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for everyone’s opinion about what policies our country should pursue at home and abroad.

That’s because in politics, unlike in medicine and engineering, the act of determining who does and does not possess knowledge and wisdom is exceedingly contentious. (One might say it’s a political act in itself.) So we solve — or rather, we sidestep — the problem by letting everyone have a say.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 14 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »