Will the Australian citizen jury process survive the nuclear dump decision?

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Yoram Gat

The SA jury on the nuclear dump proposal has handed out its report eliciting significant press coverage and a flurry of reactions. The Online Opinion reports:

Where to now, for Premier Weatherill’s nuclear dream?

On November 6th, to the surprise of all, South Australia’s Nuclear Citizens Jury came up with a report that overwhelmingly rejected the government’s plan for importing and storing high level nuclear waste. Over four days of witness hearings, and deliberations, the 350 members of the jury were tasked with producing an answer to this question:

Under what circumstances, if any, could South Australia pursue the opportunity to store and dispose of nuclear waste from other countries?

The jury’s answer:

Under no circumstances should South Australia pursue opportunity to store and dispose of nuclear waste from other countries for reasons of consent, economics, trust and safety.

But while the Online Opinion is worried about nuclear dreams, another dream is just as much in jeopardy: the dream of Citizen Juries. It seems very likely that Weatherill has promoted the CJ idea because he believed it would be useful for his political agenda, of which the nuclear dump was a part. It seems very likely that those who offered Weatherill the idea, some of whom got to run the process, implied that this would indeed be the case. It also seems likely that other elected politicians have been watching this process with some interest in order to determine to what extent CJs could be used as a tool in their own political box.

In the wake of this outcome, the academics and the political operatives and entrepreneurs would have to go back to the drawing board. They will have to work hard to explain to the politicians how they will re-engineer CJs to guarantee that such unwelcome outcomes will not re-occur.

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 11 Comments »

Antoine Bevort: Chouard and democracy: an intellectual and political fraud

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Yoram Gat

The following is my translation of a recent article Antoine Bevort in the online French publication Mediapart. Like Tommy Lasserre’s Sortition in politics – the false good idea, which appeared in Mediapart two years ago, the article is a critique of Chouard and his proposals. Bevort makes some similar points, but, unlike Lasserre, doesn’t focus solely on sortition, and when he does discuss sortition he often deals with implementation details rather than with the principle itself to which he is not wholly hostile. Bevort also relies much less than Lasserre on canned Leftist rhetoric. As a result of those differences more of his punches land on target.

Chouard and democracy: an intellectual and political fraud
29 June 2016 Antoine Bevort

Étienne Chouard presents himself as the scholar of “real” democracy. His proposal of allotting of a constitutional assembly is however a fraud. It incorporates general principles which can be embraced, at least in part, but rests on largely specious argumentation, eventually leading to a strange and dogmatic conception of democracy.

Chouard considers himself the guru of “real” democracy. He feels he has found the “cause of causes” of the political crisis (“the political disempowerment of the citizens”) and proposes as a solution the allotment of a constitutional assembly. In his analyses, Chouard invokes general principles which can be embraced at least in part, but advances mainly through theoretical and historical shortcuts, simplifications or even misinterpretations, and through blunt claims and assertions. His dogmatic propositions are based on largely specious argumentation and lead eventually to a strange philosophy of democracy.

In order to deconstruct this rhetoric of mystification, we use a conference video available online[i], a text on the Gentils Virus website whose contents are very similar to those of the conference, as well as on the wiki of this organization, and particularly on the constitution drafted by Chouard. We first discuss his analysis of the existing political system, his claims that “we are not living in a democracy yet” and that “an electoral system is not a democracy”. Then we examine his conception of the “true democracy”, and his proposal of drawing by lot a constitutional assembly. We conclude with the mode of action which Chouard, the Gentils Virus (GV) and Les Citoyens Constituants (LCC), two organizations which promote his ideas, are pursuing.
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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Elections, History, Juries, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 31 Comments »

“A little bit manipulated”

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Yoram Gat

The Adelaide news website InDaily has a report by Bension Siebert about discontent in the ranks of South Australia’s citizens’ jury on nuclear waste storage:

Some members of the 350-person jury have told InDaily they voted for a group of witnesses to present information about nuclear waste storage but the facilitator of the process, DemocracyCo, subsequently invited additional witnesses without explicit jury consent.

DemocracyCo concedes it did add further witnesses after a voting process, but says that is “standard practise” in citizens’ juries.

Juror Brett Aylen, an architect, told InDaily: “I do feel like I’m being a little bit manipulated by the process.” He said DemocracyCo facilitators were surprised by the jury’s witness selections and wanted to “balance it up by adding in some of the more pro-nuclear witnesses”. “They seemed a bit surprised at our selections,” he said. “If they had have declared that position in advance [that more witnesses may be added] it would have been more acceptable.”

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Filed under: Applications, Juries, Press, Sortition | 5 Comments »

Crowdfunding Anthony Barnett’s WHAT NEXT: Britain after Brexit

Posted on September 16, 2016 by Yoram Gat

unboundAnthony Barnett’s new book WHAT NEXT: Britain after Brexit is available for pre-order on Unbound. He writes:

Dear Fellow Kleroterians!

Thank you for permitting me to join you on this blog. I’m writing with a shameless request, but in this post-Brexit world being polite and submissive and deferential in a British way seems to be for the birds. Towards the end of the last century I wrote a paper suggesting that a section of the upper chamber should be selected by lot. Peter Carty got in touch with me, as he had been writing a paper on similar lines. We developed it into a publication for Demos, then directed by Ian Christie, published in 1998. Ten years later we turned it into a book, The Athenian Option: radical reform of the House of Lords, published by Imprint.

There was a moment I’ll never forget – which we write about in the book. In order to put replacing the Lords into the long grass, Tony Blair created a Royal Commission in 1999 to take evidence across the country. Because our Demos paper had caused a stir we were invited to give evidence. On the way into the session I found myself in a small lift with one of its senior members, Douglas Hurd, at that point Baron Hurd of Westwell. He had been close to Edward Heath, had been Foreign Secretary under John Major, who he had failed to beat for the Tory leadership. A grandee, I think, was the term at the time. the very opposite of the kind of regular person who would have been chosen had the Commission been selected by lot.
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Filed under: Books, House of Lords, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 7 Comments »

The Irish Citizens’ Assembly on abortion: democratisation or dodging responsibility?

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Brett Hennig

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This was published on Open Democracy last week: The Irish Citizens’ Assembly on abortion: democratisation or dodging responsibility?

I find it very exciting, that the Irish government is returning for their second assembly using sortition – this time without politicians. Although we’ll have to wait and see what they do with the results.

It’s due to start next month.

Filed under: Applications, Juries, Sortition | 1 Comment »

The Democratic Significance of the Classical Athenian Courts

Posted on September 2, 2016 by keithsutherland

This draft, not-for-citation paper by Daniela Cammack (forthcoming in Declinism, Central European University Press), argues that the 4th Century was actually the high point of Athenian democracy and culture:

The incomparable Mogens Hansen has done more than anyone to refocus attention on fourth century Athens (particularly 355-22), arguing convincingly not only that the democracy in the age of Demosthenes differed significantly from that of Pericles but also that the vastly richer philosophical, oratorical and epigraphical sources of the fourth century should make it the centre of gravity of histories of the period.

Unfortunately Hansen views the change from assembly- to sortition-based legislative decision making as ‘a move from the “radical” democracy of the fifth century to a more “moderate” (later “modified”) system in the fourth’. According to Cammack this is anachronistic:

This is exactly what a subject of a modern constitutional democracy would expect. The judiciary, in such systems, is indeed meant to limit what “the people” (or their representatives) can do to themselves. But it is not clear that the relationship between Athenian judges and assemblygoers should be understood in these terms. In particular, we cannot assume that late fifth-century Athenians regarded their courts as a less democratic forum than the assembly, since in both cases, among other things, decisions were made by ordinary citizens voting en masse. Indeed, I will argue that judicial panels may have been regarded as a significantly more reliable vehicle of the rule of the dêmos, conceived as the collective common people as distinct from those who took leading political roles. From this perspective, far from moderating democracy, the reforms of the late fifth century seem designed to render it more extreme.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, History, Juries, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Sortition advocacy in North Carolina

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Owen Shaffer, a retired college professor living in Asheville, NC has an opinion piece in the local Citizen Times. Unlike many sortition advocates, Shaffer is not talking half-measures. He is ready to dispose of elections altogether and replace them with sortition:

Is there a better way to select representative bodies to govern us? Is it possible to remove “politics”, “lobbyist”, and “campaign contribution” from our vocabulary, and still have a democracy? Can we remove the oligarchic underpinnings to our democracy? One only needs to look at history to find the answer. “It is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected would be oligarchic” – Aristotle (Politics, Book 4, Section 1294b)

What changes might happen if the random selection of members of a governing body occurs? It would be more likely that they deliberate issues and not sink into decisions based on political affiliation, posturing, and “sound bite” opportunities. They would be unafraid to make hard choices since they would owe no one any favors nor have an opportunity for re-election. In short, they would be more willing to make the right decisions.

Filed under: Elections, History, Juries, Press, Sortition | 11 Comments »

“Limiting who can vote”

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Ripples from Van Reybrouck’s book made it across the Atlantic and into the Washington Post where Dutch professors of political science Eric Schliesser and Tom Van Der Meer see fit to discuss his proposals for using sortition together with a proposal to “disenfranchise the ignorant to slant political rule toward experts”. They write:

Both [proposals] limit who can vote and seek to stimulate apolitical and rational decision-making:

1) Representatives by lottery. Belgian author and cultural historian David Van Reybrouck suggests abolishing elections and appointing representatives by lottery instead. Van Reybrouck’s proposal extends the principle of sortition — how juries are appointed — to the legislature: Randomly selected citizens would reach the optimal decision via deliberation, supposedly without a need to be bothered with politicking. When their term is up, they go home.

2) Experts as representatives. Philosopher Jason Brennan at Georgetown University suggests disenfranchising the ignorant to slant political rule toward experts. His proposal recently received favorable discussion in The Washington Post. Inspired by Plato, the rule by properly trained experts, or epistocracy, would prevent politicians from being easily swayed by moneyed interests and demagogues.

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Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 131 Comments »

Should Citizen Juries Choose America’s President, Congress, Governors and State Legislators?

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Simon Threlkeld

New article by Simon Threlkeld.

Many people think choosing politicians by popular vote is an essential part of democracy. Nevertheless, there is another way to choose politicians that is in important regards far more democratic and much better. That way is for politicians to be chosen by juries of citizens drawn from the public by random selection.

Ideally, politicians would be chosen in a way that is very democratic, well informed, and independent from moneyed interests and billionaires, with political independents being on a level playing field with party nominees, with no portion of the public being underrepresented, and with candidates not being dependent on the media to get a fair hearing. All of these things can be achieved if politicians are chosen by juries.

After briefly explaining the considerable advantages of choosing politicians by jury rather than popular vote, Simon also briefly proposes two ways juries can be used to make popular elections much more democratic.

If politicians continue to be chosen by popular election, despite the problems with that approach, there are two ways juries can be used to make popular elections much more democratic.

Filed under: Elections, Juries, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Why America’s Judges should be Chosen by Citizen Juries

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Simon Threlkeld

Simon Threlkeld has a new article in Dissident Voice, proposing that America’s judges be chosen by randomly sampled judicial selection juries.

Judges should not be chosen by popular vote, nor by politicians. Both approaches are undemocratic and deeply flawed, perhaps even absurd … A far better option is for judges to be chosen by juries drawn from the public by random selection.

[…]

The problem with choosing judges by popular election is not that it puts the choice in the hands of the people, but rather that it fails to do so, or does so very badly and inadequately. Fortunately, judicial selection juries provide a remarkably good and informed way for the people to choose judges.

In a democracy the people are the rulers, and are the highest and most legitimate authority, not politicians and political parties, nor the rich interests that fund their electoral victories. For this reason, the judiciary should be chosen by the people, not by politicians. All that is needed is a good informed way for the people to choose judges, something judicial selection juries can provide.

Filed under: Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 5 Comments »

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