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 »
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 »
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.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 131 Comments »
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 »
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 »
Posted on August 4, 2016 by keithsutherland
Andreas Whittam Smith, founding editor of the Independent, argued recently that ‘a cross-section of society that is informed can act more coherently than an entire society that is uninformed’:
In fact, the jury system, with its random selection of jurors from the local community and their thorough briefing as result of the hearing and challenging of evidence, has often been examined as providing a model for democracy. David Van Reybrouck has just written a book, Against Elections: the Case for Democracy. He argues against what he calls “electoral fundamentalism”, an unshakeable belief in the idea that democracy is inconceivable without elections, and elections are a necessary and fundamental precondition when speaking of democracy.
Whittam Smith read my book A People’s Parliament when it was published in 2008 and wrote to me saying that he agreed with the general thrust of the argument, but he clearly disagrees with the title of Van Reybrouck’s book, as he describes himself as an ‘electoral fundamentalist’. David, of course, does not wish to replace elections with sortition, and this would suggest to me that Kleroterians would be well advised to avoid rhetorical language that might lead to such a conclusion.
Filed under: Elections, Juries, Proposals, Sortition | 20 Comments »
Posted on July 18, 2016 by Yoram Gat
The newDemocracy foundation has recently been managing the citizen jury process in regards to the South Australia nuclear waste dump proposal. Now it has been hired to manage another citizen jury process – this time in Victoria:
Jay Weatherill has issued an “I told you so” over his oft-criticised Citizens’ Jury model, after it was adopted by the Victorian Government as it seeks to mop up in the wake of its dramatic sacking of the Geelong Council.
Sacked Geelong Mayor Darryn Lyons outside the Victorian Parliament.
The Government in April moved to dismiss the entire council – including colourful mayor and notorious former paparazzo Darryn Lyons and his deputy Bruce Harwood, the father-in-law of former Adelaide star Patrick Dangerfield – after an inquiry found it had become so dysfunctional and riven with internal conflict and a bullying culture that it could no longer govern properly.
Fresh elections won’t take place till October next year, with an administrator overseeing the region in the interim.
But Premier Daniel Andrews has announced the formation of a Citizens’ Jury to help set the parameters of an overhaul of the next council’s governance structure – to be overseen by Sydney-based newDemocracy Foundation, which selected the 50 jurors involved in this month’s Adelaide forum on the merits of a high-level nuclear waste dump.
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Filed under: Applications, Juries, Press, Sortition | Tagged: Australia, newDemocracy | 15 Comments »
Posted on July 2, 2016 by Yoram Gat
In the wake of the Brexit referendum David Van Reybrouck takes his “tired democracy” message to the readers of the Guardian:
Brexit is a turning point in the history of western democracy. Never before has such a drastic decision been taken through so primitive a procedure – a one-round referendum based on a simple majority. Never before has the fate of a country – of an entire continent, in fact – been changed by the single swing of such a blunt axe, wielded by disenchanted and poorly informed citizens.
Van Reybrouk now recounts the statistics showing low and falling citizen trust in elected institutions and offers a diagnosis of the problem. Avoiding the mention of any substantive complaints about the policies implemented by those institutions, for Van Reybrouk it is purely a matter of procedure. There is considerable vagueness whether the procedural problem was always there or is a new phenomenon. The risk, if things are not repaired, is that voters will continue to make transparently foolish choices.
In a referendum, we ask people directly what they think when they have not been obliged to think – although they have certainly been bombarded by every conceivable form of manipulation in the months leading up to the vote. But the problem is not confined to referendums: in an election, you may cast your vote, but you are also casting it away for the next few years. […]
Referendums and elections are both arcane instruments of public deliberation. If we refuse to update our democratic technology, we may find the system is beyond repair; 2016 already risks becoming the worst year for democracy since 1933. We may find, even after the folly of Brexit, that Donald Trump wins the American presidency later this year. But this may have less to do with Trump himself, or the oddities of the American political system, than with a dangerous road that all western democracies have taken: reducing democracy to voting.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 17 Comments »
Posted on June 17, 2016 by Yoram Gat
Ilya Somin, Professor of Law at George Mason University, is the author of the book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. Somin opens an opinion piece in the Washington Post thus:
Widespread political ignorance is a serious problem for modern democracy. In recent years, many scholars have argued that we can overcome it by relying on “sortition”: delegating various political decisions to jury-like bodies selected at random from the general population. In this post, I explain why such proposals are unlikely to succeed.
Before going into the substance of Somin’s arguments about sortition, it is important to realize that ignorance is actually only the second most important problem with the current system, the first being the difficulty of mass scale agenda setting. More details here. The emphasis on ignorance rather than agenda setting is typical of the “rational choice” line of political argument which ignores the complexity of organization largely for ideological reasons. That said, the ability of decision makers to become informed about their subject matters is important and worth discussing. Some of the considerations that are discussed below apply also to the matter of agenda setting.
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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Books, Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 10 Comments »
Posted on June 10, 2016 by Yoram Gat
Simon Threlkeld has a new article in the Canadian National Observer advocating against having electoral reform decided by referendum. An excerpt:
Electoral system should be decided by jury, not politicians or referendum
Politicians should not decide the rules under which they are elected, because fair and democratic decision-making requires that those who decide do not have a conflict of interest. All of Canada’s political parties should accept this.
The Conservatives say that whatever electoral system parliament decides on, it needs to be ratified in a national referendum. Rather transparently, what concerns them is not giving the public a say, but rather preserving the status quo which in the 2011 election gave them a majority of the seats with just under 40 per cent of the popular vote.
Rule by the people needs to be well-informed, because only informed views provide a good basis for a decision.
A referendum is highly unsuitable for ensuring an informed decision about Canada’s electoral system. The public would only learn about the option(s) on the ballot voluntarily in their spare time, and most people are not especially interested in learning about electoral systems. In B.C.’s 2005 referendum on a proposed new electoral system, shortly before voting day 66 per cent of those surveyed by Ipsos-Reid said they knew “nothing” or “very little” about the proposal on the ballot. In another survey, over half of those who voted “no” said they did so because they did not feel “knowledgeable.”
Filed under: Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 3 Comments »
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