Nicholas Ross Smith and Zbigniew Dumienski of the Politics and International Relations Department at the University of Auckland write at the New Zealand Herald, New Zealand’s largest circulation newspaper, arguing that using randomly selected juries to make some council-level policy suggestions may be a good starting point for organically growing a more democratic governance system:
A report by Bernard Orsman published in the New Zealand Herald on the state of Auckland City Council found that 88 of the 99 positions in the council’s boardrooms and executive teams were filled by “white men from wealthy suburbs.”
The reported demographic composition of the decision-making bodies in Auckland Council suggests that we are facing a potentially harmful democratic deficit. Yet, before anyone suggests quotas or other bureaucratic mechanisms aimed at diversifying the Council’s management structure, it would be good to consider a very different and far more democratic approach currently tried by our friends across the ditch: citizens’ juries as bodies that could breathe new, more democratic and vibrant spirit into our city’s old structures.
The democratic deficit evident in Auckland City Council is part of a broader trend in democracies worldwide, both at the local and national levels, which are increasingly seen as departing from the core democratic principles that they are supposed to uphold. Meaningful deliberations and political equality are the soul of democracy.
Increasingly, our electoral system is virtually devoid of the former and its outcomes suggest the erosion of the latter. Interestingly, such an outcome would have perhaps been predicted by the founders of democracy in classical Athens who were concerned that elections and campaigning contains in themselves anti-democratic and oligarchic seeds. Continue reading →
The persuasive juror who manages to sway the majority through his passion, eloquence and irresistible logic is part of Western cultural lore. It appears that one commenter on this blog even perceives himself as having played that very role.
The following exchange raises the possibility that the ability of a single juror to sway a whole jury is attributable to much more mundane dynamics – dynamics that are put in place by the unanimity rule. The key paragraph is the last one. Continue reading →
6. Random sampling will occasionally produce unrepresentative samples.
Significant deviation of a sample from the population sampled is in fact very rare. For example, in a population evenly split between men and women, the chance of having fewer than 40 women in a sample of one hundred people is less than 2%. The chance of having fewer than 30 woman is less than 2 in 10,000. And the chance of having 20 women or fewer is less than one in a billion. The current U.S. Senate (a body of 100 people) has 20 women. It is the highest number of women senators in U.S. history.
7. Since there are many population characteristics, the sample would be unrepresentative according to some of those.
Again, because the chance of significant deviation is so small, even if many characteristics are considered the chance that any of them would show significant deviation is small. For example, over one million characteristics would have to be considered before it would become likely that a group which is a minority of a third according any of those characteristics gains a majority in a sample of 200.
8. The lucky few who are selected will often serve personal or narrow interests rather than those of the people.
For policy to be approved by the allotted body, it would have to win a majority. Interests that are personal to one or to a few delegates would not be able to meet this criterion. By the time a proposal wins a majority is has to serve so many personal or narrow interests that it becomes representative. Continue reading →
In one of the cases described a randomly chosen group of regular citizens in Korea served as a ‘citizen jury’ that confirmed results of an investigation into political corruption. The outcome of this ‘people power’ campaign was that over 50% (58 out of 112) of the politicians identified as corrupt dropped out of the race, and of the blacklisted candidates who did run, 68% (59 out of 86) were defeated.
[M]odern democracy was born of privilege and nurtured through class conflict. Conceived in partisan contest, initially as kings and barons, then as landed gentry in elections, the disenfranchised became chartists, then socialists, and the ultra-disenfranchised became communists. Even though the claims of the working class and the suffragettes have largely been resolved, the saga continues in a fossilised relic of divisiveness. Modern democracy rejected the Athenian ideal of equality, wherein the poor, as much as the rich, were automatically accorded a place in government.
In her opinion article Creating a better community plan, Rachel Magnusson extols the virtues of a citizens assembly that is in the process of recruiting participation by residents of Vancouver’s East Vancouver neighbourhood known as Grandview-Woodland, anchored by Commercial Drive.
Authorized by Vancouver city council, this assembly is in response to a community urban plan process that raised howls of protest in 2013 when, after months of supposed listening, residents heard that multiple towers were to be raised in their neighbourhood, some as high as 32 stories.
With the citizens assembly, Vancouver city council is again embarked on a road heavy on process and light on listening. Magnusson and her fellow consultants, who are being paid $150,000 or more out of a total civic allotment of $275,000, are very enamoured by their credentials. Potent terms such as democracy, insight and community are rhetorically utilized to instil trust in the process. Trust is the main issue. Trust between the city’s planning department and the citizens of Grandview-Woodland is sorely lacking.
Our Community Our Plan, a citizens group based in the neighbourhood, has tried repeatedly to advise Magnusson, members of the planning department and city council of the pitfalls in this process, but to no avail, so in this space let us try again. Continue reading →
At present Texas vests authority for prosecuting cases of official misconduct in the district attorney of one county, now Travis County, which contains the capital city of Austin, and until recently, the additional work was funded by an appropriation by the State Legislature. This is done because the Texas Constitution vests authority for criminal prosecutions in local county and district attorneys. Neither the State Attorney General nor any state-level official has such authority.
Two controversial prosecutions by the Public Integrity Unit in predominantly Democratic Travis County were clearly political and have led to calls for reform. the first was prosecution of U.S. Rep. Tom Delay, essentially for laundering campaign contributions through the National Republic Party. He was convicted in Travis County but the verdict was reversed on appeal. However, it ended his career in the U.S. Congress.
The second case arose after the Travis County District Attorney was arrested, and later convicted, for DWI, and was video recorded acting very badly, trying to throw her weight around. Governor Rick Perry demanded she resign, or else he would veto the next appropriation for the Unit. She refused, and he did. But Travis County kept the Unit going at reduced strength using County funds. It then hired a special prosecutor who obtained an indictment against Perry for making a felonious threat to a public official in threatening to exercise his veto power. As this is being written, that case is still in the Travis County District Court.
What did democracy really mean in Athens? – Melissa Schwartzberg
Hey, congratulations! You just won the lottery. Only the prize isn’t cash or a luxury cruise. It’s a position in your country’s national legislature. And you aren’t the only lucky winner. All of your fellow lawmakers were chosen in the same way.
This might strike you as a strange way to run a government, let alone a democracy. Elections are the epitome of democracy, right? Well, the ancient Athenians, who coined the word, had another view. In fact elections only played a small role in Athenian democracy, with most offices filled by random lottery from a pool of citizen volunteers. Continue reading →
Proponents of sortition usually refer to the fact that it was used in Athens, and sometimes use the Athenian constitution as a yardstick for comparing other proposals. There is no attempt here to reproduce or imitate the Athenian democracy, which had several features which would now be considered objectionable, among which are:
The exclusion of the majority of persons living under the control of the government from any say in that government. One can argue about the relative numbers of adult male citizens, adult female citizens, metics (metoikoi, foreigners living and working in Athens) children of citizens, and slaves, but clearly the adult male citizens were a small minority of those affected by the laws which they alone could vote on. Amongst adult male citizens, the Athenian constitution was eminently democratic, amongst those who were subject to its laws, it was oligarchic.
The lack of separation of justice and legislature.
Ostracism. It was not necessary to commit a crime to be ostracised and exiled, merely to be feared.
Dokimasia. This was an examination, not to determine whether a citizen was competent, but whether he was eligible for office, and if so, whether his political views were offensive (usually meaning that he had oligarchic sympathies).
Representative democracy today seems to be at an impasse. Low voter turnout, falling party membership, plummeting trust in politicians, the fierce rise of populist parties. These trends, together with political fragmentation, disengagement among young generations, and backlash against the political elite who have failed to govern responsibly, highlight democracy’s dilemma. Though much has been written about this democratic crisis, less has been proposed in terms of solutions. Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck’s recent book, Contre les élections [Against Elections], attempts to fill this gap of ideas. Although it has not yet been translated into English, as is obvious from what I discuss below, his analyses are critically important in the current climate.
Chwalisz’s long article mostly revolves around Van Reybrouk’s book, but also mentions Gilens and Page. She seems to some extent skeptical of Van Reybrouck’s progressivist outlook and ends thusly:
[T]he dilemma of how to get elected elites to relinquish their grip on the seats of power remains unresolved. Perhaps the starting point is to question ourselves: are we, in fact, electoral fundamentalists?
Adam Cronkright
Ali
Ahmed R. Teleb
avanderven
avergne
Alex Kovner
azakaras
Brett Hennig
campbellwallace
Simon Threlkeld
Nick Coccoma
codyhipskind
Common Lot Sortitionist
Conall Boyle
constitutionalism
davidschecter
graytmatter
gtridimas
H.J. Hofkirchner
John Burnheim
jgarry20151
Jochen Krattenmacher
johnedwardtaylor
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Jonathan Crock
keithsutherland
Jacob Richter
kkoreilly
lukewhito
SimonPek
Nathan El
Nicholas Gruen
Owen Shaffer
Patrick Chalmers
Paul Gölz
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Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
pronfeld
Emil
rcaze
richwbrown
Roger Knights
roslynfuller
Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
shaharavin
tbouricius
Ted Wachtel
Joshua Laferriere
theodorestathis
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Wayne Liebman
Yoram Gat
Oliver Milne
Equality by lot 