International Network of Sortition Advocates Presents

Posted on February 17, 2025 by richwbrown

Sortition in Businesses and Organisations

A How-to Guide

In his previous presentation, Ben Redhead, explored how sortition can revolutionize organisations and empower individuals in decision-making processes.  Join Ben, once again, for an interactive deeper dive into the topic that welcomes your specific questions on how to integrate sortition in your own business or organisation.

About the Speaker: We’re honoured to again feature Ben Redhead as our facilitator. As an Associate at Sortition Foundation and Co-Founder of INSA, Ben brings to the table a rich tapestry of experience. His journey as a strategy consultant, facilitator, and project manager has afforded him a unique perspective on the transformative power of sortition. Recently, he launched his own organisation, SORTED, an initiative that aims to merge innovations in democracy and organisational development. Ben’s insights aren’t just limited to offline platforms; he passionately shares his expertise and observations through his blog, also named “SORTED.”

Date: Wednesday, 5 March 2025

Time: 6:00 – 7:00 PM UTC [19:00-20:00 Europe/Copenhagen]

Location: Online – Registration on Eventbrite

FREE – Reserve your spot now!

INSA is a volunteer organisation aimed at connecting pro-sortition academics, advocates, and activists around the world, to share resources & tactics and advance the theoretical understanding and practice of sortition. 

www.INSA.site

You are also invited to join our Discord server at

https://discord.gg/6sgnrphp6w

Filed under: meeting, Organizing, Sortition | Leave a comment »

How to Fund a Movement for Sortition?

Posted on November 18, 2024 by johnhuang865

I’d like to spark a discussion about everyone’s favorite topic: funding.

I’ve just written an article about some of the research in nonprofit funding here: How to Fund a Movement for Sortition. Unfortunately it’s nowhere near exhaustive as I am no expert in nonprofits nor social movements. The article goes over how most American 501c3 nonprofits are funded and what kind of strategies they pursue.

Filed under: Organizing, Sortition | 6 Comments »

Online meeting: Scheming for Democracy

Posted on March 22, 2024 by richwbrown

Scheming for Democracy

Presented by Wayne Liebman, M.D., American activist, advocate, and strategist for democratic lotteries and deliberation based in California.

Our deliberative ecosystem has a linguistic blind spot.  In thinking about lottery based democracy, we often leave strategy off the table.  It’s actually the conversation that we should always be having: ABC–Always Be Calculating.  What strategy to use depends on the goal, but whatever your goal, thinking strategically will ease the way.

Let’s talk about how!

Date: Wednesday, 27 March · (Thursday, 28 March in Australia)

Time: 18:00 – 19:00 UTC/GMT [19:00 Europe]

Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/bct-xucx-gep

Or dial: ‪(DK) +45 70 71 41 04‬ PIN: ‪464 474 557‬#  — More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/bct-xucx-gep?pin=1550818843600

Filed under: meeting, Organizing, Sortition | Leave a comment »

International Network of Sortition Advocates Presents

Posted on March 3, 2024 by richwbrown

Scheming for Democracy

Our deliberative ecosystem has a linguistic blind spot.  In thinking about lottery based democracy, we often leave strategy off the table.  It’s actually the conversation that we should always be having: ABC–Always Be Calculating.  What strategy to use depends on the goal, but whatever your goal, thinking strategically will ease the way.

Let’s talk about how!

Date:

Wednesday, 27 March · 18:00 – 19:00 UTC/GMT

Thursday, 28 March in Australia

Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/bct-xucx-gep

Or dial: ‪(DK) +45 70 71 41 04‬ PIN: ‪464 474 557‬#  — More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/bct-xucx-gep?pin=1550818843600

About the Speaker: Wayne Liebman, M.D. is an American activist, advocate, and strategist for democratic lotteries and deliberation based in California.  In 2020, he founded Public Access Democracy (PAD) an advocacy group that aims to catalyze the formation of deliberative citizen groups chosen by lot.  PAD provided the impetus for the 2022 City of Petaluma Fairgrounds Citizens’ Assembly. In addition, as a project of PAD in concert with the Berggruen Institute, Healthy Democracy, and other democratic organizations, he co-initiated the Public Democracy LA project with the goal of setting up a citizens’ assembly in Los Angeles by 2026. 

This event is hosted by the International Network of Sortition Advocates (INSA), a network committed to championing sortition across the globe as a transformative approach to political decision-making.

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DiEM25 creates a deliberative democracy collective

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Yoram Gat

DiEM25 “is a pan-European, progressive movement that aims to democratise the EU before it disintegrates”. Its most prominent member is economist and former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. In a recent speech in the Greek parliament, Varoufakis presented allotted bodies as a central proposal of his party.

DiEM25 is now setting up a “Deliberative Democracy collective” which will “explore” the topic and is inviting members of the public to participate by contacting them at thematic@diem25.org.

Filed under: Action, Organizing, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Action ideas

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Yoram Gat

In the discussion following my presentation in the January DWE meeting, one of the participants suggested that a list of actions and activities that sortition activists can engage in in order to promote idea of sortition would be useful. Here is my attempt at a first draft. The possible actions and activities are categorized by the circle of action (internal, personal circle, wider circles). In addition there is a category of activities that are suitable for coordinated action. In some cases it may be worth expanding on the bullet items and giving some details, but I wanted to keep the list brief and manageable, so I intend to do this separately.

Please contribute your ideas in the comments. Hopefully we can create an improved, richer list in future versions.

Changing personal habits of thought and expression

  • Breaking the habit of thinking and referring to countries with elections-based political systems as “democratic” (e.g., “the Western democracies”)
  • Awareness of the oppressive outcomes of the elections-based system
  • Thinking and talking about those outcomes as inherent to the elections-based system, rather than aberrations
  • Rejecting the standard electoralist “fixes” (campaign finance reforms, term limits, the popular initiative process, proportional representation, etc.)

Action within the personal circle
Continue reading →

Filed under: Action, Elections, Organizing, Press, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Presentation at Democracy Without Elections meeting

Posted on January 18, 2022 by Yoram Gat

On Sunday I presented the presentation above at a meeting of Democracy Without Elections. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion. There was some interest in the “call to action” I make in the next-to-last slide (namely, resisting the oppressive convention of calling countries where the political system is elections-based “democracies”). A proposal was made that we – sortition activists – draw up a list of possible actions that we could engage in, as individuals or in groups, to promote sortition. I had to admit that I have made no such list, and that as far as I know no such list exists. I’ll draw up a list of ideas I have (it may unfortunately be a rather short one) and share it in a future post, and we could collectively extend and improve it.

It was great to meet this group of enthusiastic sortition activists. I thank those who participated and in particular Owen Shaffer for inviting me, and I warmly congratulate all those involved. It is great to see such activity which I think was unimaginable on a decade ago.

Filed under: Action, Elections, Organizing, Sortition | 9 Comments »

Democracy Without Elections Board Selected by Lottery

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Yoram Gat

A news release by Democracy Without Elections.

Directors for national board selected by lottery

The advocacy group “Democracy Without Elections” has decided to practice what it preaches and select its entire Board of Directors by lottery. Using a lottery, Democracy Without Elections (www.DemocracyWithoutElections.org) is able to form a diverse board and include input from less active members. The new Board, with Directors from across the country, will meet online later this month.

Democracy Without Elections is a grassroots member-driven organization that promotes better decision-making across all levels of government and in organizations ranging from Boards of Directors to student government. The use of democratic lotteries to select the decision-makers coupled with deliberation as the process to make the decisions are the hallmark of the group.

The organization specifically advocates for democratic lotteries to be used to select members in legislative bodies like Congress. The group also supports making fundamental changes in the way those bodies operate: replacing lobbyists, coalitions and partisan politics with deliberation.

Democracy Without Elections is a proponent of citizens’ assemblies as well. Citizens’ Assemblies are lottery-selected deliberative groups which make recommendations to legislative bodies. Each citizens’ assembly is tasked with one challenging issue like abortion or a specific ballot initiative.

The organization has members from Alaska to Florida and from New England to California. We welcome new members who can join us at www.DemocracyWithoutElections.org. We hold monthly online meetings that include relevant guest speakers and reports from Interest Groups.

Filed under: Applications, Organizing, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Community Cooperative in Australia Conspicuously Selects Board via Sortition

Posted on August 8, 2020 by Ahmed R. Teleb

The Kyneton and District Town Square Co-op set up as an umbrella organization of community groups to democratically manage a historic school building / town square in Australia has a constitution that requires some board members be chosen by sortition.

Scroll down on their home page to see a video of Nivek Thompson speak about sortition and pick five board members out of a hat. Also, several of the activists pose with a placard “Lottery Democracy Lunch” and a sign reads “Lottery democracy arrives in Kyneton.”

Filed under: Action, Initiatives, Organizing, Participation, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good: Breaking out of the electoral trap

Posted on March 18, 2020 by Yoram Gat

What follows is the table of contents of a 2016 essay by Étienne Chouard, which Chouard describes as “my most recent methodical comparison between election and sortition”. I will publish my translation to English of the essay in several parts. The original French version is here.

Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good: Breaking out of the electoral trap
A comparison between election and allotment of representatives
Étienne Chouard, 2016
(Original in French, translation to English by Yoram Gat, 2020.)

Part I. A comparison of the general strengths and weaknesses of elections and allotment of representatives

  • (i) Elections infantilize, and in this way paralyze, the voters. They discourage thinking and defending the common good (whereas sortition does not)
    • 1. By definition, elections are aristocratic, whereas sortition is democratic
    • 2. By definition, elections are an abdication, a renunciation of the exercising of one’s sovereignty oneself, it is delegation, it is the renunciation of legislation, whereas sortition is the assertion of sovereignty
    • 3. Elections infantilize, strip of responsibility, dissuade from doing what is right, and distance the people from politics and the common good, whereas sortition encourages, and promotes responsibility for, doing the right thing

    • Continue reading →

Filed under: Organizing, Participation, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 5 Comments »

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