Popular Sovereignty Network

Posted on July 8, 2012 by keithsutherland

I attended the first meeting of the Popular Sovereignty Network yesterday at Queen Mary, University of London. The first talk, by Melissa Lane (politics, Princeton) was on Athenian democracy. Professor Lane took issue with the assumption that the Athenian franchise for office-holding was open to all male citizens over 30, drawing attention to the Solonic prohibition on the thetes holding office (as opposed to participating in the assembly and courts). The source for the Solonic prohibition is Aristotle’s Politics, VII 3. Scholars like Hansen and Sinclair claim that by the 4th Century the prohibition had become a ‘dead letter’, but there is no real evidence for this.

Her talk then took an unusual turn when she shifted the focus to the election of (some) officeholders, on the basis of universal (by Athenian standards) suffrage. I questioned her on the number of elected offices and she claimed it was 100 (out of around 700); nevertheless she used this to argue that Athenian democracy was not so different from its modern Schumpeterian form, in which all citizens elect officeholders and then hold them to account.

This was all a little odd (why focus on the minority of elected officials?), and not particularly convincing, so perhaps she was just trying to stir things up. But I did find her contrast between office-holding and assembly/courts to be illuminating. She disputed Hansen’s claim that ‘ruling and being ruled in turn’ referred to rotation in office, claiming that it referred more to the assembly and the courts. Jury service did involve very significant rotation and, with the 4th century innovation of the nomothetai, serious legislative power was involved. Membership of the council was a collegial office, so Aristotle’s remark could have referred to this (Hansen claims that most eligible citizens would have served on the council at least once), but note her earlier comments on the Solonic prohibition.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Juries, Participation, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Nissani: Cheers for Direct Democracy

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Dr. Moti Nissani writes in The Dissident Voice:

Revolutionary strategists must ask themselves: How can we best structure our own movement? And: What kind of political framework should we aim for, once we relegate the Banking-Militarist Complex to the dustbin of history? The answer to both questions is the same: genuine (or direct) democracy.

Democracy, for the Greeks who coined the word, meant “power of the people” or “rule of the people.” Perhaps the best-known example of a genuine democracy in a highly-advanced, highly-literate, polity, is Athens and its sister democracies of Ancient Greece. There, all significant political, legal, and judicial decisions were made directly by the people. Democratic Athens went to war if, and only if, the majority so voted; a man was exiled, or condemned to death, if, and only if, his fellow citizens so decreed.

It is a typical reformist treatment of the Athenian system. Sortition is discussed in the context of juries, but its application to political offices is given barely a mention:

The Athenians knew that power-seekers could not be trusted, so they filled many important public offices by lot. Moreover, most office holders maintained their positions for extremely short durations. Athens thereby bypassed, to a certain extent, a key problem in all other extant political systems: The ascendancy of the psychopaths.

Filed under: Athens, History, Participation, Sortition | 3 Comments »

“Direct democracy” and mass politics – part 2

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Part 1 is here.

Mass politics

Mass politics is the situation in which political decisions are made by a symmetrical aggregation of the actions of a large number of individuals.

The modern electoral system is an example of a mass political system. In this case, the actions of the individuals are (1) whether to run for office, (2) advocacy, and (3) voting. The political decision made is the selection of the officials.

Another example is the “direct democracy” situation – both in its modern “popular initiative” setup or in the ancient “Athenian Assembly” setup. In this case, the individuals can (1) propose legislation, (2) advocate, and (3) vote, and the decision made is the passing of pieces of public policy.

When the agenda is set externally (by the Ephors in Sparta and to some extent by the Boule in Athens, or by the elected legislature in Oregon System referenda), then the individual actions are limited to advocacy and voting. In some cases (e.g., the Spartan assembly) advocacy by individuals is also explicitly excluded from the process.

Due to the symmetry of its decision making process, mass politics has superficial similarity to democracy – a political system in which political power is distributed equally among the members – since both terms describe situations of equality. The difference is that mass politics is defined in terms of formal equality while democracy is defined in terms of equality of actual political power.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, Participation, Sortition | 14 Comments »

“Direct democracy” and mass politics – part 1

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Yoram Gat

The reformist idea of “direct democracy” is a recurring theme among critics of the dominant modern elections-based system of government. However, “direct democratic” systems, when considered as systems for representing popular interests, suffer from much the same problems that afflict elections-based systems.

The promise of “direct democracy”

The standard description of the Athenian democracy emphasizes the role of the Assembly. According to this description having thousands of Athenians assemble 40 times a year to discuss and vote on policy decisions was the main democratic mechanism in Athens. This institute, supposedly, distributed political power widely within the group of Athenian citizens. Wikipedia puts it this way:

It [Athens] remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy, a political system in which the people do not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but vote on legislation and executive bills in their own right.

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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Initiatives, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 65 Comments »

Proposal for presentation at Wikimania in Washington 12-15 July

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Common Lot Sortitionist

For those of you who use Wikipedia, notice that ‘Wikimania’ will be in Washington 12-15 July.

I have proposed a presentation: “Why Elections Are the Problem and How To Make Democracy Real“.

IF YOU ARE GOING or KNOW ANYONE WHO IS GOING please encourage acceptance of this presentation.

Thanks.

Filed under: Elections, Participation, Sortition | 1 Comment »

A summary of Chouard’s talk, and links to some concurring posts

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Below is my itemized summary of the ideas presented by Ètienne Chouard:

  1. The core of democracy is political equality
  2. Elections are anti-democratic
    • Not designed to be democratic, and no such claims made by its designers
    • History shows that elections put the rich in power
    • The powerful support elections – cannot be a threat to them
    • It is a paradox that the entire political spectrum supports elections
    • Based on a myth – being able to choose the good
    • Rule by the worst – “good people don’t care about governing”
    • Elections are appropriate for small scale – depend on knowing people and being able to follow what they do, in large systems, the voters do not know the candidates and do not know what they do

    Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 11 Comments »

We the Citizens

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Yoram Gat

A story in the Irish University Observer leads to an organization called “We the People“. The organization is apparently led by a group of politicians and academics.

The organization held a meeting of randomly selected people (“citizen’s assembly”) over a weekend in which various policy issues were discussed. The general structure seems very similar to that of a Fishkin DP – a limited, pre-defined scope; a term measured in days; expert opinion presented; small group discussions alternating with large group sessions.

The organization released a report in December. It describes the process as follows:

We the Citizens was a pilot project to test whether a more participatory form of democracy could work in Ireland. The model tested was a Citizens’ Assembly, which is a form of deliberative democracy.
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Filed under: Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Another flavor of “deliberative democracy”

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Yoram Gat

An article regarding “participative budgeting” in Calgary makes good material for critical reading. Among other issues, random selection is mentioned:

It’s not enough to simply invite citizens to give input, she [Victoria councillor Lisa Helps] argued. The problem is that special-interest groups can too easily dominate the discussion.

Dan Doherty, a director with a non-profit called Wise Democracy, has already tested one possible solution.

In 2011, he was contracted by the city to build “citizens insight councils” tasked with giving input into the city’s official community planning process. He found participants through a random selection process.

By calling 60 people, selected randomly by address, Doherty found 24 willing participants who agreed to a half-day workshop.

“It gets at people whose voices are not usually heard,” said Doherty.

Following up on “Wise Democracy” yielded their website, with a table explaining how the Wise Democracy process is differentiated from other “deliberative democracy” processes.

Filed under: Participation, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

How to design a democratic legislative system – order of questions

Posted on January 12, 2012 by davidschecter

I think it will help us, and could help many other people, to have a useful order of questions for designing a democratic legislative system. I’m not saying “the right order of questions,” or even “the most useful order” – only “a useful order.” I’m also not suggesting that we should follow this order in our conversations. Instead, I think it could act as a useful reference point for those times when someone says, “Wait a minute – it’s premature to talk about x before we’ve settled y.”

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

  1. Criteria – What criteria should define a “democratic” and “good” legislative system?
  2. Categories of actors – Which broad categories of actors (e.g. all the people, allotted representatives, elected representatives, all-purpose versus limited-purpose representatives, staff) should play important roles in the legislative process? What roles should they play?
  3. Activities – What are the main activities that must (or should?) be carried out in a democratic legislative process, and in what order? In some cases order will matter, in others it won’t.
  4. Bodies and offices – Which specific bodies and offices (e.g. allotted chamber, single issue panels) should carry out each activity, playing what roles?
  5. Processes – What processes should be used for each activity?

What do you think? I look forward to your ideas, and I’m hoping that maybe together we can create a simple structure that will not only help us, but many others as well.

Filed under: Participation, Sortition | 60 Comments »

Legislative activities tree diagram

Posted on December 29, 2011 by davidschecter

I’m still thinking about the basic legislative activities, and the order of them.

In a previous post, I proposed a set of activities that drew distinctions between choosing issues to address, deciding the objectives and criteria for laws about each issue, and proposing laws. Despite what I said before, I now think this does represent a sequence of activities, but it’s an order of logic, and not meant to dictate the actual order in practice. For example, choosing issues is logically prior to writing bills, but often issues are discovered or clarified through the process of writing bills.

Terry pointed out that while there is value in this logical order, in actual practice advocates are likely to jump immediately into proposing laws, and that the lawmaking process should allow for this. So I wrote, “there ought to be a way to get the benefits of both the top-down and bottom-up kinds of thinking.”
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Filed under: Participation | 4 Comments »

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