Lotteries in the Atlantic

Posted on May 18, 2014 by peterstone

While I was out of town this weekend (for a conference–some good lottery-related discussion there, BTW), no fewer than 2 friends brought to my attention this recent piece from the Atlantic. It proposes that highly competitive universities deem admissible twice as many students as they have positions to fill, then select randomly from this list. A very sensible idea–from my own experience at competitive universities, I have little doubt that there are at least as many qualified applicants rejected as accepted.

Anyway, here’s the link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-a-college-admissions-lottery/361585/

Filed under: Applications, Distribution by lot, education, Proposals | 3 Comments »

Manuel Arriaga: Rebooting Democracy

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Yoram Gat

A review of Manuel Arriaga’s Rebooting Democracy: a citizen’s guide to reinventing politics

Rebooting Democracy is a short and enjoyable book (available at Amazon; the first 50 pages are available online). Its introduction explicitly positions it as being motivated by the sentiments of the Occupy protests and the author’s proposals as responding to those sentiments. Like the Occupy protests Arriaga’s message is to a considerable extent anti-electoral:

[V]oting out one politician or party to bring in a different one will not solve our problems. Time has made it clear that this is not merely an issue of casting. If the play stinks, replacing the actors will not make it any better.

The first two chapters present an explanation of why the Western electoral system does not serve “us”. Arriaga summarizes his explanation with the following two points:

1) We have delegated power to the political class and hardly supervise it.

2) As voters, we are condemned to unreflective and easy-to-influence decision-making. Even if we were inclined to effectively supervise politicians, this would severely limit our ability to do so.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Books, Elections, Initiatives, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments »

Presidential Selection by Lottery?

Posted on May 7, 2014 by peterstone

The latest on sortition from Italy. Not sure I see the advantage of having the head of state selected by sortition, and equally unsure why it should be so important to exclude anyone from the draw for such a (largely ceremonial and apolitical) post. More consideration of these topics seems appropriate.

http://www.internauta-online.com/2014/04/sortition-will-have-to-wait-for-a-great-leader-who-will-renege-the-ballot-democracy/

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Sortition Here?

Posted on April 17, 2014 by peterstone

Is anyone familiar with John Rachel’s An Unlikely Truth? I haven’t read it, but I’m told the author is some sort of sortition fan.

Filed under: Books, Elections, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

A letter to Prof. Martin Gilens

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Dear Prof. Gilens,

My name is Yoram Gat.

I recently became aware of your new paper “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens ” expanding on your previous work (“Inequality and democratic responsiveness”, 2005).

I see the findings of this work, as I presume you do, as confirming the widespread public sentiment, consistently measured in many opinion polls and expressed for example in the 2011 “Occupy” protests, that the American system does not represent the majority of Americans (“the 99%”). I also presume that the American system is not unique in this respect: 2011 has seen protest around the world reflecting similar sentiments in other societies governed by similar systems.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Action, Elections, Opinion polling, Proposals, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Sortition Coming to Washington State?

Posted on April 11, 2014 by peterstone

I was reading Dan Savage’s blog this morning, and stumbled upon the following posting:

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 4:57 PM

We couldn’t do worse than Rodney Tom, right?

That led me to find the ballot initiative itself. It appears to be real, and was only recently filed with the State of Washington. Continue reading →

Filed under: Action, Applications, Ballot measures, Initiatives, Proposals, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Terry Bouricius’s sortition-based government system

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Yoram Gat

David Van Reybrouck presents Terry Bouricius’s proposal for sortition-based government system in an article in De Corresponedent. I don’t read Dutch and the automatic translation is pretty poor, but, if nothing else, the graphics describing the system are very nice. [English version of the diagram added below.]

Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 10 Comments »

David Van Reybrouck: “Elections were never designed to be democratic”

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Liberation has an interview with David Van Reybrouck by Béatrice Vallaeys about his sortitionist message.

An automatic translation of the preamble with my touch ups:

To counter distrust toward politics, Belgian historian and writer David Van Reybrouck advocates deliberative democracy, where allotted citizens lend a hand to elected officials.

“We despise elected officials, we venerate the elections.” Thus says David Van Reybrouck in a recently published essay, Against elections. Born in 1971 in Bruges, David Van Reybrouck strives with an undeniable talent to demonstrate “a fatigue of Western democracy”, but he also offers a remedy: instead of the appointment rituals where people are invited to cast their votes for a particular candidate, he proposes the creation of an allotted legislature. “The realities of our democracies disillusions people at an alarming rate. We must ensure that democracy does not wear itself out,” he says, convinced that elections are a cause of paralysis of democracy. His credo: not only the right to vote, but the right to speak.

Filed under: Books, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 20 Comments »

“An Italian Road to Randomocracy”

Posted on February 27, 2014 by peterstone

The latest on sortition from Italy (this time in English)–

http://www.internauta-online.com/2014/02/an-italian-road-to-randomcracy/

The proposal is rather complex, and perhaps worth discussing here.

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

Voice of the People

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Voice of the People describes itself so:

Voice Of the People (VOP) is a new non-partisan organization that seeks to re-anchor our democracy in its founding principles by giving ‘We the People’ a greater role in government. VOP furthers the use of innovative methods and technology to give the American people a more effective voice in the policymaking process.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 15 Comments »

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