The Looking at Democracy contest has opened public voting until 16 May. I have three 3-minute video entries promoting sortition. Please vote for one.
Towards a Two Legged Democracy
Making Democracy Real – The argument for legislative juries
Filed under: Action, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: Congress, democracy, government_by_the_people, legislative_juries, Looking_at_Democracy, random_selection, sortition, voice_equality | 4 Comments »
A new paper by David Poulin-Litvak has the following abstract:
Electoral democracy is in crisis. The use of sortition in our political systems could be a key to renewing and deepening democracy. But how to do so? And where to start? In this paper, I explore the idea that using sortition to address the problem of corruption could be a first step. Why? For two reasons. First, corruption of elected officials is an internal inconsistency of electoral democracy – it cannot be resolved adequately through electoral institutions. Second, there is also a large consensus on the fact – everybody agrees – that corruption is a problem.
I suggest granting the power to convene an Investigation Commission to a randomly selected citizen body. This body should also nominate the Commission’s head and receive its recommendations. I also discuss the idea of a Citizens’ Court to directly address the problem of corruption of elected officials. This broad jury would judge and sanction corrupted elected officials. Taking Quebec’s ongoing corruption saga as an example, I also try to see how the system would work in reality and, finally, where the system, once put into place, could lead to.
Filed under: Academia, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »
Tomas Mancebo wrote to point out a proposal for a constitutional system by Stephen Shalom called Participatory politics, or ParPolity, which contains a sortition-based element.
The main part of the proposal is a “nested councils” structure – a standard proposal of a hierarchical structure of elected bodies where each body elects a representative to a higher-level body:
Unlike typical direct elections, a good political system must give people an organic connection to those they elect so they can adequately monitor their performance and remove them when necessary. There cannot be large or remote constituencies that render monitoring impossible or even burdensome.
Unlike typical indirect elections, a good political system must ensure that the people’s will does not get attenuated through each intermediate level of voting.
Continue reading
Filed under: Academia, Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »
“What minimal reforms would you like to see implemented given the reasons you advocate for sortition?”
The subject of this sentence is “minimal reforms”, so this would indicate an emphasis on practical implementation (or, even, incrementalism), as opposed to a blueprint for the New Jerusalem, Utopia, New Atlantis, Aleatoria or the Republic of Politdoche. The latter would require a different strand with a focus on utopian literature, revolutionary pamphlets, polemical tracts, diatribes and science fiction. I suggest also that if we are going to comment on other people’s suggestions we should avoid the use of sarcasm, sloganising and name-calling. (Note, though, these are only suggestions, rather than [authoritarian] edicts.)
Filed under: Action, Applications, Initiatives, Proposals, Sortition | 19 Comments »
This is my summary of points raised in the comment thread for my article in Haayal Hakore.
Would the sampled delegates produce representative policy?
Would they bother to spend the effort to study public policy?
Wouldn’t they be easy to manipulate?
Wouldn’t they be easy to bribe?
Wouldn’t they promote narrow interests, hoping to be rewarded later?
Since there are many population characteristics, the sample would be unrepresentative according to some of those.
If people can opt out, then shy people and people with interesting personal lives would be under-represented.
The training and service experiences would likely cause people to change their minds about various issues and in this way become unrepresentative.
Sampling probabilities – how likely is misrepresentation due to chance variations?
Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »
In order to achieve representative government political officers must be selected as a statistical sample of the population
This essay is an English version of an essay of mine that was recently published in Hebrew on the Israeli website Haayal Hakore. A lively discussion followed in the comment thread. I hope to pursue some the topics raised by commenters in upcoming posts.
2011 has seen an outpour of popular frustration with government. Mass demonstrations erupted in both Arab countries and Western countries. Over a year later, it appears that the results of the Arab Spring are very different from the results of the Western protests. While in some Arab countries the protests led to an overthrow of the government and significant political changes, the protest in the West dissipated almost everywhere leaving very little impact on the political structure. (Some claim that the protests in the West increased public political awareness and activism, but even if such claims are to be believed, political institutions were unaffected; the only exception is Iceland where some structural change has taken place.)
The difference between the outcomes in Arab countries and in the West can be explained by a fundamental difference in the agendas of the protests. The protesters in the Arab countries had a very clear and specific demand – removing an unelected, or only nominally elected, government and establishing an electoral system similar to the Western model. The Western protesters on the other hand expressed discontent with government policy, but had no clear demands about how things should be changed. The general message of the protest in the West was that public policy is not as it should be – it is serving the elites (“the 1%”) rather than serving the bulk of the population (“the 99%”). But while policy demands were sometimes presented (with varying degrees of coherence and emphasis) no program was laid out of how government should be changed in order to promote policy change.
Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 97 Comments »
Badiblogger draws attention in a comment on the Literature page to the fact that Plato’s Laws discusses sortition.
In a passage in book VI Plato explains that it is sometimes necessary – contrary to the requirements of justice – to bow to popular pressure and use “the equality of the lot”:
The old saying, that “equality makes friendship,” is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule of measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails but little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good to individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all, greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less; and to either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue and education. And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of states, at which we ought to aim, and according to this rule order the new city which is now being founded, and any other city which may be hereafter founded. To this the legislator should look – not to the interests of tyrants one or more, or to the power of the people, but to justice always; which, as I was saying, the distribution of natural equality among unequals in each case. But there are times at which every state is compelled to use the words, “just,” “equal,” in a secondary sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For equity and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that into which the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.
Filed under: Athens, Books, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, founder of newDemocracy, endorses Alex Zakaras’s allotted “Citizens’ Senate” in his TEDxSydney talk:
My take on this proposal and exchange with Zakaras are here: The elected legislator’s burden, Lottery and Legislative Powers: A Reply to Yoram Gat, and Limiting the allotted chamber’s powers – a foundational argument.
Filed under: Academia, Athens, Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »
Filed under: Books, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »
The following two letters were sent by postal mail to President Obama at the beginning of his first term as President of the US.
Until now no response.
First letter:
January 23 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
The reason why I am contacting you is, that I would like to bring to your attention the following important issue (at least in my opinion). The issue is about the establishment of a World Parliament by means of the principle of Lottocracy. The idea of Lottocracy is described in detail in the chapter: A Concept for Government in the book: The World Solution for World Problems. However, the text of that chapter is also available on my homepage. You can go directly to:
http://www.socsci.kun.nl/~advdv/Lottocracy.html
The book: The World Solution for World Problems is available as an electronic book on:
However, you can find the book directly on:
http://www.socsci.kun.nl/~advdv/leonbook/leonbook.html
The book (ISBN 90-9002592-8) has originally been published as a hard copy and is, for example, available in The Library of Congress in Washington DC. Continue reading
Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »
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
HpR
James Kierstead
John Burnheim
jgarry20151
Jochen Krattenmacher
johnedwardtaylor
johnhuang865
Jonathan Crock
keithsutherland
Jacob Richter
kkoreilly
lukewhito
SimonPek
Nathan El
Nicholas Gruen
Owen Shaffer
Patrick Chalmers
Paul Gölz
peterstone
Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
pronfeld
Emil
rcaze
richwbrown
Roger Knights
roslynfuller
Pierre-Etienne Vandamme
shaharavin
tbouricius
Ted Wachtel
Joshua Laferriere
theodorestathis
towardsautonomyblog
Wayne Liebman
Yoram Gat
Oliver Milne
Equality by lot 