A 5-minute video lesson about sortition

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Melissa Schwartzberg is a professor of Politics at NYU.

Transcription:

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.
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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Juries, Participation, Sortition | Tagged: Melissa Schwartzberg, video | 13 Comments »

John Garry : Randomocracy in Northern Ireland

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Yoram Gat

John Garry writes in sluggerotoole.com:

There are three crucial ingredients for a high quality democracy: a very large hat, a pen and lots of small bits of paper. Write the name of each citizen in the land on a bit of paper, put all the bits of paper in the hat, close your eyes and pluck out 500 names from the hat. Write to each of the 500 saying:

“Congratulations, you have been picked as one of the 500 people who will run the country for the next five years. Please come along to our Random Parliament and start making decisions about things like welfare reform, flag display and corporation tax rates (maybe). We’ll put you up in a swanky hotel, pay you loads of expenses and square it with your boss. Look forward to seeing you…”

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Filed under: Press, Sortition | Tagged: John Garry | 2 Comments »

Sortition: It’s for your own good

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Claudia Chwalisz follows up on a recent article.

Chwalisz’s previous article concluded by observing that

the dilemma of how to get elected elites to relinquish their grip on the seats of power remains unresolved.

Chwalisz’s attempt at a resolution follows the lead of David Van Reybrouk. She addresses herself to the ruling class as the responsible concerned advisor who aims to help established actors find their way through troubled seas, meet the gathering hostile forces and to finally emerge maintaining as much of their power as possible.

The new article’s abstract is as follows:

New forms of contact democracy and innovative forums that allow political and economic institutions to deliberate with citizens are important steps in the long-term battle to renew representative democracy for the 21st century. They should not be seen as a threat to formal systems of government but as important add-ons that enrich democracy and give a window into the complexity of governance

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Filed under: Elections, Participation, Press, Sortition | Tagged: Claudia Chwalisz, David Van Reybrouk, formal democracy | 3 Comments »

Citizens’ Juries: Taken for Fools?

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Conall Boyle

Following the rejection of the Icelandic citizens’ jury’s conclusions on constitutional reform, it is disappointing to report that much the same has happened in Ireland:

[T]he people who were involved really cared about this thing and did everything they could to make it a model for new ways of thinking about democracy in the 21st century. There was a glimmer of hope that some kind of dignity was being restored to the political process. Instead all it’s really done is to polish up the sign on the gates of institutional democracy: abandon hope all ye who enter here.

The process showed that, given half a chance, citizens are not cynical and want to engage positively with their State. It also showed that that State, given half a chance, will make them feel like fools for wasting their time.

You can read the full article here: Fintan O’Toole: How hopes raised by the Constitutional Convention were dashed.

Filed under: Applications, Ballot measures, Press, Sortition | Tagged: citizen deliberation, democracy | 7 Comments »

Morena allots its candidacies for the multi-member congressional districts

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Yoram Gat

am.com.mx reports:

The fortunes of 3000 Morena activists, previously elected in 300 district assemblies, was determined yesterday in a lottery.

In this way the party led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador selected two thirds of its multi-member congressional district candidates.

Afterwards the Morena national council appointed outsiders – academics, human rights defenders, writers and rural leaders, among others – to fill the remaining candidacies.

“We successfully incorporated sortition into the process of selection of candidates. It is unprecedented, never seen in the history of our country,” said López Obrador about the lottery method.

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Filed under: Applications, Elections, Press, Sortition | Tagged: Mexico, Morena | 3 Comments »

How to introduce sortition in policy-making without constitutional change

Posted on February 22, 2015 by John Burnheim

The salient feature of modern democracy is that those who wield legislative and administrative power are chosen by popular vote in open competition between candidates. In practice the candidates generally present themselves as representatives of a party with a distinct ideological emphasis. Some voters who share a particular ideological position will normally support the same party, though they may disagree on many matters of policy. Others, less ideologically committed, are “swinging voters”, taking a more pragmatic view of which party to support. In either case, voters are constrained to chose between packages of personalities, policies and promises. The processes by which the parties arrive at these packages are not very transparent and are widely distrusted. For good reason, as I shall attempt to explain.

The alternative I propose is that the policies we adopt in any specific sphere of public decision-making should be determined by bodies that are statistically representative of those most directly affected by what happens in that sphere. These bodies would have no formal constitutional status. They would depend for their authority on community recognition. We would constrain our elected representatives to activate those decisions in legislation and administration on penalty of not being elected or re-elected.

Instead of being consumers faced with a choice between packages over whose contents we have little influence, we forfeit any attempt to impose an ideological flavour on the whole range of public decisions and concentrate on getting sound decisions in those matters that affect us most. The focus of these bodies would be on specific problem areas. There would be no attempt to prescribe for every possible eventuality. The whole would be treated as an ecosystem that mostly looks after itself, as various interactions adapt to eacn other. It is far too complex and unpredictable to be planned, but its stability and development are constantly being threatened by various human activities that may need to be regulated or eliminated.
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Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 21 Comments »

Docksey: Has Democracy Gone Missing? Or was it ever here?

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Lesley Docksey writes in the Dissident Voice:

With a general election looming in the United Kingdom and Spain possibly following Greece’s revolt against austerity later this year, we need to think, not just who or what we are voting for, but why we should vote at all.

People are suffering from a deficiency which is as unbalancing as a hormone or vitamin deficiency. What we are severely lacking in is democracy. Many of those pondering on the state of politics feel unhappy and somehow depleted. They haven’t yet realised it is democracy that’s lacking because they have believed what so many politicians have told them, over and over again:

We live in a democracy. Now exercise your democratic right and vote for us.

But what is the point of voting if, no matter who you vote for, what you get is the same old, same old?

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Filed under: Athens, Elections, Press, Sortition | Tagged: localism | Leave a comment »

Sortition discussion at Occupy Democracy: Inequality and Representation

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Brett Hennig

The Sortition Foundation will be holding a discussion on sortition at Occupy Democracy : Inequality and Representation this weekend.

When: 4pm, Saturday 14th February

Where: Parliament Square, London

More info: Occupy Democracy 14-15 February Programme

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1530502423894273/

Come along, invite your friends!

Filed under: Action, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Down with Elections! Part 6: conclusion

Posted on February 6, 2015 by campbellwallace

DOWN WITH ELECTIONS!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

PART 6 The Mandate

One of the justifications claimed for elections is that they are the only mechanism by which the citizens give a mandate to those who govern them. “We can’t just leave choosing our representatives to chance. When we vote, we give the winning candidate a mandate.”

But who actually gives this mandate? Surely not those who vote against the winners. And not those who don’t vote, for whatever reason. So it must be those who vote for the winning candidates? Suppose you vote in an electorate where your candidate wins by a handsome margin. If you hadn’t voted at all, he would still have won. If you had voted for another candidate, once again, he would still have won. In short, your vote made no difference at all. How then can you say that you have had even the tiniest part in giving that candidate a mandate?

Only if the other voters are so divided between candidates that your vote is the deciding one, can you be said to have made a difference, and then, of course, you are in a sense a “dictator”, as the political scientists put it when speaking of this problem. In saying this, I’ve assumed a winner-takes-all, first past the post system. Is the situation different in a proportional or a preferential system? Not really. Most of the time, your vote makes no difference at all. And the statement that “we can’t leave choosing our representatives to chance” – as though chance plays no part in elections – is just laughable.

Overheard in a pub in Godelpus:

(Yes, the names have been changed to protect the guilty.)

Two men sat down at the next table.

“I didn’t catch what you were saying about a mandate” said one.

His friend took a deep swig of beer before replying. “It brings back painful memories”, he said, slowly. “I don’t know if you remember when Harry Bolt got elected?”

“That was that very close election, wasn’t it?”
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Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 27 Comments »

Morena has selected its pool for sortition of congressional candidates

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Yoram Gat

The Informador reports:

Morena chooses three thousand applicants to draw nominations
Party leader Marti Batres says district assemblies concluded without incident

MEXICO CITY (01/FEB/2015) The leader of the National Regeneration Movement party (Morena), Marti Batres, said that on Sunday 300 district assemblies concluded “without incident” the selection of three thousand applicants for the 200 slots of candidates for multi-member district deputies.

Among those elected, five men and five women from each of the 300 constituencies, there are housewives, students, professionals, retirees, workers, merchants, scholars, indigenous people and peasants, said Batres.

All those will participate in the February 23rd allotment process (sortition) for nominating candidates to multi-member electoral districts, Morena’s method to select its candidates.