Paul Lucardie: Democratic Extremism

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Paul Lucardie sent the following excerpts from his new book ‘Democratic Extremism in Theory and Practice. All power to the people’ (London: Routledge, 2014).

democratic-extremism

Author’s comment: Democratic extremism may appear to be an oxymoron, as ‘democracy’ is usually associated with moderation, pluralism and tolerance. Yet one could also regard democratic extremism as the opposite of autocratic and aristocratic extremism: whereas the latter imply that all decisions are taken by a dictator, a class of landowners or perhaps (in a more modern variety) the Central Committee of a ruling Communist Party, the former means that all decisions are taken by the people and that a political elite does not play any significant role. Examples of extreme democracy are rare, as far as I could find out. More common are cases of what I would call radical democracy: not all decisions but most important decisions are taken by the people, some are left to a political elite. Even more common, however, are mixed regimes where most decisions are taken by an elected aristocracy (professional politicians) and some by the people. In fact most so-called representative democracies are, in my opinion, mixed regimes, if not elective aristocracies.
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Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 45 Comments »

The Youth Parliament of Belgium proposes sortition-based government

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Commenter ee calls attention to the following.

The Youth Parliament of Belgium is a yearly conference of French-speaking youth in Belgium which is organized by the Parliament of the French Community in Belgium. Every year the Youth Parliament discusses four decrees that are proposed by four “ministers”. The Parliament decides whether to adopt or reject each of the decrees.

The 2013 Youth Parliament adopted a decree titled “Décret visant à réformer l’exercice du pouvoir des citoyens, de leurs assemblées et de leur gouvernement” (“Decree to reform the exercise of power of citizens, their assemblies and their government”), which, if I understand correctly, was authored by Pierre-Yves Ryckaert, a political activist.

The decree opens so (automated translation with my touch-ups):

After more than two hundred years of the representative parliamentary system, one thing is clear: this system which is supposed to derive its legitimacy from the consent of voters appears to create a structural and insidious monopolization of power by a class of professional politicians. The elite politician created by elections is bound to be limited to short-term policies, in a context where they are no longer sufficient to cope with the challenges of tomorrow. This led some citizens and elected officials to question the foundations of this system.
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Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 15 Comments »

Boyd Tonkin: We should fill at least some public offices by lottery

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Commenter ee notes an article by Boyd Tonkin in The Independent in which Tonkin, after warming up to the issue of popular displeasure with the electoral system, writes:

Most of the sounder proposals to refresh faith in democracy invoke some kind of “deliberative” process. Informed citizens should, in this model, have the opportunity to take part in every link of the decision-making chain rather than simply issue a yes/no verdict at its finale. In practice, how might this noble notion work? Well, here’s one idea that has even less chance of rapid realisation than an 11 per cent pay hike for MPs. We should fill at least some public offices by lottery.

“Sortition”, or the allocation of civic duties by lot, has a distinguished history. If ancient Athens practised it to supply most rotating city offices, then everyone in modern Britain understands it – and almost all respect it. The jury system still commands near-universal consent. People know that jury service modifies the risks of pure “sortition”. It makes provision for reasonable refusal or deferment, for challenges on the grounds of competence or conduct, and above all for guidance from a corps of impartial professionals – in this case, judges. If qualified random selection allows us to send someone down (or not) for life, then why not to decide on speed bumps and swimming pools?
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Filed under: Deliberation, Press, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Brandon Joyce on sortition

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Commenter ee points to a couple of videos in which Brandon Joyce makes a presentation about sortition on Channel 9 WPDN Public Distribution Network in Kensington, Philadelphia, PA.

Joyce got to the idea of sortition by reading Rancière. He starts out by pointing out the aristocratic or oligarchical nature of elections. He then puts out up a list of advantages of sortition over elections:

  • Dispenses with elections, campaigns, campaign finance
  • Partially free us from “particratic” polarization, ideologies, loyalties
  • Results in a far more accurate representation of “We, the People.” (“Get politicians out of politics!”)
  • Engages and empowers populace
  • Mitigates the corruption of long-entrenched power an d political class (for a time, at least)


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Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

2013 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Ahmed Teleb suggested the following as the most noteworthy sortition-related events of 2013:

  • the publication of Hélène Landemore’s book, Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many, which has a section called “Elections versus Random Selection”:

    Random lotteries would indeed produce what is known as ‘descriptive representation’ of the people […] ensuring statistical similarity of thoughts and preferences of the rulers and the ruled.” (p. 108),

    and

    • Continue reading →

Filed under: Books, Elections, meta, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , | 23 Comments »

Discussions of sortition in German?

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Common Lot Sortitionist

Does anyone know of organizations, publications or websites that discuss sortitional selection of legislatures in German?

Filed under: Academia, Books, Experiments, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

2013 review – statistics

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Below are some statistics about the fourth year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here.

2013 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 1,665 9 118
Feb 1,273 3 17
Mar 1,329 5 111
Apr 1,783 12 163
May 1,628 11 84
June 1,499 11 118
July 1,801 9 148
Aug 1,578 5 82
Sept 1,730 10 182
Oct 2,518 12 234
Nov 1,629 9 147
Dec (to 20th) 950 4 34
Total 19,383 100 1,438

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

Posts were made by 10 authors during 2013. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 116 email and WordPress followers of this blog. In addition there are 24 Twitter followers (@Klerotarian) and 43 Facebook followers.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 109,000 results”), as well as the third and fourth results. Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 9th result (out of “about 60,800 results”).

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

No equality for women without sortition

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Yoram Gat

The essay below was written at the suggestion of Campbell Wallace. It is meant as an attempt to recruit feminists to the cause of sortition. As an aside, it is worth mentioning, I think, that while, of course, men could be feminists, and some are, it is still somewhat embarrassing that all of the regular writers on Equality-by-Lot are men (I believe).

Almost 100 years ago, as the suffragist struggle in the US was approaching its successful culmination with the 19th Amendment, the feminist-anarchist activist Emma Goldman wrote her essay “Woman Suffrage”. It opens so:

We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetich [sic] worship? True, our fetiches have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetich is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity!

And later:

There is no reason whatever to assume that woman, in her climb to emancipation, has been, or will be, helped by the ballot.

Electoral fetish

The veracity of Goldman’s opening statements has not diminished by the passage of time. Indeed, “electoral fetish” is a two-word description of most of the political discourse of the last 100 years, both public and academic. As for Goldman’s last assertion, it may be considered somewhat extreme, but what is clear is that 100 years of women’s suffrage have not brought women anywhere near equality with men. If attaining suffrage was a tool of emancipation (rather than merely the milestone it surely was), then it is evident that this tool was not nearly as powerful as its most ardent promoters believed it would be1.
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Filed under: Elections, History, Sortition | 46 Comments »

Call for 2013 review input

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Yoram Gat

As in the past years (2012, 2011, 2010), I would like to create a post or two summarizing the sortition- and distribution-by-lot-related developments of the year and the activity here on Equality-by-Lot.

Please use the comments to give your input on what you think are the most mention-worthy events or essays of the past year.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 7 Comments »

Making A Case for Democracy By Sortition

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Google Alerts found the following proposal and discussion, going much along the standard lines.

The Athenian magistrate system had many problems during it’s long life, and one of them was the issue of rule via oligarchy: in a democratic system driven by voter elections (as championed by Socrates), magistrates could effectively buy their seats. In turn, the Greek administration created by popular vote came represent only the interests of the wealthy.

This problem was solved by discarding elections in favor of sortition – simply drawing from the public at random whom would hold what seat for a given term.

I think this is a system that ought to be seriously considered for use today (of course it will never be, but whatever, I can pretend that this is totes up for debate somehow & somewhere).

…So you just pick people at random, and boom, there’s your government?

In essence, yes. There’s an annual lottery (or bi-annual, or however many times over ‘X’ time period you want to rotate people out), and everyone that meets eligibility criteria (so, presumably, no children) are included in said lottery. If your name / SSN / whatever is drawn, you fill a seat. It’s a paid position, just like today, and you otherwise do exactly what government officials do (or are supposed to do) right now.

Filed under: Athens, Sortition | 3 Comments »

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