Sebastián Linares: El sorteo de cargos públicos: un método para mejorar la democracia

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Sebastián Linares writes in Con Distintos Acentos (Google Translate with my touch-ups):

Lottery for public office: a method to improve democracy

The concept of democracy has been associated, in different historical periods, with two very different methods for selection of public officials and accountability: the popular election of representatives and sortition (drawing names at random). In the last two hundred years democratic theory has assumed that the only democratic method to choose public officials is the election of representatives by popular vote. However, from its origins in Athens (435 BC) until well into the nineteenth century, the concept of “democracy” used to refer to the use of sortition for the selection of public officials (Manin 1997).

Continue reading →

Filed under: History, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Sortition for a constitutional assembly

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Nikita Malo proposes selecting the members of a constitutional assembly using sortition:

Why constitution, why sortition?

Constitution is central to political systems; it is mainly aimed to define power. Who make the new laws? What powers have citizens? How are chosen deputies? What are their obligations?

We do not know yet what the new constitution will be (even though it could be possible to define a new constitution first, and then to support and empower it), but what is crucial is that a constitution has not to be written by the politicians, or they will write their own rules, and so be able to take advantage of the situation. That is why sortition is supported in this article, as a way to avoid conflicts of interests. On that question, I recommend this video.

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 62 Comments »

Can Sortition really change this?

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Conall Boyle

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

― Adam Smith (not Karl Marx as you might have thought!)

Filed under: Sortition | 10 Comments »

The Looking at Democracy contest has opened public

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Common Lot Sortitionist

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

Making Democracy Reality

Filed under: Action, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

“They Can Do It All on a Computer”

Posted on May 2, 2013 by peterstone

“They Can Do It All on a Computer”

Google Alerts directed me to this brief article. Not particularly exciting, but I wonder what people think of the idea of random selection taking place entirely on a computer like this. Happens quite a lot, I gather–I think that’s how the Dutch medical school lottery is done. But it’s rather hard to verify that a lottery is fair when it’s just a guy typing commands into a computer in the comfort of his office. Thoughts? Does this matter?

Filed under: Distribution by lot, Juries, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 28 Comments »

Sortition Essay in Journal of Public Deliberation

Posted on May 1, 2013 by tbouricius

An essay I wrote entitled: “Democracy Through Multi-Body Sortition: Athenian Lessons for the Modern Day” was just published in the new issue of JPD. I’m rather proud of it, and think it will be of interest to many readers of this Blog. Here is the link:

http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol9/iss1/art11

Terry Bouricius

Filed under: Academia, Athens, History, Sortition | 14 Comments »

Poulin-Litvak: Sortition as a means to fight corruption

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Yoram Gat

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 »

ParPolity

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Yoram Gat

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 »

Minimal Reforms

Posted on April 23, 2013 by keithsutherland

“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 »

Why is sortition a good idea? A participant survey

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Ahmed R. Teleb

I am curious–seems it would be helpful for anyone interested in sortition–what the different grounds people have for advocating it are. The idea here is not about particular forms of selection by lot, but why might it be a good idea in general.

Please comment with your personal reason(s) in one or two sentences max. It would be best to avoid comment on other people’s comments.

Filed under: meta, Sortition, Theory | Tagged: , , | 26 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »