Reminder: “What is a G1000?” this weekend

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Brett Hennig

G1000-style assemblyWhat is a G1000? Two free events, in Cambridge and London, organised by the Sortition Foundation, are happening this weekend.

We have been inspired by the Belgian G1000 and the Dutch G1000 and aim to hold one G1000 in London and one in Cambridge in late 2016 or early 2017, where a truly representative sample of 1000 people gather, deliberate with each other in a respectful environment, and decide together what is best for their communities. It is a way to do democracy differently.

Come along to find out all about a G1000 and how you can help make a G1000 happen in the UK!

For more information visit http://www.g1000.uk/calendar

Filed under: Experiments, Initiatives, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Cartledge: Crypto-oligarchy

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Paul Cartledge is continuing his assault on the modern conventions about democracy:

To an ancient Greek democrat (of any stripe), all our modern democratic systems would count as “oligarchy”. By that I mean the rule of and by – if not necessarily or expressly for – the few, as opposed to the power or control of the people, or the many (demo-kratia).

That is the case even if – and indeed because – the few happen to be elected to serve by (all) the people. For in ancient Greece elections were considered to be in themselves oligarchic. They systematically favoured the few and, more particularly, the few extremely rich citizens – or “oligarchs”

[…T]here are a number of ancient democratic notions and techniques that do seem highly attractive: the use of sortition, for instance – a random method of polling by lottery that aimed to produce a representative sample of elected officials. Or the practice of ostracism – which allowed the population to nominate a candidate who had to go into exile for 10 years, thus ending their political career.

And comparison, or rather contrast, of our democracies with those of ancient Greece does serve to highlight what’s been called creeping crypto-oligarchy in our own very different (representative, not direct) democratic systems.
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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Citizens’ assemblies are open to manipulation

Posted on May 21, 2016 by keithsutherland

Naomi has just flagged up an interesting article from Village Magazine on the Irish experiments with constitutional conventions in 2011 and 2016 by Eoin O’Malley, one of the participants. The article adds to my concerns that ‘full mandate’ allotted bodies are open to manipulation:

Some research shows that the act of deliberating with others has an impact beyond exposure to arguments or evidence. That is people given the evidence and arguments don’t move as much as those who are asked to discuss that evidence and arguments with others. This sounds like something positive for deliberative mini-publics. But it might not be.

The reason for this is because (as Condorcet demonstrated), independence is the key to getting the ‘right’ answer and this suggests that communication between jurors should not be encouraged — all that is needed is exposure to balanced arguments and evidence (as Goodin and Niemeyer discovered in their study of the Bloomfield Track citizens’ jury). This is distorted by the need to come to collaborative conclusions:

Because they are not independent the same flawed thinking or arguments can be magnified. For instance we could see the citizens in the mini-publics engage in groupthink. Some opinions might be aired, but can be effectively suppressed by the atmosphere in the room. There is significant evidence in social psychology that groups can push opinion to extremes and silence minority opinion. To prevent this great care has to be taken that all views are respected.

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Filed under: Applications, Deliberation, Experiments, Juries, Sortition | 28 Comments »

Literature-related question

Posted on May 17, 2016 by SimonPek

Hi everyone,

I’m wondering whether any readers have insights about books and/or articles which build on/critique John Burheim’s path-breaking and overarching model of demarchy, and/or apply demarchy to non-government organizations such as corporations or unions. I’m conducting some research in this space and haven’t been able to find too much work specifically on demarchy in published work (but have found a lot about specific uses of random selection). Any and all suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Filed under: Academia, Books, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Frijters: Against sortition

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Paul Frijters is a Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland and an Adjunct Professor at the Australian National University’s Research School of Social Sciences.

Frijters has written a post titled “Would sortition help against corruption?” in which he lays out his thinking about “what is likely to happen to the problem of special interests in Australia in two different scenarios: if we’d select our MPs randomly, or if we’d decide on mayor policies via citizen juries.”

Frijters’s concluding paragraphs:

I used to be quite charmed of the idea of citizen juries for policies and even for deciding on who would be in parliament. It sounded so democratic, such an elegant solution to the problem of special interest groups worming their way into our democratic institutions. It seemed like a magic solution for hard problems.

On reflection though, I find myself on the side of Edmund Burke and Socrates, who both denounced the idea as silly and unworkable. I agree with them: it is hard to see what use small random groups of citizens would be for policy-making in modern Western institutions.

An interesting discussion follows the post, with several discussants who seem to be aware of the idea and who seem to have given it some thought.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Juries, Sortition | 10 Comments »

What is a G1000? (Cambridge and London events)

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Brett Hennig

The Sortition Foundation is organising two free events (in London and Cambridge): What is a G1000?

Our aim is to hold one G1000 in London and one in Cambridge in late 2016 or early 2017. As such we are organising these two information sessions “What is a G1000?” with the founders of the Dutch G1000, Harm van Dijk and Jerphaas Donner.

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Filed under: Action, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Sortition is good for investor confidence

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Yoram Gat

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports:

SA Nuclear dump debate to go before citizens’ juries

South Australia will randomly select 400 people to sit on citizens’ juries to consider the state’s approach to its nuclear future.

The juries are part of a public relations exercise Premier Jay Weatherill said would cost less than $1 million this financial year and there would be additional spending after that.

The announcement came a day after the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report said plans for a high-to-intermediate-level waste dump should be actively pursued, if the public wants it.

Mr Weatherill said it was important to have “the fullest and most mature debate that we can possibly organise”.
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Filed under: Applications, Deliberation, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Teaching students government skills

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Patrick Chalmers

Adam Cronkright, co-founder of the Bolivian organisation Democracy in Practice, gives a Democracy Talk audio overview of the group’s findings so far with experiments in student government.

Democracy in Practice has been helping run student councils in a few different Cochabamba secondary schools since 2013, using lottery selection rather than elections to choose candidates.

Doing away with elections allows for a more representative body of students on council, making room for less charismatic or popular pupils to have a chance at government.

Changing selection methods is one thing, governing differently is another – with all the usual challenges of having representatives turn up on time, or at all, learning how to take collective decisions, not dominating proceedings and following through with promised actions.

An encouraging finding, Adam says, is that students can, and do, learn the necessary skills to govern. That raises hopeful prospects for better government in societies who manage to improve their citizens’ governance skills more generally.

An intriguing curiosity, albeit an anecdotal one according to Adam, is how students who appear to stand out as natural leaders, those who might usually get chosen in elections, are often not the best suited to actual government.

Catch the full audio interview below.
 

Filed under: Experiments, Initiatives, schools, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Democracy Talk, Episode 1

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Yoram Gat

Patrick Chalmers and I are aiming to turn this into an ongoing video series. Any comments are welcome.

Filed under: Books, Elections, meta, Sortition | 10 Comments »

Arash Abizadeh: Take electoral reform away from politicians and let citizens decide

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Yoram Gat

David Schecter wrote to point out an article in the Canadian Globe and Mail by Arash Abizadeh, a professor of political science at McGill University:

Take electoral reform away from politicians and let citizens decide

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise to change the way we elect Parliament. Here’s the problem: letting politicians who won the last election decide future election rules is like letting the team who won the last playoff game decide rules for the next game. There’s an obvious conflict of interest. Electoral rules determine who forms government, and different rules favour different parties.

[…]

One solution is a referendum. But the Liberals have ruled this out. Maybe they’re right to do so. Referenda are expensive, few Canadians care much about electoral reform, and fewer still will cuddle up with a treatise on voting systems this Sunday evening. A referendum might be a big waste of money in which few vote and fewer still care to learn about the pros and cons of alternative electoral systems.

But without a referendum, how could electoral reform be legitimized? We need a manifestly fair procedure – a neutral body, unbeholden to politicians, that will reasonably evaluate the alternatives.

Fortunately, political scientists have a solution that fits the bill – a randomly selected citizen assembly. The idea is this: randomly select a few thousand Canadians, ask if they are willing to serve, and, from those saying yes, randomly select 100 to 200 to serve on an assembly empowered to determine federal election rules.
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Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

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