Claudio López-Guerra: “The enfranchisement lottery”

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Yoram Gat

Claudio López-Guerra, an assistant professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City, has a new paper, “The enfranchisement lottery“, part of an upcoming book on the right to vote.

Abstract:

This article compares the ‘enfranchisement lottery’, a novel method for allocating the right to vote, with universal suffrage. The comparison is conducted exclusively on the basis of the expected consequences of the two systems. Each scheme seems to have a relative advantage. On the one hand, the enfranchisement lottery would create a better informed electorate and thus improve the quality of electoral outcomes. On the other hand, universal suffrage is more likely to ensure that elections are seen to be fair, which is important for political stability. This article concludes that, on balance, universal suffrage is prima facie superior to the enfranchisement lottery. Yet the analysis shows that the instrumental case for the ‘one person, one vote’ principle is less conclusive than democratic theorists usually suppose.

Keywords: voting rights, mini-publics, citizen juries, deliberation, democracy, lotteries

Filed under: Elections, Sortition, Theory | 7 Comments »

The delegation game

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Yoram Gat

Randomization is a standard solution in problems of game theory. In this context, randomization is used to baffle an adversary, who would be able to counter any deterministic strategy (assuming that that strategy was known to her) more effectively than she would be able to counter a randomized strategy. Thus, randomization is a maximin strategy: it guarantees the randomizer the best possible worst-case outcome. Sortition – a randomized strategy for selecting political delegates – can be advocated on similar grounds.

In a standard conception of the problem of selecting delegates, the people can assess the quality of any possible delegate set. They do so and then choose the delegation that maximizes that quality. Thus, in this conception, delegation is a maximization problem.

An alternative conception is one where the quality of potential delegations is difficult to assess. In such a situation, selecting a delegation requires some way to handle the uncertainty. Continue reading →

Filed under: Sortition, Theory | 21 Comments »

Lecture on Lotteries

Posted on November 15, 2010 by peterstone

Before leaving California, I gave a talk to a local Palo Alto group called the Humanist Community on lotteries. The talk can now be found online:

Filed under: Theory | 32 Comments »

“Representation and Randomness,” Part Two

Posted on November 11, 2010 by peterstone

After a long hiatus, I’d like to return to commenting on Constellations’ recent symposium on “Representation and Randomness.” (See part one of this review.) To take up where I left off…

Hubertus Buchstein entitled his contribution to the symposium “Reviving Randomness for Political Rationality: Elements of a Theory of Aleatory Democracy.” In this contribution, Buchstein promises to “show that incorporating the factor of chance might…be of interest for contemporary democracies in terms of reform policy and how it could be achieved in practice.” In doing so, he attempts an ambitious array of tasks. The paper begins by “listing five potential functions of the lottery in the realm of politics” (p. 436). It then briefly considers the reintroduction of lotteries to modern politics via the American jury. (Two small historical quibbles: while it is true, as Buchstein says, that U.S. law has required random jury selection only since 1968, the practice was used at various times since the early days of the Republic. Also, the random selection of American military conscripts predates the Vietnam War. It was used in World War II, for example.) Then it addresses some theoretical problems raised in contemporary democratic theory (primarily by Habermas). Then it examines various recent small-scale projects involving randomly-selected citizens (notably James Fishkin’s deliberative opinion polls). Then it considers how random selection might address the problems of contemporary democratic theory that were raised earlier. It concludes with a few additional reform proposals involving random selection that might be worthy of further consideration.

Continue reading →

Filed under: History, Sortition, Theory | 2 Comments »

A New Book on Lotteries

Posted on November 2, 2010 by peterstone

Not to blow my own horn, but this announcement from Oxford University Press seemed pertinent to this blog…

The Luck of the Draw

The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making
Peter Stone

Filed under: Distribution by lot, Theory | 3 Comments »

Lottery and Legislative Powers: A Reply to Yoram Gat

Posted on October 1, 2010 by azakaras

In his recent blog post, “The Elected Legislator’s Burden,” Yoram Gat challenges one of the arguments of my essay, “Lot and Democratic Representation.”  In that essay, I argue that the U.S. Senate (along with state Senates) should be abolished and replaced with a citizens’ chamber, with its members chosen by lottery. In short, I propose that we preserve bicameral legislatures, but with one chamber filled through election and the other by lot. I argue, however, that the citizens’ chamber should have fewer powers and responsibilities than the elective chamber. It should have the power to veto any legislation ratified by the elective chamber; it should also have the power to draw district boundaries for the elective chamber and to compel a floor vote in that chamber on any legislation introduced there.

            Gat challenges my reluctance to grant the citizens’ chamber “full parliamentary powers – to set its own agenda, initiate legislation and draft its own legislative proposals.”  He suggests that citizens chosen by lottery are capable of wielding these powers responsibly—or, at least, that there is every reason to expect that they will do so as responsibly as elected legislators. He lays out several arguments in support of this claim, and I will consider each in turn.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 17 Comments »

“Representation and Randomness” in Constellations

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Yoram Gat

The September issue of the journal Constellations contains four articles under the heading “Representation and Randomness”. The articles are:

  • Representation, Responsive and Indicative by Philip Pettit
  • Reviving Randomness for Political Rationality: Elements of a Theory of Aleatory Democracy by Hubertus Buchstein
  • Lot and Democratic Representation: A Modest Proposal by Alex Zakaras
  • Random Selection, Republican Self-Government, and Deliberative Democracy by Yves Sintomer

Filed under: History, Sortition, Theory | 2 Comments »

A Paper and a Book Review

Posted on June 4, 2010 by peterstone

The current issue of the journal Social Science Information (vol. 49, no. 2, June 2010) features a lead article entitled “Three Arguments for Lotteries.” In addition, the current issue of Philosophical Quarterly (vol. 60, issue 240, July 2010) features a book review of Oliver Dowlen’s The Political Potential of Sortition. The relevant links are as follows:

http://ssi.sagepub.com/current.dtl

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117997268/home

The author of both pieces, Peter Stone, is a noted authority on lotteries. I recommend his work very highly to you all (he says tongue firmly planted in cheek).

Filed under: Distribution by lot, Sortition, Theory | 2 Comments »

Lottery Voting

Posted on April 20, 2010 by peterstone

I’m reading Allan Gibbard’s paper on Lottery Voting, i.e., the “Random Dictator” rule. According to this rule, people vote for candidates the same way they normally would, but instead of the votes being counted, one vote is selected at random, and the outcome of that vote implemented. (“Manipulation of Schemes that Mix Voting with Chance,” Econometrica 45, April 1977). There have been a number of philosophical discussions of the idea over the years–most notable Akhil Reed Amar’s paper in the Yale Law Journal (1984)–but Gibbard’s paper is the central paper on the mathematics of the rule. Unhappily, the paper is very technical, and I find myself stuck at one point in the argument. Does anyone know the paper particularly well? I could use some guidance here.

Filed under: Elections, Sortition, Theory | 4 Comments »

Jorge Cancio: Invitation to a Debate

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Yoram Gat

Invitation to a Debate: Sortition and Sortition Chambers as Institutional Improvements of Democracy by Jorge Cancio. The English abstract follows. Main text is in Spanish.

I start off inviting my readers to exercise their imagination and then explaining a proposal of creating new “sortition chambers” on all administrative levels – from a chamber at the same level as the present-day Spanish Congress and Senate down to sortition chambers for each municipality. They essentially would be an addition to present-day institutions and would partake in the powers which are held today by elected representatives and officials, although the proposal envisages that in the short run they could be out-voted by the elective institutions. They would exercise their powers according to deliberative procedures.

Continue reading →

Filed under: History, Sortition, Theory | 6 Comments »

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