Empowered Minipublics for Democratic Renewal? Evidence from Three Conjoint Experiments in the United States, Ireland, and Finland
Saskia Goldberg, Marina Lindell and André Bachtiger
Abstract
This article investigates the potential of deliberative minipublics to provide a new set of institutions for democratic renewal. Using three preregistered and identical conjoint experiments in the United States, Ireland, and Finland, it first shows that minipublics are moderately attractive institutional innovations, but that in all three country contexts, citizens in general are very reluctant to grant them empowerment and autonomy as well as ask for additional provisions (such as large size or large majorities for recommendations). Subgroup analyses, however, reveal that especially participation in minipublics as well as trust in other citizens as decision-makers in combination with low political trust produces more support for empowered and autonomous minipublics. But what stands out in the empirical analysis is that most citizens want minipublics as additions to the representative system, not as a replacement of the existing democratic infrastructure, as some minipublic advocates have suggested.
As is common in this genre, the conclusions are that citizens are conservative and suspicious about giving citizen bodies decision-making power. Thus, the authors say, it is up to political experts to design institutions that would “win” the support of those citizens. Such conclusions are convenient on two counts. First, they provide cover for the conservatism of the authors themselves, and second they entrust the authors, their colleagues in academia, and their benefactors in the halls of power, with the crucial role of designing any possible reforms to the system. Continue reading →
The launch issue of the Journal of Sortition is nearing completion. You can read the Foreword and Table of Contents at imprint-academic.com/sortition-hub and also register for a free printed and bound inspection copy, to be mailed to you on publication.
Ian is an advocate for democratic sortition, land value taxation, corporate ownership reform, and intellectual property reform. He is a lottery-selected board member for Democracy Without Elections, a US-based sortition nonprofit. He is also a member of Common Ground USA, a US-based land reform nonprofit.
The Mirror recently ran an article about Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, currently the youngest member of the House of Lords. She is a Plaid Cymru nominee for a peerage who advocates for both Welsh independence and a randomly-selected House of Lords.
Meet the youngest House of Lords member plotting to bring it down from the inside
Next week, the Baroness will speak in favour of radical change at an event in Westminster calling for a House of Citizens – where every person in the country would have the chance to be randomly selected for a stint in the second chamber, as for jury service.
Just out: an article proposing that Australia select its Head of State through a multi-stage process involving sortition at the beginning and the end. The author doesn’t really seem to endorse the idea; rather, he just offers it as an alternative that’s “a little bit whacky.” Here’s the link:
I’d like to spark a discussion about everyone’s favorite topic: funding.
I’ve just written an article about some of the research in nonprofit funding here: How to Fund a Movement for Sortition. Unfortunately it’s nowhere near exhaustive as I am no expert in nonprofits nor social movements. The article goes over how most American 501c3 nonprofits are funded and what kind of strategies they pursue.
Nicholas Coccoma writes about sortition in the Boston Review. While some of the narrative is standard, Coccoma makes some crucial points that are often avoided by the prominent members of the sortition milieu.
The Case for Abolishing Elections
They may seem the cornerstone of democracy, but in reality they do little to promote it. There’s a far better way to empower ordinary citizens: democracy by lottery.
In response to [popular] discontent, reformers have proposed a slew of solutions. Some want to expand the House of Representatives, abolish the Electoral College, or eliminate the Senate. Others demand enhanced voting rights, the end of gerrymandering, stricter campaign finance laws, more political parties, or multi-member districts and ranked-choice voting. The Athenians would take a different view. The problem, they would point out, lies in elections themselves. We can make all the tweaks we want, but as long as we employ voting to choose representatives, we will continue to wind up with a political economy controlled by wealthy elites. Modern liberal governments are not democracies; they are oligarchies in disguise, overwhelmingly following the policy preferences of the rich. (The middle class happens to agree with them on most issues.) Continue reading →
Using Sortition and Georgism to reclaim the Earth for Everyone, One Plot at a Time
All life and civilization depend on nature. A fundamental function of government is to secure natural territory and develop rules for allocating its use. Efforts to legitimize the sovereignty of the people (sortition) must contend with the challenge of securing territory. This facilitated discussion explores how we might use the neoliberal world order, the corporate/legal tools of oligarchs, and the trend towards privatization to sidestep this challenge in the name of democracy.
Can we claim the Earth for everyone, one plot at a time, by aligning people’s self interest with a global, sortition-controlled land trust?
Ian Troesoyer is an advocate for democratic sortition, land value taxation, corporate ownership reform, and intellectual property reform. He is a lottery-selected board member for Democracy Without Elections, a US-based sortition nonprofit. He is also a member of Common Ground USA, a US-based land reform nonprofit. Ian holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice and works as a nurse practitioner and epidemiologist in Idaho, USA. His advocacy is informed by his interest in promoting healthy communities and his belief in the utility of representative random samples.
INSA is a volunteer organisation aimed at connecting pro-sortition academics, advocates, and activists around the world, to share resources and tactics and advance the theoretical understanding of sortition. www.INSA.site
A little more than a year ago, Adam Grant offered sortition to the readers of The New York Times. Now Daniel Pink offers it to the readers of the The Washington Post. Interestingly, and encouragingly in terms of the foothold that the idea of sortition may now have gained, Pink writes that he is merely echoing proposals made by readers whose ideas for “improving our country, our organizations or our lives” were solicited by the Post.
On Election Day, we affirm with our actions an unspoken principle of governance: The fairest and most democratic way to determine who wields public power is by asking citizens to cast ballots.
But what if there’s an alternative — not autocracy or monarchy but a more radical form of democratic representation and popular sovereignty?
“Why not make serving in Congress like jury duty?” asks a reader in Salt Lake City. “If you meet the criteria, you could be selected to serve for a term, which would give a broader cross-section of people representing regular Americans.”
The article is typical in the sense that instead of engaging with arguments previously made it merely repeats such previous arguments, even when these were addressed and refuted. (And even if they are transparently self-contradictory.)
It’s a bit nutty — complicated and replete with unintended consequences. But first, let’s examine its virtues. Continue reading →
Once our “allotteds” have had their names drawn, what role should they play? I suggest that of elector rather than officeholder, for these reasons.
Most importantly, imposing a low burden on the participating-allotteds means that many of them will be available to oversee officeholders for the entirety of their terms, not just at Election Day. (Electors will see, over a private Internet channel, monthly reports from “their” officeholders and their critics. For which they will be well paid.)
Electors can throw their weight around during inter-election periods by signaling to their officeholders, e.g. via straw votes, their preference regarding bills up for debate. So there is not much real loss of power in being an elector.
Perhaps the most important advantage of elevating the allotteds only to electorhood is that it leaves existing officeholders in place, at least until the next election. This will arouse less opposition from members of the status quo, and make for a smoother transition.
A new paper in the American Political Science Review covers some very well explored ground.
The launch issue of the Journal of Sortition is nearing completion. You can read the Foreword and Table of Contents at 
Just out: an article proposing that Australia select its Head of State through a multi-stage process involving sortition at the beginning and the end. The author doesn’t really seem to endorse the idea; rather, he just offers it as an alternative that’s “a little bit whacky.” Here’s the link:
Nicholas Coccoma 
A little more than a year ago, Adam Grant 
Adam Cronkright
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H.J. Hofkirchner
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Equality by lot 