Sortition for Hong Kong

Posted on September 7, 2024 by Yoram Gat

David Cottam is a British historian and former principal of Sha Tin College, an international secondary school in Hong Kong, and a columnist in the China Daily Hong Kong Edition. In a recent column he writes about sortition.

Hong Kong, currently a hybrid of democratic and meritocratic government, is ideally placed for developing [a system with an element of sortition]. Like ancient Athens, its compact size and well-educated population would readily facilitate such a move. Introducing an element of sortition into the Legislative Council would answer the call for greater representation of the people without risking a return to the sort of partisan conflict and obstructionism that previously characterized the legislature. This would establish Hong Kong as a model of modern government, truly representing the people but without the vested interests and divisiveness of warring political parties. Such a system would also reflect Hong Kong’s unique amalgam of Western and Chinese influences, combining democratic values with the nonpartisan Confucian values of harmony and social cohesion. Indeed, this could provide an excellent model of government, not just for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, but for any place wanting to enhance political participation, reduce partisan division, and ensure that the common good rather than party interests always prevails.

Filed under: Elections, History, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 11 Comments »

This Saturday INSA Presents – Sortition and Socialism

Posted on August 28, 2024 by richwbrown

Sortition and Socialism

Online Conference

Saturday, 31 August

– Sunday, 1 September in Asia & Australia –

Free Admission

Google Meet joining info video call link: https://meet.google.com/ntz-xguv-bsb

For more information on times, presenters, topics see the

Conference Website

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. http://www.INSA.site

You are invited to join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/6sgnrphp6w

Filed under: Academia, meeting, Sortition | Leave a comment »

The Demos citizen assemblies report. Part 2

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Yoram Gat

The first post regarding the recently released report by the UK think tank Demos proposing the use of allotted bodies as part of the British political system is here.

In this part of the post, I highlight some quotes collected by the authors of the Demos “Citizens’ white paper“, from their interviews with former and present ministers and civil servants as well as interviews with members of the public at large. The picture which emerges from those interviews is not new: the elites are frustrated that public is too unruly, and that they are making unreasonable demands on the political system. Some of them hope that allotted bodies could be a tool for getting the people in line.

The people, on the other hand, feel that the elites are self serving at their expense. While the idea of giving decision power to allotted bodies is seen favorably, there is a lot of suspicion that this would be just another elite ploy. A member of the public expresses this attitude so:

Overall, no, I don’t think we’ve got a say. You give your vote to one party. And that’s the end of it, basically, you probably like to believe that you’re doing the right thing by voting for that party. But the proof is in the pudding, and I’ve never seen it happen yet.

A civil servant offers an the explanation for this:

Policymakers, be they the politicians and their advisors or the civil servants, do not look like the country either in all of its entirety, and quite a lot of them will not have had to go to the Jobcentre Plus, or many of them, given the age profile, and particularly younger ones will probably have not had to interact with the social care system yet.

This explanation hints at the principle of distinction – the decision makers are different from the public at large. However, the civil servant does not clarify whether they see this difference as resulting in decision makers lacking necessary knowledge, or a in having different interests and world views. A lack of knowledge can presumably be fixed relatively easily, while the second effect is much more stable.

Naturally, an elected politician thinks this difference between decision makers and the public applies to civil servants but the elected are not like this at all. He or she says:

But if you think about it, [civil servants] don’t engage with people day in day out, having discussions with constituents.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Opinion polling, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Democracy Without Shortcuts, A Critique. #2: Deference to a lottocracy needn’t be “blind”

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Roger Knights

Christina Lafont, in her 2020 book, Democracy Without Shortcuts, routinely asserts that, because a minipublic excludes the mass public, the mass public must “blindly defer” to its decisions. Those words at face value imply that the mass public would be blindsided by its decisions. That is not her full meaning, but I’ll criticize that part of it first.

There are four mechanisms by which the public could descry and/or influence the machinations of a lottocracy.

1a. By pairing and “checking” any lottocratic legislative chamber with an elected House.

Any legislation considered in, or passed by, a lottocratic House would be subject to public scrutiny when it reached the elected House, and even before that, during election campaigns for that House. The public would not be taken unawares (for what it is worth). The majority of lottocratic reformers, as far as I know, are only asking for this single-House, or half-a-loaf, power, so Lafont is not justified in insinuating that any empowered lottocratic legislature would be scarily secretive and all-powerful. It would only be influential, and it would have to negotiate openly in compromise-seeking conference committees with its elected counterpart.

1b. By allowing the mass public to veto, by referendum, objectionable minipublic measures. Or by requiring their endorsement, by referendums, by the public.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Books, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 24 Comments »

Britain is no longer a democracy and democracy isn’t working

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Tim Flinn from Garvald in Scotland writes to the East Lothian Courier about sortition, and demonstrates the terminological confusion in which our society finds itself by asserting within the space a few sentences both that “[i]f a democracy is defined a ‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’ then Britain is no longer one”, and that “[d]emocracy isn’t working”.

Your interview with our MP was welcome and he emerged as a sincere and decent man.

I wish him the best, but guarantee that after five years of government, the main issues we have today will have barely been touched.

There will be several reasons for this but an important one is that our democracy is not fit for purpose – for starters, far more of us didn’t vote for Mr Alexander’s winning party than did.

That means his party has the underwhelming support of a minority of the citizens.
Continue reading →

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

INSA Presents: Sortition and Socialism

Posted on August 13, 2024 by richwbrown

Sortition and Socialism

Saturday, August 31, 2024

– Sunday, September 1st in Asia & Australia –

15:00 – 19:00 UTC

Conference Website

Google Meet joining info video call link: https://meet.google.com/ntz-xguv-bsb

You are invited to join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/6sgnrphp6w

Filed under: Academia, meeting, Sortition | Leave a comment »

The Demos institute tries to sell allotted citizen assemblies to the Labour government

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Yoram Gat

The UK institute Demos describes itself as follows:

Founded in 1993 in response to a shortage of new ideas in British politics, we’ve spent three decades cementing our place as a trusted expert on democratic renewal, public service reform and digital rights. As movements, ideologies and governments have come and gone, our commitment to collaborative politics has remained a constant at the heart of the British political landscape.

The institute has a recently published a report titled a “Citizens’ white paper”, written by four authors: Miriam Levin, Polly Curtis, Sarah Castell, and Hana Kapetanovic. The policy proposals revolve around introducing randomly selected citizen bodies of various flavors into the UK political system. For example:

RECOMMENDATION 1: Announcement of five flagship Citizens’ Panels to feed into new Mission Boards

Showcase a new partnership between government and the public by announcing a role for citizens in the Mission Boards: a Citizens’ Panel of 100 randomly selected and demographically representative people for each Mission Board. These Citizens’ Panels will help to refine the priorities within each mission, work through trade-offs and choices inherent in actions considered by Mission Boards, and inform the Missions’ policies to give people a stake in meeting the challenges ahead.

The report suffers from much the same weakness as most of the sortition-related work of academics and institution-related experts. The authors address themselves to established powers in the UK – elected politicians and the civil service. The report is aimed to convince this audience that setting up allotted bodies would be useful them – increasing legitimacy for their decisions, reducing public resistance and distrust.
Continue reading →

Filed under: House of Lords, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Getting beyond the DEI candidate

Posted on July 24, 2024 by Nicholas Gruen

I think advocates of sortition should be pointing out the many ways it might be adapted to various different circumstances of our political life. This elides the more fundamental discussion of a preferred constitution, but rather naturalises the idea of sortition as part of the political repertoire. It shows its promise and versatility in helping to detox the current system.

Accordingly here’s something tweeted today —with the full text reproduced below the tweet.

People say an open convention would tear the Democrats apart.Yet again, the Dems are letting powerplays within their party determine their candidate. But Kamala is the Claudine Gay candidate. High DEI score, low on accomplishment, talent and charisma. Dems could get the right answer and unite their party — and the country using a variant of the way Venetians chose their officeholders and became the most stable polity in Europe for 500 years. An elective constitutional monarchy no less (like the US). I’d pick 50 Democrats and 50 American voters by lottery, have them meet, deliberate and each vote SECRETLY (like Venetian electors did). If you remove all the incentives to get the answer wrong, people usually get it RIGHT. Who knew?

https://x.com/NGruen1/status/1815982404542341347

PS: the new interface is so bad, I can’t do better than this I’m afraid.

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Dharmawardana and Wilson keep up the good work

Posted on July 20, 2024 by Yoram Gat

The first step toward the application of sortition for the democratization of society is not to convince elites that sortition would be a good tool for them to use, as many academics seem to believe, but to disseminate the idea widely among the population, so that it becomes a live political possibility. For this to happen, the few who are aware of this idea need to tirelessly take advantage of every opportunity to advocate for sortition.

Chandre Dharmawardana and Phil Wilson are advocates for sortition (each in their own country and situation), whose writings have been cited here before. Each of those has recently written again, demonstrating the spirit of consistent dedication to the cause of democracy.

Dharmawardana wrote in the Sri Lankan The Island:

In my opinion, a way around [the practical and theoretical problems with elections] is to abandon electoral methods and return to the method of SORTITION advocated by Aristotle and used in several Hellenic cities during the time of Pericles.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Juries, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Rory Stewart’s Long History of Ignorance

Posted on July 13, 2024 by Nicholas Gruen

Followers of this site will be intrigued to know what I think is a really first-rate radio documentary from Rory Stewart, which reframes knowledge in a Socratic or Confucian way, which is to say, starting from our vast ignorance both before and after we learn all we can. There are six episodes with the fourth on politics where Rory bangs the sortition drum pretty loud. You can click through to the whole series on this link or to the sortition episode by clicking the image below or the mp3 file which I’ve also appended below.