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 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
Filed under: Action, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: Congress, democracy, government_by_the_people, legislative_juries, Looking_at_Democracy, random_selection, sortition, voice_equality | 4 Comments »
Daniel McFadden of UC Berkley produced a paper in 2011 which is mostly about what he calls Economic Juries. This is just like the German CJs that we have heard about previously from Antoine Vergne which were tasked with deciding whether to go ahead with new public infrastructure projects. So it’s interesting to see economists picking up on this idea.
McFadden’s paper has the anodyne title The Human Side of Mechanism Design, and you can read the paper on my website www.conallboyle.com
I found it the paper his website, but academics could obtain it from Athens. McFadden is one of the better guys, an economist who understands a bit about real humans.
The main ‘mechanism’ he investigates is the use of a jury to decide issues of public spending. Apart from a passing reference to deciding if a new park should be established at Boulder, Colorado, no actual examples of Economic Juries are given. But the theoretical reasons for using an EJ, they methods that could be used to inform them and elicit their real opinions are explored — in other words can a jury work? can it decide correctly? can it evade the human failings of bias, framing, short-termism etc. etc.?
Warning! This paper is a bit wonkish (to use Krugman’s phrase).
So CJs (or EJs to use McFadden’s term): They would be an alternative to the democratic, elected representatives deciding. Would EJs work better? At what? Discovering the General Will perhaps???
Filed under: Applications, Juries, Opinion polling, Participation, Theory | 3 Comments »
“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: Juries, random selection, Randomness | 28 Comments »
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 »
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 »
News about ‘Democracy’ from Iceland
If Iceland demonstrates the possibilities of direct democracy, recent months have also exposed its limitations. A row still rages over the country’s constitution, which was created after its economic collapse. When 950 Icelanders, randomly chosen from the national register, gathered for one day in 2010 to decide its founding principles it was hailed as the world’s first “crowd-sourced” constitution. Continue reading
Filed under: Ballot measures, Distribution by lot, Initiatives, Participation | 1 Comment »
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 »
“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 »
Adam Cronkright
Ali
Ahmed R. Teleb
avanderven
avergne
Alex Kovner
azakaras
Brett Hennig
campbellwallace
Simon Threlkeld
Nick Coccoma
codyhipskind
Common Lot Sortitionist
Conall Boyle
constitutionalism
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graytmatter
gtridimas
H.J. Hofkirchner
Hanspeter Rosenlechner
James Kierstead
John Burnheim
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shaharavin
tbouricius
Ted Wachtel
Joshua Laferriere
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towardsautonomyblog
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Yoram Gat
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Equality by lot 