Equality by lot

Between Burke and the Anti-Federalists: An Epistemic Argument for Descriptive Representation

Posted on May 11, 2011 by keithsutherland

New paper by Helene Landemore (Yale) just uploaded to SSRN:

Abstract: This paper proposes an interpretation of representative assemblies that strikes a conceptual middle ground between Burke’s ideal of an assembly of trustees and the Anti-Federalists’ ideal of a mirror image of the people. The normative appeal of this conceptual middle ground is supported by an argument emphasizing the epistemic properties of a descriptive assembly of trustees deliberating about the common good. Building on findings about the importance of cognitive diversity for efficient collective problem-solving, the paper argues that given the nature of political problems, a case can be made for the epistemic superiority of descriptively representative assemblies over less accurately descriptive ones. The paper further defends sortition as the best way to ensure descriptive representation over alternatives such as quotas and gerrymandering.

Keywords: representation, deliberation, cognitive diversity, epistemic democracy, delegates, trustees, Burke, Anti-Federalists

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 1 Comment »

Representing Diversity

Posted on May 7, 2011 by keithsutherland

I’ve recently stumbled on an interesting paper by Bob Goodin from BJPS 2004 (full text in draft form here):

Abstract: ‘Mirror representation’ or a ‘politics of presence’ presupposes relatively modest levels of diversity among those being represented. If the groups to be represented are too numerous, internally too heterogeneous or too cross-cutting, too many representatives will be required for the assembly to remain a deliberative one where ‘presence’ can have the effects its advocates desire. In those circumstances, what is being represented ought be conceptualized as the ‘sheer fact of diversity’ rather than ‘all the particularities of the diversity among us’. The appropriate response to that is legislative reticence.

Goodin starts the paper by affirming the difference between the Federalist and Anti-federalist perspective at the Philadelphia Convention: the Federalists “thought it unnecessary (as well as unwise) for the legislature to mirror the population at large”, whereas the Anti-federalists thought it desirable but ‘wildly impractical’ in so large a union. Goodin cites Hamilton’s rejoinder to the Anti-federalist argument (Federalist 35, para 9):

It is said to be necessary, that all classes of citizens should have some of their own number in the representative body, in order that their feelings and interests may be the better understood and attended to. But we have seen that this will never happen under any arrangement that leaves the votes of the people free. Where this is the case, the representative body, with too few exceptions to have any influence on the spirit of the government, will be composed of landholders, merchants, and men of the learned professions. But where is the danger that the interests and feelings of the different classes of citizens will not be understood or attended to by these three descriptions of men?

According to Goodin, the reason the Anti-federalists did not pursue their argument vigorously was because the resulting legislature would be so large that it would inhibit deliberation. Nevertheless there was a marked difference in desiderata between the two competing factions.

Goodin’s paper goes on to explore the problem of the size of the legislature based on ‘representing with mirrors’. His starting point is Anne Phillips’s Politics of Presence, which is concerned with the representation of particular ‘disadvantaged groups’ such as women and ethnic minorities: given that the composition of legislatures fails to mirror these groups in the electorate, then their interests will fail to be respected (the implicit assumption being that a legislature composed of white males will adequately reflect the interests of all white males). The emphasis on specific ‘disadvantaged groups’ means that Goodin fails to consider sortition as the solution.

I haven’t got round to reading Politics of Presence yet, but notice that Phillips does consider sortition in the introduction. Is she sympathetic to it or is the problem that sortition is not sufficiently radical to meet the agenda of those seeking to improve the lot of whatever disadvantaged group happens to be the focus of activist interest at any particular time (proletarians, women, ethnic minorities, gays/lesbians etc etc)? Can anyone enlighten us further on this?

Filed under: Books, Sortition, Theory | 5 Comments »

Sydney J. Harris: I would like to see American officeholders drawn by lot

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Yoram Gat

A short article by syndicated columnist Sydney J. Harris was published in the March 1960 issue of The Rotarian under the title “Pick Leaders Out of a Hat?“. The article – a reprint from the Chicago Daily News – takes a bold stance in its first paragraph:

The chief thing wrong with democracy is that it is not democratic enough. I would like to see American officeholders drawn by lot, as they often were in ancient Greece.

Harris’s proposal finds little favor with the four discussants invited by the The Rotarian to respond. The responses range from

I doubt we should dignify his [Harris’s] proposal by giving time, thought, and paper to it,

to the milder

Obviously, everyone’s name cannot go into the hat – the results could be too entirely fantastic – so the would have to be some plan of selection. It is altogether likely that any suitable selection arrangement would gradually develop into nothing but a duplication of the present system.

Filed under: Sortition | 2 Comments »

John Spritzler: Real Democracy = Ordinary People Make the Laws

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Yoram Gat

In November 2008, the following non-binding question was placed on the ballot of the Somerville district, MA:

Shall the state representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a proposal to amend the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to replace the state Legislature with 100 randomly selected adult residents of the Commonwealth, each serving a one year term, to be called the Commonwealth Jury and to have all the legislative and other powers of the current Legislature?

The upcoming vote triggered an exchange of mostly scornful comments at the Davis Square discussion board.

The initiator of the proposal was apparently, John Spritzler, Research Scientist at a major School of Public Health in Boston, MA. Spritzler reports that the question won the support of 23% of the voters.

Filed under: Initiatives, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Participatory Budgeting

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Common Lot Sortitionist

Here’s an example that demonstrates that citizens can effectively grapple with the difficult issue of budgeting. The only piece missing, as far as true ‘government by the people’ is concerned, is that the groups convened to make these decisions should be randomly selected. Otherwise, it is only those who have the time and personal interest who ‘solve’ the community’s issues.

Government can’t solve budget battles? Let citizens do it.

To resolve the budget battles tearing apart Congress and state and local governments, politicians should look to a new model of citizen involvement: participatory budgeting.

Filed under: Participation, Sortition | 13 Comments »

Conall Boyle on university admittance: (3) who gains?

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Yoram Gat

This is the third and last part of this article. The first two parts are 1 and 2.

In a democratic society university admittance policy would be set according to the informed decision of the members of the society – possibly through a representation by an allotted decision-making chamber. The decision makers would have to consider what would be the advantages and disadvantages of possible admittance policies and attempt to design a system that would create maximum benefit for the maximum number of people. (Indeed, in a democratic society, all aspects of university policy, such as the procedure for setting the curriculum, should also be designed so as to maximize the benefit for society as a whole.)

Two effects of the admittance policy that merit consideration are its impact on slot availability and its impact on the ideological stance of the members of the public regarding the benefits of university education. Both of those considerations indicate that a lottery-based admittance policy has clear advantages over the achievement-based policy. While I think that the long term objective for the university system should be to provide quality education to all who seek it, the advantages of the lottery-based admittance system make it both a reasonable system for societies that cannot afford to provide education to all, and make it a good tool for creating a shared interest in reaching this desirable goal.

1. Slot availability

As Conall Boyle emphasizes, the possibility of employing a lottery emerges when a resource is scarce. If the number of applicants to a certain university course is smaller than the available number of slots, then neither a lottery nor any other filtering method is needed. Why, then, are the university slots scarce? Does this scarcity represent the best interests of society? On the face of it, it seems that the natural response to high demand for university slots would be to attempt generate more slots. Would it be difficult to do so?

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Filed under: Books, Distribution by lot, schools | 27 Comments »

Machiavellian Democracy

Posted on April 14, 2011 by keithsutherland

John P. McCormick’s new book (Machiavellian Democracy, CUP, 2011) is a fascinating attempt to appropriate insights from Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy (1513-17) in order to moderate some of the worst excesses of modern ‘democracy’ – in particular the Florentine’s advocacy of class-based magistracies to constrain the oppressive ‘humor’ of the grandi (political elite). Machiavelli’s template for this is the institutions of the Roman republic, especially the People’s Tribunes. Roman Tribunes were elected exclusively from plebeian ranks and were charged with popular advocacy; McCormick’s suggestion is that a modern equivalent (for the US) might involve fifty-one tribunes selected by an annual sortition from the whole population (apart from the wealthiest 10% of family households). The powers of the tribunes would be three-fold (p.184):

1. To veto, by majority vote, one piece of congressional legislation, one executive order and one Supreme Court decision p.a.

2. To call one annual referendum p.a. which, if ratified, would take on the force of federal statute.

3. To initiate impeachment proceedings against one federal official from each of three branches of government. McCormick is particularly attracted to the Roman practice of political trials – any citizen could publicly accuse magistrates of malfeasance and this would prompt a hearing in a voting assembly, which could comprise the entire citizenry.

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Filed under: Books, Distribution by lot, Elections, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 12 Comments »

The Triumph of Election

Posted on April 11, 2011 by keithsutherland

Why did the American founders ignore the case for sortition? It was well known at the time that sortition was one of the primary mechanisms of Athenian democracy and this explains why Madison and his Federalist chums (who were no democrats) ignored it. But even Antifederalists (who argued the democratic case for descriptive representation) failed to propose sortition as a means to establish a legislature that was a ‘portrait in miniature’ of the whole community. According to Bernard Manin it was philosophy – in the form of the Natural Right theory of consent – that was the principle cause of the ‘triumph of election’ (Manin, 1997, Ch.2). But is this true?

James Fishkin points out that the etymological root of ‘deliberation’ (deliberationem) is ‘weighing’ (2009, p.35), so when a randomly-selected assembly member of an allotted chamber (AC) ‘like me’ weighs up the arguments and judges accordingly then I am descriptively represented. But is it possible to take this further and argue that I thereby consent to the judgment of a randomly-selected assembly? The argument for this further claim would need to take the following lines (paraphrasing Fishkin, 2009):

Someone ‘like’ me would, ex hypothesi, exercise judgment in the same way that I would myself. The argument does not require a definition of the ‘likeness’ criteria (age, gender, occupation, political preferences etc.), as the randomization process in principle reflects the incidence of any quality in the general population.
The number of representatives ‘like me’ in an allotted assembly would be proportionate to the number in the general population. If the sample is not sufficiently fine-grained to accurately reflect the distribution of any quality deemed to be salient to the exercise of political judgment then the sample numbers would need to be increased accordingly: only a relatively small sample would be needed to provide an accurate gender balance, whereas the proportional representation of, say, albinos or molecular microbiologists would require a larger sample. The rapid growth of the polling industry is a testimonial to the accuracy and validity of the probability sampling principle.
Therefore the aggregate judgment of the allotted assembly would represent the considered judgment of the whole population. This was the principle behind the nomothetai (legislative assemblies) introduced in fourth-century Athens.
All electors are currently deemed to consent to the results of a general election, whether or not ‘their’ candidate was victorious; so the same principle should apply to the result of a vote in an allotted assembly (the only difference being the employment of one or other of the two mechanisms – election or sortition – that constitute a ‘ballot’.) Although one might argue that the ‘consent’ involved is at best tacit, hypothetical (or some other form of ‘useful fiction’), the same is true in both instances of the ‘ballot’.

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Filed under: Distribution by lot, Elections, History, Sortition | 36 Comments »

Pomper: The concept of elections in political theory

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Yoram Gat

In a 1967 paper, “The concept of elections in political theory”, Gerald M. Pomper briefly mentions “election by lot”.

The paper begins with an assertion:

Popular elections are generally assumed to be the crucial element of democratic governments, but the significance of elections is so widely assumed that it is rarely examined. Although studies of voting behavior abound, there are relatively few theoretical or empirical investigations of the effects of voting on the total political system.

This is an overstatement. Schumpeterian theory was well known and widely discussed at least as late as the 1950’s (e.g., Dahl’s A Preface to Democratic Theory) and a part of that theory is an analysis of the function of elections – an analysis that attacks the “classical doctrine of democracy”. Pomper seems to mean that there is little work attempting to defend the “classical doctrine”. His own defense is to a large extent a capitulation. He gives up on the hope of a representative government and is satisfied with the claim that elections “give the voters a means of protection, a method of intervention in politics when their vital interests were being threatened.” Of course, even this modest claim is not obvious and Pomper doesn’t offer a theoretical argument for its plausibility.

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