Rotation; The Stabilizer of Random Selection

Posted on June 15, 2020 by johnedwardtaylor

This is the 4th post in a series on Barbara Goodwin’s classic work on sortition Justice by Lottery, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992. Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3.

Barbara Goodwin’s main concern in Justice by Lottery is to examine how a purely sortition-dominated economy, in the form of what she calls a “total social lottery”, might aid in establishing greater justice and equality. However, she does introduce another technique that grew up at the same time as sortition did in Ancient Athens, that of rotation. Rotation of positions there was assured by default, it seems, simply by establishing term limits and stipulating that a given post can be only held once by any given citizen in their lifetime. Goodwin treats sortition and rotation as so closely compatible that she sometimes treats them as a single process, sortition-rotation. Whereas sortition, run by the cleroterion device, assigns posts at random, rotation assures that all the necessary bases are covered. She explains,

Rotation is not the same as pure chance: it pays some attention to people’s desire for a guaranteed supply of certain things. By contrast, the lottery is based on the idea that surprise and risk are themselves a major part of what people desire. But there could be room in a transformed society for both principles, and they could operate in harmony – unlike, say, rotation and the principle of entitlement. If we could ensure that people’s basic needs were securely satisfied and that highly specialized jobs (which carry their own rewards in terms of work satisfaction) were appropriately filled, there would be sound reasons for distributing non-specialized jobs and scarce goods above a guaranteed minimum via a modified lottery system or by rotation, especially in the case of scarce luxuries. This would add to the spice of life. Such a system would mitigate the two major kinds of social injustice which the ineradicable inequalities in the structure of advanced capitalist societies, combined with the inelasticity of supply of some goods, produce – for example:
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Filed under: Academia, Books, Sortition, Theory | 1 Comment »

Testart on democracy, democratic debate and citizen power, Part 1

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Jacques Testart, a prominent French biologist, is a long-time advocate for citizen power, especially as it concerns control of science-related issues. His work in this area stretches back decades. In 2002 Testart co-founded the Association for Citizen Sciences. In a 2017 interview (Le Comptoir, Part 1, Part 2), parts of which are translated below, Testart discusses democracy, public debate, and citizen control of science.

Science, such as economics, could be a carrier of truth because of its neutrality. However, among other examples, the basic axiom of the Work Law forced through, against the opinion of millions of workers affected, rests on a certain “scientific” concept of economics. This law is a good demonstration that this supposed neutrality which economics maintains is in fact such in the eyes of the minority in power alone. When the social contract is under stress, when the decision-makers prefer Capital over the people, it may be necessary to try and consider about how it is put together, in order to be able to improve democracy. Jacques Testart, formerly a research biologist and “father” of the first French test-tube baby, now devotes his time to this goal, notably through the Association for Citizen Sciences. With this in mind, he has recently published “Rêveries d’un chercheur solidaire“, “L’humanitude au pouvoir – Comment les citoyens peuvent décider du bien commun” and “Faire des enfants demain“. We went to meet him. In the first part we discussed the collapse of democracy, in which the flag barriers of Truth are thoroughly involved. The means for making democracy work are discussed in the second part.

Le Comptoir: We hear here and there that democracy is experiencing a “crisis” of representation. Due to the professionalization of politics, the elected are no longer (if they ever were) really representative of their voters, but are rather members of a political-media-financial oligarchy. What do you think?

Testart: That is obvious, yes. The problem is knowing if those who occupy the leadership circles are leaders or representatives. They consider themselves to be leaders because they are elected, and therefore have popular support. But originally, the rules of the game were aimed at – and things must get back to this – them being only representatives. They ability to initiate during their term should be limited by their initial mandate, accounting for unexpected developments. In no case should they be allowed to take decisions that do not conform to the promises for which they were elected. I believe this is a really fundamental point. It is this which dispirits a lot of people, politically, and leads them to abstain. It lead to the rise of the “everything is corrupt” attitude on which the extreme right prospers.

Le Comptoir: May we say that this crisis of representation is also due to an appalling lack of debate regarding issues regarding which there is a consensus among experts in media? I am thinking specifically regarding assisted reproductive technology and the barrage of articles published daily about new “advanced” technologies, presenting all manner of gadgets and announcing “revolutions” to come, from self-driving cars to the bionic prostheses.
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Filed under: Academia, Ballot measures, Deliberation, Initiatives, Mass action, Opinion polling, Press, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Kleroterion 2.0; Our Once and Future Escape Key

Posted on June 8, 2020 by johnedwardtaylor

This is the third post in a series on Barbara Goodwin’s classic work on sortition Justice by Lottery, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992. The first post is here and the second post is here.

There are mass demonstrations in cities throughout the United States and around the world against racism, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who was recorded being choked to death by a police officer while in custody. Among his last words, “Please, I can’t breathe” are now a slogan repeated and sung around the world, a metaphor for the stifling nature of racialized oppression. Here in Ontario — the Toronto-Niagara Golden Horseshoe region is the most racial and ethnically diverse in the world, a place where immigrants are popular and in Toronto  are actually the majority –there have still been large street demonstrations against deaths-while-in-custody of certain Black and Indigenous people who were suffering from mental illness. Why is it, Toronto activists ask, that money meant to alleviate problems in poor neighbourhoods is directed away from local social workers and towards force, armed police and other arbitrary measures? In the Canadian Parliament, Elizabeth May, leader of the opposition Green Party, summarized a large part of the problem,

She urged an inquiry to weed out white-power groups in Canada and make sure they are not infiltrating police forces. `Because if there is one thing scarier than a white supremacist with a gun, it’s a white supremacist with a gun in uniform.’ (1)

Mr. Floyd’s plea for air resonates so universally because none are guarding the guardians. Clearly, bullies in uniform tasked with enforcing social distancing laws are targeting and persecuting visible minorities, worsening the climate of fear that visible minorities already suffer under. The democratic institutions that depend upon justice, especially but not exclusively the police, to uphold the rule of law are blocking reform and accountability and stifling the very purpose for which they exist, to serve the social good, protect the vulnerable and assure the safety, order and security of everyone, not just the privileged. So, these are the questions of the hour: How can democracies end the perilous insularity of the police? How do we reinstate badly degraded trust in authority? Why is the guardian branch of governance so prone to corruption, bullying and infiltration by sociopaths? How do we end the vicious cycle of escalating violence, reaction and oppression?
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Mass action, Press, Sortition | 27 Comments »

Lotteries during Covid-19

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Conall Boyle

Public housing is allocated via lottery in Trinidad and Tobago:

Five hundred applicants from the public housing database moved one step closer to home ownership when they were selected for assessment interviews during the Housing Draw, which was hosted live by the Ministry of Housing and the Trinidad and Tobago Housing Development Corporation (HDC) on Wednesday.

The HDC said the applicants were selected from a database of 180,000.

The National Housing Allocation Policy, which was developed in 2004, and which guides the HDC, is intended to ensure greater equity in the allocation process so that all applicants, once they are eligible for the programme, have an equal opportunity of being randomly selected for the location of their choice.

In addition to modified random draws which account for 60 percent of allocations per community, the Allocation Policy provides for a 25 percent for emergency cases or those recommended by the Minister; 10 percent allocation to members of the protective service and defence force; and 5 percent for the elderly and persons with disabilities.

To be eligible for public housing, applicants must be twenty-one 21 years and over, resident citizens with a combined household income of under $25,000 and must not own any property.

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The French citizen convention on the climate: the endgame

Posted on June 6, 2020 by Yoram Gat


Florent Gougou and Simon Persico write in La Vie des idées about the approaching culmination of the French citizen convention on the climate and how its work should be translated into policy. They find the use of a referendum particularly appealing. Also included in the article is the useful chart above comparing along several dimensions the makeup of the French National Assembly to that of members of the convention (which were selected to reflect the makeup of the French population).

Deciding together: The citizen convention on the climate and the democratic challenge

Now that the citizen convention on the climate is drawing to a close, how should the proposals of the allotted citizen be made into policy within the framework of the a democratic process? What place and shape should a referendum take within the political decision-making?

In the weekend of June 19 to 21, the 150 citizens allotted to the citizen convention on the climate will meet for the last time in order to conclude their work. Two essential points will be on their schedule. The first is finalizing the list of proposals that they will hand to the executive, and more broadly to the French people. The second is choosing the legal mechanisms by which a decision would be made regarding those proposals: executive orders, legislation or through a referendum.
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Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: | 1 Comment »

Reginald Walter Macan: early sortition advocate

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Yoram Gat

The February 1892 issue of The Classical Review (vol. 6, No. 1/2) has a review by Reginald Walter Macan of James Wycliffe Headlam’s Election by Lot at Athens which was published the year before.

Macan talks approvingly of Headlam’s analysis of the rationale behind the use of sortition in Athens:

The Lot was used in the Athenian democracy for two main purposes, as Mr. Headlam explains clearly enough: to constitute bodies, that represented the sovran people, or were committees, commissions of the same (p. 161); to secure rotation of office (p. 94) — both these purposes being subordinate to the supreme end, the sovranty of the whole people.

However, in regards to the representation function, Macan is radically reinterpreting Headlam. The “representation” discussed in page 161 of Headlam’s book is that of carrying out technical, apolitical functions which require no judgement and which any Athenian would have performed in the same way.

The inspectors, then, were appointed by the people to act as stewards or bailiffs. The people was the owner of a large business establishment; the inspectors had to do the work of superintendence over the workmen which the owner had not time to do himself. They were a committee of the Assembly, or council, who were appointed by lot because they represented the whole people. The whole of the demos could not go together to the dockyards to see that the new ships which had been ordered were properly built, so they deputed a few of their number to do so, and as a matter of course, as in all such committees, made the appointment by lot.
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Taylor: The principle of distinction at Athens

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Yoram Gat

A 2007 paper by Claire Taylor (“From the Whole Citizen Body?”, Hesperia 76, 2007) explores the composition of elected and allotted bodies in Athens.

From the Whole Citizen Body? The Sociology of Election and Lot in the Athenian Democracy

Abstract: In this article the author examines the sociology of selection procedures in the Athenian democracy. The role of election and lot within the political system, the extent (or lack) of corruption in the selection of officials, and the impact of the selection procedure on political life are considered. A comparison of selection procedures demonstrates that the lot was a relatively democratic device that distributed offices widely throughout Attica, whereas elections favored demes near the city. The reasons for these different patterns of participation are examined.

Taylor’s findings, which rely on deme-membership statistics of holders of various Athenian state offices, confirm the theoretical expectations: elections favored city demes while sortition did not.
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Dutch sortition website

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Tegen Verkiezingen (Against Elections) is a dutch website informing and advocating for sortition. In addition to content in Dutch, the website has occasional news about sortition in the Netherlands in English.

A recent item, for example, describes an interview of David Van Reybrouck on Dutch TV on the topic of citizens’ assemblies on climate change – the one in France and a potential one in the Netherlands. In the interview, we learn, Van Reybrouck tells the story of how he met President Macron and how that led to the creation of the French convention citoyenne pour le climat:

Then the interviewer wants to know more on how Van Reybrouck managed to sell the concept of sortition to the French president, Mr. Macron. Van Reybrouck already told about this in the interview on BNR Newsradio a year ago, but now we get to hear some additional details. When one of the guests at the lunch table points out to Macron that Van Reybrouck is working on ‘a revolutionary model for democracy’, Macron immediately gets very interested, forgets about the food on his plate, and concludes after a thirty-minute converstation with Van Reybrouck on sortition: “C’est formidable! C’est formidable!” (That’s wonderful! That’s wonderful!) and expresses “Merci, merci infiniment!” (Thank you so much!) at the end of the conversation. Two weeks later, his prime minister started talking about sortition-based citizens’ assemblies on tv, resulting in the Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat, the French Citizens’ Assmembly (CA) on Climate Change.

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Buchstein: Democracy and lottery: Revisited

Posted on May 22, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Ten years ago Hubertus Buchstein pinned some high hopes on the application of sortition in government (“Reviving Randomness for Political Rationality”, Constellations 17(3), 2010):

[T]he horizon for further development of randomly selected councils boils down to two options. One can either stay on the beaten path and continue working with the experiments and projects described above with their non-binding status. That would amount to supporting commendable projects instructive about democracy, which admittedly remain mere ornaments of the political system’s routines, projects that participants expect to have little tangible influence, thus engendering the problems of motivation. Or the standing of randomly selected councils could be reinforced; their integration in existing institutional arrangements with a clearly defined and binding set of competencies would form the culminating point of such a reform policy.

There is much to be said for the fact that random selection, if used wisely, could prove a useful complement to the procedures in place until now. And if we have the courage to make such changes, there is reason to believe that judicious integration of components of lotteries in modern democracies can contribute to a reform policy model, relevant beyond nation-states and the example of the EU, for coping with the institutional demands of the spatial transformation of democracy beyond the framework of the nation-state currently on the agenda. Resorting to chance in such a program of policy for democracy is not an expression of resignation or fatalism, but instead of democratic experimentalism striving to increase democracy’s potential for rationality.

A decade later, Buchstein is singing a very different tune (“Democracy and lottery: Revisited”, Constalleations 26(3), 2019). Buchstein now opens his article with some accusations directed toward sortition advocates and with some skeptical questions:
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Filed under: Academia, Deliberation, Elections, Press, Sortition | 44 Comments »

Étienne Chouard: Public decision-making from the perspective of the common good, Part 5/5

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Yoram Gat

Previously published parts of this essay are the Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

(ii) Constitutional workshops, a practical tool for popular education for training a multitude of citizen constitution-writers, guardians of the common good

Representative government (falsely called “representative democracy” – a deceptive oxymoron) is a regime of domination of the voters by the elected, was never willfully adopted and was imposed from the outset by the elected (Sieyes, Madison, etc.). The solution will not come from the elected, who are the problem since they usurp the constitutive power. The solution must come from elsewhere: from the citizens themselves.

The emancipation of the voters, their transformation into citizens, demands the institution of their political empowerment and it should therefore be the voters who practice constitution-writing themselves.

1. A citizen worthy of this name must be vigilant, and therefore a constitution-writer

Vigilance has long been described as an essential quality of a citizen.

Plato:

When a man will not himself hold office and rule, his chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse [Republic, Book 1, p. 347c].

Thucydides:

A man who takes no part in political matters we regard not as unambitious but as useless [Pericles’s Funeral Oration, The Peloponnesian War, Book 2.34-46].

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