Demiocracy, Chapter 21: “Wide” mass electorates attract and empower Propaganda

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Roger Knights

Already weakened by the vast impersonal forces at work in the modern world, democratic institutions are now being undermined from within by politicians and their propagandists. The methods now being used to merchandise the political candidate as if he were a deodorant positively guarantee the electorate against ever learning the truth about anything. —Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958, VI.

We vote, indeed we perceive political reality, through the people with whom we are in contact. Most of us are reached by the mass media only in a two-step process, by way of other people’s perceptions and reactions to them. —Hanna F. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, 1967, p. 223.

… it has also become evident that if one acts ruthlessly …, cleverly organized propaganda can accomplish swift and drastic changes in opinions and attitudes, especially in difficult and critical situations; it can … also instill patently false ideas about actual conditions. — Daniel Boorstin, The Image, 1961.

Regarding one of those Pernicious P’s, Wikipedia says the following [2024-07-01] about the influential author Edward Bernays and his book, Propaganda (1928):

[Bernays] outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them [the masses] in desired ways. Bernays later synthesized many of these ideas in his postwar book, Public Relations (1945), which outlines the science of managing information released to the public by an organization, in a manner most advantageous to the organization.

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Democracy Without Shortcuts, A Critique. #1: A false equivalency is drawn between electoral misanthropy and electoral misogyny 

Posted on June 29, 2024 by Roger Knights

Among the major handicaps a reformer can encounter is the opposition of the indignant virtuous …. —E.S. Turner, Roads to Ruin: The shocking history of social reform, 1960.

Cristina Lafont’s 2020 book, Democracy Without Shortcuts, unfairly attacks lottocracy as invidiously exclusionary. A false equivalence is asserted between lottocrats’ current “existential” criticism of the political capability of mass publics and misogynists’ past “essentialist” criticism of the political capability of women (and sometimes of other marginalized groups). Lafont writes, for instance:

… The empirical evidence provided to supposedly ‘prove’ women’s ignorance, irrationality, apathy, and irresponsibility, and the arguments put forth to perpetuate their subjection to others in the not too distant past, are remarkably similar to the arguments and evidence currently provided by the ‘voter ignorance’ literature.
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Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Demiocracy, Chapter 20: True democracy needs Depth more than it needs electoral Width

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Roger Knights

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power. —Emerson, Representative Men, ch. 1.

The incompetence of the masses … furnishes the leaders with a practical and to some extent a moral justification. —Robert Michels, Political Parties, 1915, 111.

The weaker the interest and knowledge of the electorate, the more decisive become the efforts of organized groups in molding opinion. This situation alone implies a tendency toward oligarchy within democracy …. —Herbert Tingsten, The Problem of Democracy, 1965, p. 102.

Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. —Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History, 1968, p. 273.

Proxy Electors will be better informed than effectively “imbecilic” mass-voters, because they will be focused on a single responsibility. They will not have a dozen other political issues competing for their attention. They will instead be exposed to opportunities to delve deeply into their sole topical area, such as online lectures by experts, testimony by insiders and whistleblowers, audiobooks by investigative reporters, etc. Much of it should soak in.

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“A Random Group of People” editorial in Seattle and town hall on Citizens’ Assemblies

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Ahmed R. Teleb

the Stranger, perhaps Seattle’s most widely read newspaper, has recently published an editorial by Ansel Herz, a former Congressional staffer in DC, now serving as communications director for Democracy Next, recently founded by Claudia Chwalisz (of OECD & Parisian Citizens’ Assembly fame).

In fact, this is what “democracy” actually is. In the 5th century B.C., the Greeks of ancient Athens coined demokratia to describe their carefully designed lottery system, under which any citizen was able to serve in parliamentary, administrative, and judicial bodies. Demokratia is not politicians, elections, and parties; the Greeks would have abhorred those, as many ordinary people—perhaps even you—do to this day.

“Their greatest gift was their passion for democracy,” observed the Trinidadian writer C.L.R. James in his 1956 essay, “Every Cook Can Govern”. The Athenians believed that elections were undemocratic; Aristotle called them “oligarchic.” It’s common sense that when only a handful of people can hold power, corruption is likely.

The Greeks recognized that whoever runs for elected office in the first place usually projects a peculiar power-seeking personality type. Having spent a lot of time around candidates who’ve won and lost, let me tell you: the Greeks were right.

After introducing sortition, Herz mentioned America in One Room, the Irish Citizens’ Assembly, and Brussels’s recent introduction of its own permanent CA.

In 2019’s “America In One Room”, for example, Stanford researchers organized an assembly of 526 Americans to deliberate for a long weekend. The group did not combust from anger and tension, nor did the participants retreat to their bubbles and cling to their beliefs. They found common ground around issues of trade, wages, immigration, and more. Democrats reported a 13-point increase in positive feelings toward Republicans; Republicans felt 14 points more favorably toward Democrats. Ninety-five percent of participants said they “learned a lot about people very different from me,” and 98 percent said they found the experience “valuable.”

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Filed under: Athens, meeting, Participation, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | Tagged: , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

The Trans-Atlanticist Podcast Features Sortition

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Ahmed R. Teleb

Antoine Vergne (of Mission Publique) and I were invited guests on the American cultural center Hamburg’s podcast for two episodes over the last two weeks.

The discussion was much too short to be anything new to regular readers of EbL, but I wanted to post it as another sign of the mainstream acceptance of the idea of sortition. Another disclaimer, the Amerikazentrum is a propaganda outfit for the US & German foreign ministries. So, as expected, the framing of the show starts with cliched talking points about Brexit, Ukraine, autocracy v. democracy, etc…

I think the discussion went slightly beyond the “representation” argument. In particular, Antoine made some interesting points about the non-adversarial nature of assemblies as compared to referenda. Quite interesting for me was his story about how he happened upon “Stochacracy.” As an undergraduate, I believe, he wrote a research paper that ended with the line: “Stochocrats of the world unite!”

My own intervention was not particularly interesting but I tried to reference a variety of literature including democratic critiques of allotted minipulbics in the show notes.

Part 1: https://thetrans-atlanticist.podigee.io/s4e2-a-better-democracy-is-possible-part-1-an-introduction-to-sortition-and-deliberation

Part 2: https://thetrans-atlanticist.podigee.io/s4e3-a-better-democracy-is-possible-part-2-from-theory-to-real-world-application

Let me know your thoughts, and perhaps we could crowd source a list of recent podcasts & videos on sortition.

Filed under: Deliberation, meta, Participation, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 14 Comments »

Martin Wolf on Democratic Capitalism (and me as it turns out!)

Posted on February 4, 2023 by Nicholas Gruen

Martin Wolf is talking up a storm on the crisis of democratic capitalism, and he’s supporting sortition as you can hear from around 11 minutes in where I’ve set it up to begin.

In case you’re interested, here’s the presentation he gave before the panel session recorded above.

Filed under: Applications, Books, Elections, House of Lords, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , | 19 Comments »

The Case for Abolishing Elections

Posted on November 9, 2022 by Nick Coccoma

Just in advance of Election Day here in the USA, Boston Review has published my article on why getting a real democracy requires that we replace elections with lotteries, career politicians with everyday citizens. Grateful to Terry Bouricius, Brett Hennig, and Adam Cronkright for allowing me to interview them for this piece.

In the ancient world, lot meant “destiny.” The Athenians believed that it was the fate of selected citizens to serve. Views on providence have changed, but whether we channel the will of the gods or merely our own earthly dreams, democracy by lottery would empower us to combat oligarchy, give voice to the multitude, and put ordinary citizens in the room where decisions are made. The question is not whether American democracy will die, but whether it will be instituted for the first time.

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Invitation to The Similitude

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Nick Coccoma

Hello, Kleroterians! Nick Coccoma here from Boston, USA. I’ve been a follower of the blog and member of the sortition movement for several years now, after I discovered the theory and practice in the wake of the 2016 Presidential Election. In the years since, I’ve been a part of The Sortition Foundation and Democracy Without Elections, and published an article on sortition a couple of years ago for the journal New Politics.

Last February I launched my own Substack newsletter, The Similitude, where I cover politics, culture, and religion. I’ve written several posts on sortition, including a recent one entitled “Real Democracy Now: How Americans Can Win Self-Government.” It makes the case for sortition and features original interviews with our own Brett Hennig, Terry Bouricius, and Adam Cronkright. In your kindness, consider subscribing to the newsletter and sharing it in your circles as I seek more readers. I’d love to have the Kleroterians join the conversation. Many thanks for your ongoing work to bring about real democracy in our time!

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First Municipal Citizens Assembly in California

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Wayne Liebman

The northern California city of Petaluma (pop. 60,000) recently budgeted $450,000 for a Citizens’ Assembly chosen by lot to recommend a plan for the future use of its municipal fairground–a contentious issue that had been plaguing the city for several years. The Petaluma CA is the first municipal citizens assembly in California. The plan passed the city council unanimously.

The panel runs from mid-May to mid-July 2022, will deliberate over 90 hours, and is tasked with providing three policy reports on the question, “How might we use the City’s fairgrounds property to create the experiences, activities, resources, and places that our community needs and desires now and for the foreseeable future?”

The panelists will develop, write, and edit the reports themselves, and will deliver them to the Fair Board and City Council. The reports are advisory, though the council and board are expected to thoroughly consider and publicly respond to them.  

Healthy Democracy, best known for their work on the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review, has been designated moderator for the CA. Their work involves design and implementation of the CA process, and facilitating deliberation.

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The Irish Times: Colleges expect spike in random selection

Posted on September 4, 2021 by Conall Boyle

The Irish Times reports:

Colleges expect spike in random selection: High-points courses in health, law, pharmacy and science most likely to be affected

A system of lottery entry for equal-scoring candidates has been in place in Ireland since 2009. It seems that this year’s exceptional circumstances (Covid) has led to a ‘spike’ in its use.

Perhaps the headline should have read:

For those scoring equally high points, despite (a Covid-related) spike in top scores, random selection (a lottery) will sort out who wins a place

The article continues:

Universities fear they will have to restrict entry to more high-points courses on the basis of “random selection” this year due to record-breaking Leaving Cert results.

Results this year climbed to a new high with a sharp increase in the number of students securing top H1 grades.

Senior university sources expect they will have to introduce more random cut-off points for entry into high-demand courses such as medicine, dentistry, law, pharmacy and science when CAO offers issue on Tuesday next.
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Filed under: Applications, Distribution by lot, education, Press, schools | Tagged: , | 8 Comments »

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