In
governance
Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the gove ...
, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political
officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. The system intends to ensure that all competent and interested parties have an equal chance of holding public office. It also minimizes
factionalism, since there would be no point making promises to win over key constituencies if one was to be chosen by lot, while
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ...
, by contrast, foster it. In ancient
Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
.
Today, sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in
common-law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
systems and is sometimes used in forming
citizen groups with political advisory power.
History
Ancient Athens
Athenian democracy developed in the 6th century BC out of what was then called
isonomia
''Isonomia'' (ἰσονομία "equality of political rights,"Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English LexiconThe Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes", Mogens Herman Hansen, , p. 81-84 from the Greek ἴσος ''isos'', ...
(equality of law and political rights). Sortition was then the principal way of achieving this fairness. It was utilized to pick most
[''The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes'', Mogens Herman Hansen, ] of the
magistrates
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...
for their governing committees, and for their juries (typically of 501 men).
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
relates equality and democracy:
In Athens, "democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was in opposition to those supporting a system of
oligarchy
Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...
(rule by a few). Athenian democracy was characterised by being run by the "many" (the ordinary people) who were allotted to the committees which ran government.
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His '' History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of " scienti ...
has
Pericles
Pericles (; grc-gre, Περικλῆς; c. 495 – 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Pelo ...
make this point in his Funeral Oration: "It is administered by the many instead of the few; that is why it is called a democracy."
![AGMA Kleroterion](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/AGMA_Kleroterion.jpg)
The Athenians believed sortition, not elections, to be democratic
[ and used complex procedures with purpose-built allotment machines ('' kleroteria'') to avoid the corrupt practices used by oligarchs to buy their way into office. According to the author ]Mogens Herman Hansen
Mogens Herman Hansen FBA (born 20 August 1940, Frederiksberg) is a Danish classical philologist and classical demographer who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis.
Academic career
Hansen finished his masters at Un ...
, the citizen's court was superior to the assembly because the allotted members swore an oath which ordinary citizens in the assembly did not, therefore the court could annul the decisions of the assembly.
Both Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
[ and ]Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
(one of the earliest writers on democracy) emphasize selection by lot as a test of democracy, writing, "The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (''isonomia''), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public."[Herodotus The Histories 3.80.6]
Past scholarship maintained that sortition had roots in the use of chance to divine the will of the gods, but this view is no longer common among scholars. In Ancient Greek mythology, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades used sortition to determine who ruled over which domain. Zeus got the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld.
In Athens, to be eligible to be chosen by lot, citizens self-selected themselves into the available pool, then lotteries in the kleroteria machines. The magistracies assigned by lot generally had terms of service of one year. A citizen could not hold any particular magistracy more than once in his lifetime, but could hold other magistracies. All male citizens over 30 years of age, who were not disenfranchised by atimia
Atimia (Ατιμία) was a form of disenfranchisement used under classical Athenian democracy.
Under democracy in ancient Greece, only free adult Greek males were enfranchised as full citizens. Women, foreigners, children and slaves were not fu ...
, were eligible. Those selected through lot underwent examination called dokimasia In Ancient Greece, dokimasia (Greek: δοκιμασία) was the name used at Athens to denote the process of ascertaining the capacity of the citizens for the exercise of public rights and duties.
If, for instance, a young citizen was to be admitt ...
to avoid incompetent officials. Rarely were selected citizens discarded. Magistrates, once in place, were subjected to constant monitoring by the Assembly. Magistrates appointed by lot had to render account of their time in office upon their leave, called euthynai. However, any citizen could request the suspension of a magistrate with due reason.
Lombardy and Venice – 12th to 18th century
The ''brevia'' was used in the city states of Lombardy during the 12th and 13th centuries and in Venice until the late 18th century. Men, who were chosen randomly, swore an oath that they were not acting under bribes, and then they elected members of the council. Voter and candidate eligibility probably included property owners, councilors, guild members, and perhaps, at times, artisans. The Doge of Venice was determined through a complex process of nomination, voting and sortition.
Lot was used in the Venetian system only in order to select members of the committees that served to nominate candidates for the Great Council. A combination of election and lot was used in this multi-stage process. Lot was not used alone to select magistrates, unlike in Florence and Athens. The use of lot to select nominators made it more difficult for political sects to exert power, and discouraged campaigning. By reducing intrigue and power moves within the Great Council, lot maintained cohesiveness among the Venetian nobility, contributing to the stability of this republic. Top magistracies generally still remained in the control of elite families.
Florence – 14th and 15th century
S''crutiny'' was used in Florence for over a century starting in 1328. Nominations and voting together created a pool of candidates from different sectors of the city. The names of these men were deposited into a sack, and a lottery draw determined who would get to be a magistrate. The scrutiny was gradually opened up to minor guilds, reaching the greatest level of Renaissance citizen participation in 1378–1382.
In Florence, lot was used to select magistrates and members of the Signoria during republican periods. Florence utilized a combination of lot and scrutiny by the people, set forth by the ordinances of 1328. In 1494, Florence founded a Great Council in the model of Venice. The nominatori were thereafter chosen by lot from among the members of the Great Council, indicating a decline in aristocratic power.
The Enlightenment
During the Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, many of the political ideals originally championed by the democratic city-states of ancient Greece were revisited. The use of sortition as a means of selecting the members of government, however, was not strongly advocated for by many of the more prominent Enlightenment thinkers. In fact, in those few cases in which sortition is discussed in Enlightenment literature, it is generally treated dismissively; even those Enlightenment philosophers who do address the subject of sortition and acknowledge some of its merits tend to ultimately decide against it as a selective method.
Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the princi ...
, for example, whose classic work ''The Spirit of Laws
''The Spirit of Law'' (French: ''De l'esprit des lois'', originally spelled ''De l'esprit des loix''), also known in English as ''The Spirit of the Laws'', is a treatise on political theory, as well as a pioneering work in comparative law, publis ...
'' is often quoted in support of sortition, provides one of the most direct discussions of the concept in Enlightenment political writing. “The suffrage by lot,” he argues, “is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to aristocracy.” In making this statement about the democratic nature of sortition, Montesquieu echoes the philosophy of much earlier thinkers such as Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
, who also viewed election as aristocratic. However, Montesquieu rejects the use of sortition without much further consideration. “Yet as this method is in itself defective,” he continues, “it has been the endeavor of the most eminent legislators to regulate and amend it.” Other writers, such as Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
and Harrington, also acknowledge the link between sortition and democracy, though they too demonstrate an unwillingness to accept it as the foundation of government.
Bernard Manin, a French political theorist, points out the surprising nature of sortition’s decline during the Enlightenment in his book ''The Principles of Representative Government''. “What is indeed astonishing,” he says, “in the light of the republican tradition and the theorizing it had generated, is the total absence of debate in the early years of representative government about the use of lot in the allocation of power.” There are several possible explanations as to what forces caused this demonstrated disinterest in the use of sortition in modern government. The first potential explanation that Manin offers is that the choosing of rulers by lot may have been viewed as impractical on such a large scale as the modern state. A second possible explanation is that it was viewed as incompatible with the Enlightenment view of political consent.
Switzerland
Because financial gain could be achieved through the position of mayor, some parts of Switzerland used random selection during the years between 1640 and 1837 to prevent corruption.
India
Local government in parts of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...
such as the village of Uttiramerur
Uthiramerur is a panchayat town in Kancheepuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is situated 90 km south west of Chennai, the capital of Tamilnadu. It is noted for its temple inscriptions that describe a self-governance system ...
traditionally used a system known as kuda-olai where the names of candidates for the village committee were written on palm leaves and put into a pot and pulled out by a child.
Methods
Before the random selection can be done, the pool of candidates must be defined. Systems vary as to whether they allot from eligible volunteers, from those screened by education, experience, or a passing grade on a test, or screened by election by those selected by a previous round of random selection, or from the membership or population at large. A multi-stage process in which random selection is alternated with other screening methods can be used, as in the Venetian system.
One robust, general, public method of allotment in use since 1997 is documented in RFC 3797: Publicly Verifiable Nominations Committee Random Selection. Using it, multiple specific sources of random numbers (e.g., lotteries) are selected in advance, and an algorithm is defined for selecting the winners based on those random numbers. When the random numbers become available, anyone can calculate the winners.
David Chaum, a pioneer in computer science and cryptography, proposed Random-Sample Elections in 2012. Via recent advances in computer science, it is now possible to select a random sample of eligible voters in a verifiably valid manner and empower them to study and make a decision on a matter of public policy. This can be done in a highly transparent manner which allows anyone to verify the integrity of the election, while optionally preserving the anonymity of the voters. A related approach has been pioneered by James Fishkin, director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford, to make legally binding decisions in Greece, China and other countries.
In Ancient Greece, a Kleroterion
A kleroterion ( grc, κληρωτήριον) was a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the boule, to most state offices, to the nomothetai, and to court juries.
The kleroterion w ...
was used to select eligible and willing citizens to serve jury duty. This bolstered the initial Athenian system of democracy by getting new and different jury members from each tribe to avoid corruption.
Modern application
Sortition is most commonly used to form citizens' assemblies. As an example, Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
council initiated a citizens' assembly that met in 2014–15 in order to assist in city planning.
Sortition is commonly used in selecting juries in Anglo-Saxon legal systems and in small groups (e.g., picking a school class monitor by drawing straws Drawing straws is a selection method, or a form of sortition, that is used by a group to choose one member of the group to perform a task after none has volunteered for it. The same practice can be used also to choose one of several volunteers, shou ...
). In public decision-making, individuals are often determined by allotment if other forms of selection such as election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
fail to achieve a result. Examples include certain hung elections and certain votes in the UK Parliament. Some contemporary thinkers have advocated a greater use of selection by lot in today's political systems, for example reform of the British House of Lords and proposals at the time of the adoption of the current Constitution of Iraq.
Sortition is also used in military conscription, as one method of awarding US green cards, and in placing students into some schools.
Democratic governance of non-governmental organizations
Sortition also has potential for helping large associations to govern themselves democratically without the use of elections. Co-ops, employee owned businesses, housing associations, Internet platforms, student governments, and countless other large membership organizations whose members generally do not know many other members yet seek to run their organization democratically often find that elections are problematic. The essential leadership decisions are made by the nomination process, often generating a self-perpetuating board whose nominating committee selects their own successors. Randomly selecting a representative sample of members to constitute a nominating panel is one procedure that has been proposed to keep fundamental control in the hands of ordinary members and avoid internal board corruption.
Examples
*Law court juries
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England dur ...
are formed through sortition in some countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom.
* Citizens' assemblies have been used to provide input to policy makers. In 2004, a randomly selected group of citizens in British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
convened to propose a new electoral system. This Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was repeated three years later in Ontario's citizens' assembly
A citizens' assembly (also known as citizens' jury or citizens' panel or people's jury or policy jury or citizens' initiative review or consensus conference or citizens' convention) is a body formed from randomly selected citizens to delibera ...
. However, neither assembly's recommendations reached the required thresholds for implementation in subsequent referendums.
*MASS LBP
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
, a Canadian company inspired by the work of the Citizens' Assemblies on Electoral Reform, has pioneered the use of Citizens' Reference Panels for addressing a range of policy issues for public sector clients. The Reference Panels use civic lotteries, a modern form of sortition, to randomly select citizen-representatives from the general public.
* Democracy In Practice, an international organization dedicated to democratic innovation, experimentation and capacity-building, has implemented sortition in schools in Bolivia, replacing student government elections with lotteries.
*Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
Consensus conferences give ordinary citizens a chance to make their voices heard in debates on public policy. The selection of citizens is not perfectly random, but still aims to be representative.
*The South Australian Constitutional Convention was a deliberative opinion poll created to consider changes to the state constitution.
*Private organizations can also use sortition. For example, the Samaritan Ministries health plan sometimes uses a panel of 13 randomly selected members to resolve disputes, which sometimes leads to policy changes.
* The Amish use sortition applied to a slate of nominees when they select their community leaders. In their process, formal members of the community each register a single private nomination, and candidates with a minimum threshold of nominations then stand for the random selection that follows.
* Citizens' Initiative Review at Healthy Democracy uses a sortition based panel of citizen voters to review and comment on ballot initiative measures in the United States. The selection process utilizes random and stratified sampling techniques to create a representative 24-person panel which deliberates in order to evaluate the measure in question.
*The environmental group Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk o ...
has as one of its goals the introduction of a Citizens' assembly
A citizens' assembly (also known as citizens' jury or citizens' panel or people's jury or policy jury or citizens' initiative review or consensus conference or citizens' convention) is a body formed from randomly selected citizens to delibera ...
that is given legislative power to make decisions about climate and ecological justic
*Following the 1978 Meghalaya Legislative Assembly election
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd go ...
, due to disagreements amongst the parties of the governing coalition, the Chief Minister's position was chosen by drawing lots.
* In 2015 the city of Utrecht randomly invited 10,000 residents, of whom 900 responded and 165 were eventually chosen, to participate in developing its 2016 energy and climate plan.
* In 2019, the German speaking Ostbelgien region in Belgium, implemented the Ostbelgien Model, consisting of an 24-member Citizen's Council which convenes short term Citizen's Assemblies to provide non binding recommendations to its parliament. Later that same year both the main
Main may refer to:
Geography
* Main River (disambiguation)
**Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany
* Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province
*"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries
...
and French-speaking parliaments of the Brussels-Capital Region
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
voted to authorize setting up mixed parliamentary committees composed of parliamentarians and randomly selected citizens to draft recommendations on a given issue.
* In 2013 the New Zealand Health Research council began awarding funding at random to applicants considered equally qualified.
Political proposals for sortition
As part of reworking the state
*John Burnheim
John Burnheim (born in 1927 in Sydney, Australia) is a former professor of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Early career
Burnheim was formerly a Catholic priestStove D.A Farewell to Arts from ''Quadrant'' May 1986, rep ...
, in his book ''Is Democracy Possible?'', describes a political system in which many small "citizen's juries" would deliberate and make decisions about public policies. His proposal includes the dissolution of the state and of bureaucracies. The term demarchy he uses was coined by Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
for a different proposal, unrelated to sortition, and is now sometimes used to refer to any political system in which sortition plays a central role.
*Influenced by Burnheim, Marxist economists Allin Cottrell and Paul Cockshott
William Paul Cockshott (born 16 March 1952) is a Scottish computer scientist, Marxian economist and a reader at the University of Glasgow. Since 1993 he has authored multiple works in the tradition of scientific socialism, most notably '' Towar ...
propose that, to avoid formation of a new social elite in a post-capitalist society, " e various organs of public authority would be controlled by citizens' committees chosen by lot" or partially chosen by lot.
*L. León coined the word ''lottocracy'' for a sortition procedure that is somewhat different from Burnheim's demarchy. While "Burnheim ... insists that the random selection be made only from volunteers", León states "that first of all, the job must not be liked". Christopher Frey
Christopher Frey (; born 1959, Bonn, West Germany) is a German writer. He grew up in a political and international environment as his father worked for the US embassy. He received a music education at the school of music of the Regensburger Domspa ...
uses the German term and recommends testing lottocracy in town councils. Lottocracy, according to Frey, will improve the direct involvement of each citizen and minimize the systematical errors caused by political parties in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
.
*Anarcho-capitalist writer Terry Hulsey detailed a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to randomize the election of congressmen and senators, and indirectly, the President of the United States. The key to its success, in his opinion, is that the critical selection of the initial pool of candidates is left strictly to the states, to avoid litigation regarding "fairness" or perfect randomness.
To replace elected legislative bodies
*C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are i ...
's 1956 essay "Every Cook Can Govern" suggested to select, through sortition, a large legislative body (such as the U.S. Congress) from among the adult population at large.
*Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach (April 3, 1929 – April 16, 2012) was an American author, film critic, editor, and simple living adherent. He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel '' Ecotopia'' (1975).
Life and work
Born ...
and Michael Phillips push for random selection of the U.S. House of Representatives in their book ''A Citizen Legislature
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
'' (1985). They argue this scheme would ensure fair representation for the people and their interests, an elimination of many realpolitik
''Realpolitik'' (; ) refers to enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical ...
behaviors, and a reduction in the influence of money and associated corruption, all leading to better legislation.
*Étienne Chouard
Étienne Chouard (born 21 December 1956)Ariane Chemin"Étienne Chouard, Don Quichotte du non" (paying archive)(archived copy of the article oscribd, ''Le Monde'', 12 May 2005. is a French high school teacher, blogger, and political activist.
Bio ...
, a French political activist, proposes replacing elections with sortition.
* Terry Bouricius, a former Vermont legislator and political scientist, proposes in a 2013 journal article how a democracy could function better without elections, through the use of many randomly selected bodies, each with a defined role.
*In 2015, Graham Kirby proposed using sortition to reform the UK House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
in ''Disclaimer'' magazine.
*In his 2017 presidential election platform, French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise
La France Insoumise (FI or LFI; ; "France Unbowed") is a left-wing populist political party in France, launched in 2016 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former co-president of the Left Party (PG). It aims ...
lays out a proposal for a sixth republic. The upper house of this republic would be formed through national sortition. Additionally, the constituent assembly
A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...
to create this republic would have 50% of its members chosen in this way, with the remainder being elected.
To choose legislative juries
*Simon Threlkeld, in the 1998 journal article "A Blueprint for Democratic Law-Making: Give Citizen Juries the Final Say" and later articles, proposes that laws be decided by legislative juries rather than by elected politicians or referendums.[Articles on sortition by Simon Threlkeld](_blank)
/ref> The existing legislatures would continue to exist and could propose laws to legislative juries, but would no longer be able to pass laws. Citizens, public interest groups and others would also be able to propose laws to legislative juries.
To decide the franchise
*Simon Threlkeld, in the 1997 journal article "Democratizing Public Institutions: Juries for the selection of public officials" and later articles, proposes that a wide range of public officials be chosen by randomly sampled juries, rather than by politicians or popular election. As with "convened-sample suffrage", public officials are chosen by a random sample of the public from a relevant geographical area, such as a state governor being chosen by a random sample of citizens from that state.
*"Convened-sample suffrage" uses sortition to choose an electoral college for each electoral district.
To supplement or replace some of the legislators
"Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators Can Improve Parliament Efficiency"
shows how the introduction of a variable percentage of randomly selected independent legislators in a Parliament can increase the global efficiency of a legislature, in terms of both number of laws passed and average social welfare obtained (this work is in line with the recent discovery that the adoption of random strategies can improve the efficiency of hierarchical organizations "Peter Principle Revisited: a Computational Study").
*Political scientist Robert A. Dahl
Robert Alan Dahl (; December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are ...
suggests in his book ''Democracy and its critics'' (p. 340) that an advanced democratic state could form groups which he calls minipopuli. Each group would consist "of perhaps a thousand citizens randomly selected out of the entire demos", and would either set an agenda of issues or deal with a particular major issue. It would "hold hearings, commission research, and engage in debate and discussion". Dahl suggests having the minipopuli as supplementing, rather than replacing, legislative bodies.
*The House of Commons in both Canada and the United Kingdom could employ randomly selected legislators.
*The ratio of legislators decided by election to those decided by the lottery is tied directly to the voter turnout percentage. Every absentee voter is choosing sortition, so, for example, with 60% voter turnout a number of legislators are randomly chosen to make up 40% of the overall parliament. Each election is simultaneously a referendum on electoral and lottery representation.
*Political science scholars Christoph Houman Ellersgaard, Anton Grau Larsen and Andreas Møller Mulvad of the Copenhagen Business School
Copenhagen Business School (Danish'': Handelshøjskolen i København'') often abbreviated and referred to as CBS (also in Danish), is a public university situated in Copenhagen, Denmark and is considered one of the most prestigious business schoo ...
suggest supplementing the Danish parliament, the , with another chamber consisting of 300 randomly selected Danish citizens to combat elitism and career politicians, in their book (''Tame the Elite'').
To replace an appointed upper house
*The upper house
An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restric ...
of a parliament might be selected through sortition. Anthony Barnett, Peter Carty and Anthony Tuffin proposed this to the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in the UK in 1999.
Advantages
Representation of the population
A modern advocate of sortition, political scientist John Burnheim
John Burnheim (born in 1927 in Sydney, Australia) is a former professor of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Early career
Burnheim was formerly a Catholic priestStove D.A Farewell to Arts from ''Quadrant'' May 1986, rep ...
, argues for systems of sortition as follows:
This advantage does not equally apply to the use of juries
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England dur ...
.
Better efficiency
Magnus Vinding in his book ''Reasoned Politics'' argues that one of the main advantages of sortition is its comparative efficiency: first, according to the author, sortition “could allow political decision-makers to focus on studying and deciding on the relevant issues rather than worrying about sending the right signals to optimize their election prospects.” And second, “resources devoted to zero-sum pursuits, such as election campaigns and lobbies that fund opposing politicians, could instead be devoted to positive-sum endeavors.”
Cognitive diversity
Cognitive diversity is an amalgamation of different ways of seeing the world and interpreting events within it, where a diversity of perspectives and heuristics guide individuals to create different solutions to the same problems. Cognitive diversity is not the same as gender, ethnicity, value-set or age diversity, although they are often positively correlated. According to numerous scholars such as Page and Landemore, cognitive diversity is more important to creating successful ideas than the average ability level of a group. This "diversity trumps ability theorem" is essential to why sortition is a viable democratic option. Simply put, random selection of persons of average intelligence performs better than a collection of the best individual problem solvers.
Fairness
Sortition is inherently egalitarian in that it ensures all citizens have an equal chance of entering office irrespective of any bias in society:
Random selection has the ability to overcome the various demographic biases in race, religion, sex, etc. apparent in most legislative assemblies. Greater perceived fairness can be added by using stratified sampling. For example, the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in British Columbia sampled one woman and one man from each electoral district and also ensured representation for First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
members. Bias may still exist if particular groups are purposefully excluded from the lottery such as happened in Ancient Athens where women, slaves, younger men and foreigners were not eligible.
Democratic
Greek writers who mention democracy (including Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
,[ ]Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, and Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
) emphasize the role of selection by lot, or state outright that being allotted is more democratic than elections. For example, Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
says:
Anti-corruption
Sortition may be less corruptible than voting. Author James Wycliffe Headlam explains that the Athenian Council (500 administrators randomly selected), would commit occasional mistakes such as levying taxes that were too high. Additionally, from time to time, some in the council would improperly make small quantities of money from their civic positions. However, "systematic oppression and organized fraud were impossible." These Greeks recognized that sortition broke up factions, diluted power, and gave positions to such a large number of disparate people that they would all keep an eye on each other, making collusion fairly rare. Furthermore, power did not necessarily go to those who wanted it and had schemed for it. The Athenians used an intricate machine, a kleroterion
A kleroterion ( grc, κληρωτήριον) was a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the boule, to most state offices, to the nomothetai, and to court juries.
The kleroterion w ...
, to allot officers. Headlam also explains that "the Athenians felt no distrust of the lot, but regarded it as the most natural and the simplest way of appointment."
Like Athenian democrats, critics of electoral politics
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...
in the 21st-century argue that the process of election by vote is subject to manipulation by money and other powerful forces, and because legislative elections give power to a few powerful groups, they are believed to be a less democratic system than selection by lot from among the population.
Empowering ordinary people
An inherent problem with electoral politics
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections m ...
is the over-representation of politically active groups in society who tend to be those who join political parties. For example, in 2000 less than 2% of the UK population belonged to a political party, while in 2005 there were at best only 3 independent MPs (see List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected
This is a list of members of the United Kingdom House of Commons who were elected as an independent or as a member of a minor political party.
Excluded are the Speaker, who traditionally stands for re-election without party affiliation, and MP ...
) so that 99.5% of all UK MPs belonged to a political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
.
Additionally, participants grow in competence by contributing to deliberation. Citizens are more significantly empowered by being a part of decision-making that concerns them. Most societies have some type of citizenship education, but sortition-based committees allow ordinary people to develop their own democratic capacities through participation.
Less political polarization
Elected representatives typically rely on political parties in order to gain and retain office. This means they often feel a primary loyalty to the party and will vote contrary to conscience to support a party position. Representatives appointed by sortition do not owe anything to anyone for their position.
Sortition could also reduce political polarization
Political polarization (spelled ''polarisation'' in British English) is the divergence of political attitudes away from the center, towards ideological extremes.
Most discussions of polarization in political science consider polarization in the ...
by removing some of its sources like election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
campaigns and lobbies. In a broader cultural context, the media would potentially be less centered on presenting politics as a zero-sum
Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is e ...
game for votes between politicians or political parties, which could lead to less political polarization as well.
Statistical properties
The representativeness and statistical properties of institutions like councils (committees), magistrates (cabinets) and juries selected by lot were mathematically examined by Andranik Tangian
Andranik Semovich Tangian (Melik-Tangyan) (Russian: Андраник Семович Тангян (Мелик-Тангян)); born March 29, 1952) is a Soviet Armenian-German mathematician, political economist and music theorist. Tangian is known ...
, who confirmed the validity of this method of appointment.
Disadvantages
Incompetence
The most common argument against pure sortition (that is, with no prior selection of an eligible group) is that it takes no account of skills or experience that might be needed to effectively discharge the particular offices to be filled. Were such a position to require a specific skill set, sortition could not necessarily guarantee the selection of a person whose skills matched the requirements of being in office unless the group from which the allotment is drawn were itself composed entirely of sufficiently specialized persons. This is why sortition was not used to select military commanders ( strategos) in ancient Athens.
By contrast, systems of election or appointment ideally limit this problem by encouraging the matching of skilled individuals to jobs for which they are suited.
According to Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...
(''Memorabilia
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...
'' Book I, 2.9), this classical argument was offered by Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
:
The same argument is made by Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
in his essay ''Reflections on the Revolution in France'' (1790):
Misrepresentation
In case demographic stratification is not rigorously put in place, there is always the statistical possibility that sortition may put into power an individual or group that do not represent the views of the population from which they were drawn. This argument is mentioned by Isocrates in his essay ''Areopagiticus'' (section 23):
This argument applies to juries, but less to larger groups where the probability of, for example, an oppressive majority, are statistically insignificant. The modern processes of jury selection and the rights to object to and exclude particular jurors by both the plaintiff and defence are used to potentially lessen the possibilities of a jury not being representative of the community or being prejudicial towards one side or the other. Today, therefore, even juries in most jurisdictions are not ultimately chosen through pure sortition.
Illegitimacy
Those who see voting as expressing the "consent of the governed
In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political pow ...
" maintain that voting is able to confer legitimacy in the selection. According to this view, elected officials can act with greater authority than when randomly selected. With no popular mandate to draw on, randomly selected politicians lose a moral basis on which to base their authority and are open to charges of illegitimacy.
Since it is statistically unlikely that a given individual will participate in the deliberative body, sortition creates two groups of people, the few randomly chosen politicians and the masses. Identifying the source of sortition's legitimacy has proven difficult. As a result, advocates of sortition have suggested limiting the use cases of sortition to serving as consultative or political agenda-setting bodies.
Enthusiasm
In an elected system, the representatives are to a degree self-selecting for their enthusiasm for the job. Under a system of pure, universal sortition the individuals are not chosen for their enthusiasm. Many electoral systems assign to those chosen a role as representing their constituents; a complex job with a significant workload. Elected representatives choose to accept any additional workload; voters can also choose those representatives most willing to accept the burden involved in being a representative. Individuals chosen at random from a comprehensive pool of citizens have no particular enthusiasm for their role and therefore may not make good advocates for a constituency.
Unaccountability
Unlike elections, where members of the elected body may stand for re-election, sortition does not offer a mechanism by which the population expresses satisfaction or dissatisfaction with individual members of the allotted body. Thus, under sortition there is no formal feedback, or accountability, mechanism for the performance of officials, other than the law.
See also
*Appointment (disambiguation)
Appointment may refer to:
Law
*The prerogative power of a government official or executive to select persons to fill an honorary position or employment in the government (political appointments, poets laureate)
* Power of appointment, the legal ...
*Citizen oversight
Civilian oversight, sometimes referred to as civilian review or citizen oversight, is a form of civilian participation in reviewing government activities, most commonly accusations of police misconduct. Members of civilian oversight or civilian re ...
*Citizens' assembly
A citizens' assembly (also known as citizens' jury or citizens' panel or people's jury or policy jury or citizens' initiative review or consensus conference or citizens' convention) is a body formed from randomly selected citizens to delibera ...
* Cleromancy
*Consensus democracy
Consensus democracy, consensus politics or consensualism is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterized by a decision-making structure that involves and takes into account as bro ...
* Direct democracy
* Jury selection
* Panarchy
*Wisdom of the crowd
The wisdom of the crowd is the collective opinion of a diverse independent group of individuals rather than that of a single expert. This process, while not new to the Information Age, has been pushed into the mainstream spotlight by social infor ...
References
External links
Equality by lot
— news, discussions and general information about sortition
Sorted: Civic lotteries and the future of public participation
How to run a Civic Lottery: Designing fair selection mechanisms for deliberative public processes
List of books dealing with sortition
The Common Lot
"Why Elections Are the Problem and How to Make Democracy Real" by David Grant
Sortition as a sustainable protection against oligarchy
Conference by Etienne Chouard
Random-Sample Voting
– white paper and technical summaries by Chaum et al.
Why a citizen’s parliament chosen by lot would be ‘perfect’
– from the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation
Why elections are bad for democracy
– essay by David Van Reybrouck
Simon Threlkeld
– articles proposing that randomly sampled juries decide laws, and choose public officials.
Evaluation grid for sortition proposals at the legislative_level
Sortition News from the Netherlands
– news on developments related to sortition in the Netherlands, in English
{{voting systems
Ancient Greece
Elections
Rule by a subset of population
Direct democracy
Sampling (statistics)