Sortition and Politics from Radical to Deliberative Democracy – and Back?
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chapter 15 Sortition and Politics From Radical to Deliberative Democracy – and Back? Yves Sintomer 1 Introduction1 On December 11, 2004, after nearly 12 months of deliberation, a Citizen As- sembly, selected by lot from the citizens of British Columbia in Canada, pre- sented its Final Report on Electoral Change to the B.C. Legislature. It proposed to change the electoral system by introducing more proportionality (replac- ing the existing electoral system, the so- called First- Past- the- Post, with a new Single- Transferable Vote system).2 This recommendation was then put to the electorate- at- large in a referendum held concurrently with the 2005 provincial election (in order to come into force, the proposed reform had to win at least 60 per cent of the votes cast throughout the province and at least 50 per cent in 60 per cent of its constituencies. Although it was approved in nearly all the constituencies, the reform received only 57.69 per cent of the votes at the pro- vincial level; the electoral law was therefore not altered in the end). This process seems to have been only one of the most advanced of thou- sands of similar experimental uses of sortition in politics during the last three decades. According to many of the supporters of these deliberative instru- ments, the return of this technique in politics, after centuries of eclipse, im- plies that some of the ideals of ancient democracies are coming back. James Fishkin, who invented the deliberative poll, one such new deliberative devices, describes it as a “neo- Athenian solution” and even argues that “the key infir- mities in modern democracy can find a constructive response in modern re- finements and improvements in the two essential components of the ancient Athenian solution— random sampling and deliberation”.3 Lyn Carson and Bri- an Martin, two of the most convincing advocates of political sortition, express a similar opinion: 1 Translated from the French by Patrick Camiller and Sarah- Louise Raillard. 2 Herath (2007); Waren and Pearse (2008). 3 Fishkin (2015). © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004443006_017 Sortition and Politics 491 The assumption behind random selection in politics is that just about anyone who wishes to be involved in decision-making is capable of mak- ing a useful contribution, and that the fairest way to ensure that everyone has such an opportunity is to give them an equal chance to be involved. Random selection worked in ancient Athens. It works today to select juries and has proved, through many practical experiments, that it can work well to deal with policy issues […] For democracy […] to be strong, it must contain the essential element of citizen participation, not just by a self- selected few but by ordinary people who rightly can determine their own futures. Given the difficulty of involving everyone in such a deliberative process, we argue that random selection is an ideal means by which a cross section of the population can be involved.4 These experiments, born under the sign of deliberative democracy5 (or, less often, participatory democracy), embody a critique of those paternalist tradi- tions that tend to reduce democracy to representative government. Their main set of supporters consider that civic participation in politics is crucial for the good health of our political system. They claim the political equality of all citi- zens in public discussion and, in some cases, in decision-making. They believe that democratic legitimacy is closely linked to the expansion of deliberation in the sense of public debate: the more a decision comes from a lively and well organized public debate, the more it will be legitimate, both normatively and empirically.6 This line of thought is clearly a response to the growing distrust of the political system by the citizenry, which is a current and significant trend, at least in Europe and North- America. In the deliberative democracy corpus, sortition plays a highly visible role.7 Beyond the obvious and important differences in the social, political, eco- nomic and institutional contexts of modern democracies on the one hand, and of ancient Athens on the other, is there a partial resurgence of the ideal of Athenian radical democracy taking place in the contemporary experiments, or do the practitioners and scholars who defend the latter misconceive the Athenian use of lot?8 In order to answer this question, this chapter shall first summarize the role and importance of selection by lot in Athens, emphasizing its radical democratic logic. It will then analyze how the Athenian experiment, 4 Carson and Martin (1999), 13– 14. 5 Habermas (1989); Habermas (1996); Elster (1998); Elster (2013). 6 Manin (1997); Habermas (1996); Dryzek (1990), Elster (1998); Elster (2013). 7 Fishkin (1997); Dienel (1997); Waren and Pearse (2008). 8 Farrar (2010)..