Book contents
- The Government of Chance
- The Government of Chance
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Democracy, Modern and Ancient
- 2 Sortition’s Second Birth in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
- 3 The Disappearance of Sortition in Politics
- 4 The Return of sortition
- 5 Sortition and Politics in the Twenty-First Century
- References
- Index
4 - The Return of sortition
The Deliberative Minipublics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2023
- The Government of Chance
- The Government of Chance
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Democracy, Modern and Ancient
- 2 Sortition’s Second Birth in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
- 3 The Disappearance of Sortition in Politics
- 4 The Return of sortition
- 5 Sortition and Politics in the Twenty-First Century
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter Four analyzes the exponential development of contemporary experiments in sortition. Their advocates base their arguments on the concept of the representative sample, which links the use of chance with descriptive representation. They combine selection by lot and deliberation, stressing justifications such as impartiality, democratic equality, and epistemic democracy. Two waves of experiments are described in turn. The first has focused on deliberative minipublics such as citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, and deliberative polls. They were consultative, top-down, highly controlled by their inventors, and mere complements to representative democracy. The second wave has seen a flourishing of democratic innovation. Empowered minipublics have been combined with participatory or direct democracy, most visibly with citizens’ assemblies. They have begun to be institutionalized. Sortition has also been used in party politics. The politicization of some experiments and the interaction with social movements offers an alternative to the mainstream model, which praises the impartiality and neutrality of minipublics. Three rationales have supported random selection in politics throughout history: Gaining knowledge of a religious or supernatural sign, ensuring impartiality and promoting equality. The chapter concludes with three contrasted contemporary political imaginaries that advocate sortition in the present: Deliberative, antipolitical, and radical democracy.
Keywords
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- The Government of ChanceSortition and Democracy from Athens to the Present, pp. 188 - 249Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023