Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-11T21:35:14.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Sortition’s Second Birth in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2023

Yves Sintomer
Affiliation:
Institut Universitaire de France
Get access

Summary

Chapter Two analyzes the rebirth of sortition in the West during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. It explores the mutations of the medieval and Renaissance Italian republics, as well as the practices of sortition in Early Modern Spain, Switzerland, and other European countries. During these periods, sortition was widespread and took many different guises, though it was always combined with elections and cooption. It was above all a means to channel the competition for power and resources among groups, and especially among the elite. It was a key element of “distributive aristocracies” in different republican contexts, in which a relatively small subsections of elite citizens could develop self-government in the name of the common good and enjoy the privileges of administrating the polity. In the Italian Communes of the thirteenth century and for limited periods of time in Florence, republican self-government was extended to a larger circle of citizens. Practices of sortition in India are also described. Prior to modernity, although the scientific notion of representative sampling was still unknown, political sortition was linked to an empirical “taming of chance” and used as a rational instrument of government.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Government of Chance
Sortition and Democracy from Athens to the Present
, pp. 66 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×