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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2023

Yves Sintomer
Affiliation:
Institut Universitaire de France
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Summary

The introduction starts with a factual element showing the exponential development of randomly selected minipublics, which seem to remember the Athenian democracy. It describes the growing interest about sortition in the literature, both in history and in political science. It defends the strategy of the book, which couples historical sociology and political theory. It defends four claims. The first criticizes the idea that sortition in politics has preserved a transhistorical democratic logic, as political sortition has played a number of varied functions throughout history. The second claim explains the disappearance of sortition in the nineteeth century by a combination of factors: Without the notion of the representative sample, the use of chance appeared blind, irrational, incompatible with popular sovereignty, difficult to couple with an elective aristocracy or with an increasing division of labor in big nation states. The third claim is that sortition’s recent return to politics is explained by the coupling of representative sampling, which make possible the constitution of a “minipublic” or microcosm of the people, with deliberation. The fourth claim proposes a normatively convincing and politically realistic case for empowered minipublics and the democratization of democracy. The introduction concludes by presenting the outline of the book.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Government of Chance
Sortition and Democracy from Athens to the Present
, pp. 1 - 16
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Introduction
  • Yves Sintomer, Institut Universitaire de France
  • Book: The Government of Chance
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009285650.001
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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.

  • Introduction
  • Yves Sintomer, Institut Universitaire de France
  • Book: The Government of Chance
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009285650.001
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.

  • Introduction
  • Yves Sintomer, Institut Universitaire de France
  • Book: The Government of Chance
  • Online publication: 18 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009285650.001
Available formats
×