This article addresses two great global challenges of the 2020s. On one hand, the accelerating climate crisis and, on the other, the deepening crisis of representation within liberal democracies. As temperatures and water levels rise, rates of popular confidence in existing democratic institutions decline. So, what is to be done? This article discusses whether sortition – the ancient Greek practice of selecting individuals for political office through lottery – could serve to mitigate both crises simultaneously. Since the 2000s, sortition has (...) attracted growing interest among activists and academics. Recently it has been identified in countries like the UK and France as a mechanism for producing legitimate political answers to the climate challenge. However, few theoretical reflections on the potentials and perils of sortition-based climate governance have yet emerged. This article contributes to filling the gap. Based on a critique of the first successful case of sortition used to enhance national environmental policy – in Ireland in 2017–18 – we argue that sortition-based deliberation could indeed speed up meaningful climate action whilst improving the health of democratic systems. However, this positive outcome is not preordained. Success depends not only on green social movements getting behind climate sortition but also on developing flexible, context-specific designs that identify adequate solutions to a number of problems, including those of power ; expertise ; and participation. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an ‘institutional turn’ in democratic theory. This survey article focuses on a broad family of institutions: democratic innovations which aim to increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision‐making process. Attention to the design of democratic innovations is of value to the development of both democratic theory and practice.

El sorteo, practicado por primera vez en Atenas a principios del siglo V a. e. c., ha sido considerado durante mucho tiempo, por parte de la teoría política, como un importante mecanismo democratizador. Sin embargo, este recurso entró en desuso durante el desarrollo de la democracia moderna representativa a favor de las elecciones por votación, un fenómeno que algunos autores han calificado como “fundamentalismo electoral”. El objetivo de este artículo es presentar, comparar y evaluar dos propuestas utópicas de democracia por (...) sorteo ofrecidas por John Burnheim y Barbara Goodwin. La tarea que se plantea es analizar su validez y limitaciones, así como considerar su potencial de cara a mejorar las actuales democracias representativas. (shrink)