This article defends four claims. The first is that in the last few decades, two waves of democratic innovation based on random selection must be differentiated by their partly different concrete devices, embodying different social dynamics and pointing toward different kinds of democracy. The second claim is that the rationale of the first wave, based on randomly selected minipublics, largely differs from the dynamic of political sortition in Athens, as it points toward deliberative democracy rather than radical democracy. Conversely, empowered (...) sortition processes that have emerged during the second wave capture better the spirit of radical Athenian democratic traditions. The third claim is normative: these empowered sortition processes are more promising for a real democratization of democracy. The last claim is that any proposal of a legislature by lot must rely on this lesson when trying to defend a normatively convincing and politically realistic perspective. (shrink)

One of the greatest challenges facing current generations is the environmental and climate crisis. Democracies, so far, have not distinguished themselves by their capacity to bring about appropriate political responses to these challenges. This is partly explicable in terms of a lack of state capacity in a globalized context. Yet we also argue that election-centered democracies suffer from several flaws that make them inapt to deal with this challenge properly: youth is not appropriately represented; parliaments suffer from a lack of (...) diversity; elected representatives’ time-horizon is too narrow; anti-regulation lobbies have too much influence. Considering this, we argue for rejuvenating our democratic systems by introducing a randomly selected legislative chamber, which would be permanently integrated to our political systems and would play a deliberative and scrutinizing role. We have identified four eco-political arguments in favor of such reform. The generational rebalancing argument, which we examine first, has some plausibility but is not the strongest. The other three arguments – its eco-epistemic promises; its wider time horizon; and the independence of its members from short-term corporate interests – however, appear to us to be much more convincing. (shrink)

Democratic institutions are appealing means of making publicly justified social choices. By allowing participation by all citizens, democracy can accommodate diversity among citizens, and by considering the perspectives of all, via ballots or debate, democratic results can approximate what the balance of reasons favors. I consider whether, and under what conditions, democratic institutions might reliably make publicly justified social decisions. I argue that conventional accounts of democracy, constituted by voting or deliberation, are unlikely to be effective public justification mechanisms. I (...) conclude that the limitations of conventional mechanisms can be ameliorated through the use of lotteries instead of elections. (shrink)

In democratic political systems, political equality is often defined as an equality of opportunity for influence. But inequalities in resources and status affect the capacity of disadvantaged citizens to achieve an effective political equality. One common thread running through recent democratic innovations is the belief that appropriate institutional devices and procedures can alleviate the impact of background inequalities on the presence and voice of the disadvantaged within those designs. My objective is to achieve a clearer understanding of the conception of (...) political equality that informs a specific subset of these designs: deliberative mini-publics. I focus firstly on the methods of participant selection advocated to secure equal presence. According to what principle is participation distributed? If it is according to the ‘equal probability’ principle, rather than ‘equal opportunity’, what difference does this make in terms of political equality? Secondly, achieving equality of voice is usually conceived in terms of equalising opportunities for influence among participants. How is this objective understood and what does this say about the underlying conception of political equality? (shrink)

Human behaviour, like everything else, has causes. Most of the time, those causes can be described as reasons. Human beings perform actions because they have reasons for performing them. They are capable of surveying the options available and then selecting one based upon those reasons. But invariably occasions arise in which the reasons known to the agent fail to single out a determinate option. When reasons cannot determine the option to select on their own, the agent must resort to some (...) form of non-reasoned decision-making. This paper distinguishes four different forms of NRDM – picking, randomizing, deferring and judging. Each form may be appropriate under different circumstances. The paper concludes by laying out the theoretical assumptions upon which this account of NRDM rests. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of the epistemic properties of inclusiveness in the context of democratic deliberative assemblies and derives the implications of this argument in terms of the epistemically superior mode of selection of representatives. The paper makes the general case that, all other things being equal and under some reasonable assumptions, more is smarter. When applied to deliberative assemblies of representatives, where there is an upper limit to the number of people that can be included in the group, (...) the argument translates into a defense of a specific selection mode of participants: random selection. (shrink)

The recent proliferation of AI scandals led private and public organisations to implement new ethics guidelines, introduce AI ethics boards, and list ethical principles. Nevertheless, some of these efforts remained a façade not backed by any substantive action. Such behaviour made the public question the legitimacy of the AI industry and prompted scholars to accuse the sector of ethicswashing, machinewashing, and ethics trivialisation—criticisms that spilt over to institutional AI ethics boards. To counter this widespread issue, contributions in the literature have (...) proposed fixes that do not consider its systemic character and are based on a top-down, expert-centric governance. To fill this gap, we propose to make use of qualified informed lotteries: a two-step model that transposes the documented benefits of the ancient practice of sortition into the selection of AI ethics boards’ members and combines them with the advantages of a stakeholder-driven, participative, and deliberative bottom-up process typical of Citizens’ Assemblies. The model permits increasing the public’s legitimacy and participation in the decision-making process and its deliverables, curbing the industry’s over-influence and lobbying, and diminishing the instrumentalisation of ethics boards. We suggest that this sortition-based approach may provide a sound base for both public and private organisations in smart societies for constructing a decentralised, bottom-up, participative digital democracy. (shrink)

La selección por sorteo ha tenido un renacimiento político, permitiendo la creación de mini-públicos cuyos miembros pueden deliberar en condiciones cercanas a las ideales. ¿Hay un resurgir parcial del ideal de la democracia radical ateniense? El artículo, en primer lugar, resume el papel de la selección por sorteo en Atenas, enfatizando su lógica democrática radical y destacando su singularidad en el mundo pre-moderno. El segundo apartado argumenta que los experimentos actuales suponen una racionalidad política sustancialmente diferente, basada en la muestra (...) representativa, y ofrece una tipología general de los distintos usos del sorteo político. La conclusión expone las condiciones bajo las cuales los mini-públicos deliberativos contemporáneos podrían combinarse con la democracia radical. (shrink)

In recent years, democrats both inside and outside the academy have begun to reconsider the merits of the age-old practice of sortition, the random selection of political officials. Despite this fact, however, the comparative assessment of the merits of voting and sortition remains in its infancy. This paper will advance this project by treating the problem of assigning public responsibilities as a problem of allocative justice. To treat the problem in this manner is to treat public office as a type (...) of good to which citizens might have various claims. Random selection is the appropriate method for distributing public office when all citizens have equal claims to that office and there is not enough to go around. Universal distribution is more appropriate when all claimants have equal claims to the office and there is enough to go around (as with universal suffrage, for example). Election (or possibly other procedures, such as appointment) makes sense when citizens do not enjoy equal claims to the office and that office is in scarce supply. This approach captures a crucial component of democratic equality. Different understandings of democratic equality lay behind sortition and election. Each might be appropriate under different circumstances, but both place rights-based constraints on the design of a democratic political system. (shrink)

In democratic political systems, political equality is often defined as an equality of opportunity for influence. But inequalities in resources and status affect the capacity of disadvantaged citiz...

El regreso del sorteo a la política desde hace cuarenta años debe mucho a su apropiación por parte de las teorías de la democracia deliberativa, que han hecho de los dispositivos sorteados los espacios centrales de la deliberación democrática. Esta apropiación, sin embargo, no era en absoluto evidente. Tiene que ver con la trayectoria científica de algunos de sus promotores y con evoluciones paralelas en el seno del campo político. A pesar del aire fresco que ha insuflado al gobierno representativo, (...) la promoción científica del sorteo no se ha traducido necesariamente en una democratización de la democracia. Estos experimentos contribuyen a demostrar las capacidades deliberativas de los ciudadanos ordinarios, pero tan solo en casos excepcionales han contribuido a incrementar su poder en la toma de decisiones. La focalización de las investigaciones sobre el análisis de las dinámicas deliberativas en el interior de dispositivos sorteados ha sido, por tanto, muy criticado por estudiosos que reivindican un retorno a la inspiración inicial habermasiana de una deliberación más amplia en el espacio público, no restringida al interior de los mini-públicos. Este giro sistémico ha marginado el sorteo en la teoría deliberativa más reciente. Después de reconstruir este recorrido intelectual, me gustaría esbozar algunos elementos para reflexionar sobre la manera en que el sorteo podría contribuir a reanimar la llama crítica de la teoría deliberativa, mediante su uso como herramienta de oposición por parte de los movimientos sociales. (shrink)