This book explains how electoral “democracy” is inherently undemocratic - enshrining rule by elites rather than popular self-rule - and argues that sortition (the use of random selection to form genuinely representative deliberative bodies) is a superior democratic alternative.
This book explains how electoral “democracy” is inherently undemocratic—enshrining rule by elites rather than popular self-rule—and argues that sortition (the use of random selection to form genuinely representative deliberative bodies) is a superior democratic alternative.
Making the case that representative government can function better without the exclusive reliance on elections, the author sets out the problems with modern elections, the inadequacies of the commonly proposed reforms, and examines the cognitive biases, detrimental psychological effects and societal polarization that elections exacerbate. The book further delves into the progression of democracy and sortition in ancient Greece, and the abandonment of sortition in the framing of the American Constitution and French Republic. Finally, it sets out both immediate and long-term prospects for renewing democracy through the use of multi-body sortition.
Written by a former elected politician and policy analyst, this book will be of interest to students, researchers and citizens interested in comprehensive democracy reform.
PART I: The Current Situation 1 Democracy in Dysfunction 2 The Hopes and
Claims of Democracy and Elections 3 Electoral Imperatives 4 The Inadequacy of
Election Reform PART II: Foundations of Democracy 5 Historical Roots 6
Representation 7 Neuro-Politics 8 Competitive Electoralism 9 Participatory
Democracy 10 Deliberative Democracy PART III Sortition 11 The Sortition
Solution 12 Objections to Sortition 13 Accountability and Legitimacy 14 The
Re-emergence of Sortition 15 Other Uses of Sortition 16 Sortition Design for
the Future 17 A Transition to Sortition Democracy
Terrill Terry Bouricius is a political theorist and recovering politician. From 1981 to 2001, he served as a City Councilor and then as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives. After a decade working on election reform internationally, his focus shifted to sortition. He has written influential journal articles on sortition, and helped found the international democracy reform organization, Democracy R&D.
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