How the Republic of Venice Chose Its Doge: Lot-Based Elections and Supermajority Rule

Molinari, Maria Cristina

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3103618

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 11 publications

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“…Many explanations have been sought for this fact, and of course the governing institutions have been examined, including the head of government, the so called doge (doxe in the vernacular Veneto language; the term is approximately equivalent to "duke" in other languages). During the longest period, doges were elected for life by an electoral college composed of 41 nobles, which were also elected through a series of lotteries and nominations emanating from the Maggior Consiglio, which included all noble families in Venice Molinari (2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s a Doges’ Life: Examining Term Limits in Venetian Doges Life Tenure

Merelo¹

2022

Preprint

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During most of the lifespan of the Venetian republic, doges or presidents were elected for life. However, a long tenure was a rare event, which effectively resulted in term limits, as has already been deported by several authors. In this paper we examine these tenures and its evolution during the existence of the Venetian republic, trying to prove Smith et al. thesis, but also the event or events that effectively caused that limitation by design. Finally, we will discuss for the causes of this limitation and its effective consequences.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s a Doges’ Life: Examining Term Limits in Venetian Doges Life Tenure

Merelo¹

2022

Preprint

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The contested role of AI ethics boards in smart societies: a step towards improvement based on board composition by sortition

Conti,

Seele

2023

Ethics Inf Technol

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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.

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How the Republic of Venice Chose Its Doge: Lot-Based Elections and Supermajority Rule

Cited by 2 publications

References 11 publications

It’s a Doges’ Life: Examining Term Limits in Venetian Doges Life Tenure

It’s a Doges’ Life: Examining Term Limits in Venetian Doges Life Tenure

The contested role of AI ethics boards in smart societies: a step towards improvement based on board composition by sortition

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