Representation, Bicameralism, Political Equality, and Sortition: Reconstituting the Second Chamber as a Randomly Selected Assembly

Abstract

The two traditional justifications for bicameralism are that a second legislative chamber serves a legislative-review function (enhancing the quality of legislation) and a balancing function (checking concentrated power and protecting minorities). I furnish here a third justification for bicameralism, with one elected chamber and the second selected by lot, as an institutional compromise between contradictory imperatives facing representative democracy: elections are a mechanism of people’s political agency and of accountability, but run counter to political equality and impartiality, and are insufficient for satisfactory responsiveness; sortition is a mechanism for equality and impartiality, and of enhancing responsiveness, but not of people’s political agency or of holding representatives accountable. Whereas the two traditional justifications initially grew out of anti-egalitarian premises (about the need for elite wisdom and to protect the elite few against the many), the justification advanced here is grounded in egalitarian premises about the need to protect state institutions from capture by the powerful few and to treat all subjects as political equals. Reflecting the “political” turn in political theory, I embed this general argument within the institutional context of Canadian parliamentary federalism, arguing that Canada’s Senate ought to be reconstituted as a randomly selected citizen assembly.

Counter-Majoritarian Democracy: Persistent Minorities, Federalism, and the Power of Numbers

“…But this just means democracy is a complex normative ideal whose two constitutive commitments are often in tension. Democrats will have to live with the ensuing trade-offs and strike an institutional compromise appropriate to their particular circumstances (Abizadeh Forthcoming b).…”

Apuntes para una refundamentación de la democracia

“…Esta lista sin priorizar revela cierta confusión sobre qué fundamento normativo debe orientar la actividad de estos foros. En todo caso, la mayoría de propuestas de reforma estructural de la democracia liberal-representativa para integrar un componente deliberativo-popular, que restituya cierto control sobre el sistema político a la ciudadanía, se centran en la faceta legislativa, ya sea para generar o mejorar la calidad de iniciativas legislativas populares y referéndums mediante minipúblicos (Leib, 2004;Gastil y Richards, 2013), supervisar a los representantes políticos (Hartz-Karp y Briand, 2009;Schulson y Bagg, 2019), o establecer un poder legislativo ciudadano complementario (Buchstein, 2010;MacKenzie, 2016;Van Reybrouck, 2016;Vandamme y Verret-Hamelin, 2017;Gastil y Wright, 2018;Owen y Smith, 2018;Abizadeh, 2020) o incluso sustitutivo (Burnheim, 2006;Bouricius, 2013Bouricius, y 2018Guerrero, 2014). Como ya he comentado en relación con el republicanismo, este enfoque es inadecuado, porque plantea una solución institucional sin clarificar la raíz del problema, el conflicto de interés político fundamental.…”

Allotted chambers as defenders of democracy

“…Proponents of sortition view randomly selected decision‐making bodies, or ACs, as a crucial part of the cure for the ailing state of democracy in the world today. Numerous proposals have been made as to how ACs could be incorporated into modern democratic politics (e.g., Abizadeh, 2020; Barnett & Carty, 2008; Buchstein & Hein, 2009; Callenbach & Phillips, 2008; Guerrero, 2014; Leib, 2004; Sutherland, 2008; Zakaras, 2010). Some have gone so far as to imagine ACs either replacing election entirely (e.g., Bouricius, 2018a, 2018b; Hennig, 2017) or at least supplanting it as our primary democratic selection method (e.g., Landemore, 2020; Van Reybrouck, 2016).…”

“…First, random selection respects the value of democratic equality (Abizadeh, 2020; Guerrero, 2014; Stone, 2016; for counterarguments, see Landa & Pevnick, 2020; Owen & Smith, 2018; Umbers, 2018). Respecting this value means recognizing citizens as possessing an equal right to take part in political decision making, by carrying out some form of public responsibility.…”