Which conception of political equality do deliberative mini-publics promote?

Leydet, Dominique

doi:10.1177/1474885116665600

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The obvious difficulty-beyond data availability-is that stratification introduces discretion and hence potential for controversy and manipulation. But the difficulty can be met via a fair procedure for determining the stratification features (Leydet 2019). I propose a reiterative process: whatever features are chosen in the inaugural lottery should be preliminary; in each subsequent lottery, the incumbent chamber itself should decide the features.…”

Section: Reconstituting Canada's Senate As a Randomly Selected Citizen Assemblymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Abizadeh¹

2020

Perspect. polit.

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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.

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Section: Reconstituting Canada's Senate As a Randomly Selected Citizen Assemblymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Abizadeh¹

2020

Perspect. polit.

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“…Enfin, il existe encore un aspect du tirage au sort et de l'élection qui les rend a priori complémentaires : la manière dont chaque procédure incarne l'idéal d'égalité politique 60 . Du côté du tirage au sort, cet idéal se traduit en une égale probabilité d'être invité à occuper une fonction politique, qui lève la plupart des formes de discrimination indirecte caractérisant la sélection électorale des représentants 61 .…”

Section: Des Incarnations Différentes De L'égalité Politiqueunclassified

Le tirage au sort est-il compatible avec l’élection ?

Vandamme¹

2018

Revue Française De Science Politique

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-De nombreux travaux se sont récemment penchés sur les bénéfices d'une réintroduction du tirage au sort en politique, le plus souvent envisagé comme complément plutôt que comme alternative aux élections. Cet article vise deux objectifs. Premièrement, mettre en évidence les propriétés et vertus de ces deux modes de sélection qui les rendent a priori complémentaires plutôt que rivaux. Deuxièmement, distinguer les usages du tirage au sort qui tirent le mieux profit de cette complémentarité et ceux qui sont susceptibles de poser des problèmes de compatibilité, voire d'engendrer des dynamiques de dé-légitimation réciproque. ABSTRACT-A great deal of work has enquired into the benefits that could result from a more frequent use of random selection in politics. Most proposals see sortition as complementary to elections rather than as a substitute. This article aims first at highlighting the properties and virtues that make these selection mechanisms appear as complementary rather than rival. Secondly, it makes a distinction between some uses of sortition able to take advantage of this complementarity, and others more likely to generate issues of compatibility and possibly mutual delegitimation dynamics. 1 Cet article a beaucoup bénéficié des commentaires et remarques de

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“…First, it must produce a panel that is representative of the population. Second, in the spirit of democratic equality, individuals would ideally be selected to serve on this panel with equal probability 2 , 3 . However, in practice these desiderata are in tension owing to differential participation rates across subpopulations 4 , 5 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Fair algorithms for selecting citizens’ assemblies

Flanigan

Gölz

Gupta

et al. 2021

Nature

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Globally, there has been a recent surge in ‘citizens’ assemblies’1, which are a form of civic participation in which a panel of randomly selected constituents contributes to questions of policy. The random process for selecting this panel should satisfy two properties. First, it must produce a panel that is representative of the population. Second, in the spirit of democratic equality, individuals would ideally be selected to serve on this panel with equal probability2,3. However, in practice these desiderata are in tension owing to differential participation rates across subpopulations4,5. Here we apply ideas from fair division to develop selection algorithms that satisfy the two desiderata simultaneously to the greatest possible extent: our selection algorithms choose representative panels while selecting individuals with probabilities as close to equal as mathematically possible, for many metrics of ‘closeness to equality’. Our implementation of one such algorithm has already been used to select more than 40 citizens’ assemblies around the world. As we demonstrate using data from ten citizens’ assemblies, adopting our algorithm over a benchmark representing the previous state of the art leads to substantially fairer selection probabilities. By contributing a fairer, more principled and deployable algorithm, our work puts the practice of sortition on firmer foundations. Moreover, our work establishes citizens’ assemblies as a domain in which insights from the field of fair division can lead to high-impact applications.

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Which conception of political equality do deliberative mini-publics promote?

Cited by 14 publications

References 36 publications

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

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

Le tirage au sort est-il compatible avec l’élection ?

Fair algorithms for selecting citizens’ assemblies

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