Abstract
It is all very well to sound a note of warning against concentrations of power and competence, but how exactly does one achieve such a balance? In this chapter 1 outline how the ancient political institution of sortition might be employed to protect the dignity of the person and association as well as cultivate a better understanding of the common good. Specifically, I set out the complementarity of bi-cameral sortition with the Principle of Subsidiarity. I also explicate on the practicalities of implementing a sortition House of Lots to mitigate the well-known flaws in our extant system of majoritarian democracy. I conclude by drawing attention to how this reform may also be helpful to enhance the efficacy of other measures taken to guard against local Leviathan that I will deal with in the subsequent chapters.
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Notes
- 1.
Headlam (1890) claimed that sortition was used to ensure mediocracy in the appointment of public officials and thus resist bureaucrats subsuming the peoples’ rule. Muller-Strubing claimed it was a check on power (cited in Headlam 1890). The important thing for now is to note that both theses agree that the Athenians understood that democracy by itself would not achieve the self-rule goals of the people.
- 2.
A recent example of this was my tour guide at Cambridge University who told us with great gravity that all Christians must exercise their G-d-given right to democratic participation. He was most distressed when I pointed out that there is not a single mention of democracy in the entire bible.
- 3.
It is often incorrectly claimed that the Attic state was the first example, but this is clearly not the case—having been preceded by at least half a millennium by the prophet Samuel.
- 4.
Lot was also used to select rapid rotation, non-deliberative magistracies.
- 5.
In the sense of being selected or co-opted by an inner circle of the elite.
- 6.
Messner (1952) does in fact mention sortition once, very briefly, in his Social Ethics. This occurs in the form of a list of criticisms of Athenian democracy which he claimed was a failure (an appeal is made to the short life of the Attic experiment). However, there is no specific critique of sortition, nor even an explanation of what it was, therefore we cannot reasonably draw any conclusions about whether Messner felt it could play any roll in complementing Subsidiarity.
- 7.
Some might argue that this is indeed voice, but I disagree. Exit is a voluntary act and a sortition house would voluntarily decide whether or not to exit a disagreeable political management.
- 8.
In Australia legislation of this type allows staff to take time from work to attend emergency services incidents and training, as well as military reserve training.
- 9.
Having secret ballots and prohibiting public deliberation will make it harder for people to corrupt the sortition chamber by the application of pressure or through trying to buy votes, because there will be no way to verify each members’ voting behaviour.
- 10.
Indeed, it might be possible in some cases to conduct the whole process through home computers, with appropriate controls, to further minimise opportunity cost and increase flexibility for House of Lot members. This possibility is of course dependent on context, but should at least be considered.
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Drew, J. (2020). The Ideal Political Institutions of Local Government. In: Reforming Local Government. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6503-8_8
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