SORTITION

From Deliberative to Radical Democracy?

Sortition and Politics in the Twenty-First
Century - Yves Sintomer

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 The role of sortition in democratising
contemporary democracies

◦ Sintomer defends four claims:

◦ 1. There are two waves of democratic innovation that use sortition, which must be differentiated in
terms of the different social dynamics but more importantly, the different kinds of democracy they
aim at.
◦ 2. The first wave, based on minipublics differs from the Athenian inspiration of sortition since it
aims at deliberative democracy instead of radical democracy. Whilst sortition processes from the
second wave are better at capturing the Athenian radical democracy inspiration.
◦ 3. The second wave empowered sortition processes are more promising to democratise democracy.
◦ 4. A legislature by lot should learn this lesson regarding second wave options to be realistic.

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 The first wave sortition experiences

◦ ‘Thousands of citizen juries have been held around the world. Between one hundred fifty and several
hundred consensus conferences have been held, nearly half of them in Denmark. Dozens of deliberative
polls have been conducted in the United States and all over the world’ (Sintomer, 2018:339).
◦ This tendency comes from the social unrest during the 60’s and 70’s inspired by ideas of participatory
democracy in response to the elitist character of representative democracy.
◦ However, they can also be seen as moving against grassroots democracy movements that promoted
assemblies and mass democracy.
◦ They seem to promote something like a deliberative democracy format.

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Eight shared features of these experiences

◦ 1. ‘They constitute minipublics, that is, randomly selected representative samples, or at least a
“fair cross-section of the community.”
◦ 2. Most of these experiments are top-down. They are organized by public authorities, or in some
cases foundations, in collaboration with social scientists.
◦ 3. These devices have been what Europeans call protected designations of origin (PDO): carefully
designed, closely monitored, and often patented by their inventors.
◦ 4. Most of these devices have been one-shot events’ (Sintomer, 2018: 340-341).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Eight shared features of these experiences

5. ‘Random sortition is linked to high-quality deliberation. The minipublic is a place where a high-quality
deliberation can take place, with carefully balanced briefing materials, intensive discussions in small
groups and in general assembly, facilitators helping an equal and inclusive discussion, and the chance to
question competing experts and politicians
6. Most of these devices are only consultative. They give a recommendation to public authorities, or
provide them a counterfactual enlightened public opinion. They complement representative democracy’
(Sintomer, 2018: 340-341).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Eight shared features of these experiences

7. The minipublics are not embedded in everyday social and political relations. Citizens have no link with
one another, nor are they organized or mobilized.

8. These devices are concrete embodiments of deliberative democracy. In most books on political theory,
deliberative democracy is differentiated from or even opposed to participatory democracy’ (Sintomer,
2018: 340-341).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 The second wave

◦ The first wave experiments were supposed to become regular instances at some point or even replicated at a
larger scale, but this did not happen.
◦ Second wave experiments came in but did not replace the first.
◦ Second wave experiments include different sort of instances
◦ Minipublics and direct democracy: citizen assemblies (initially created for constitutional reforms), citizens
juries (to evaluate a ballot measure in question)
◦ Minipublics and participatory democracy: participatory budgeting, versions of deliberative polling.
◦ Random selection and permanent councils
◦ Random selection for party policies (to select candidates).
Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy
 The second wave

◦ The second wave has taken advantage of the lesson that the first wave thought us:
◦ ‘The demonstration that these lay citizens can enter reasonable deliberation when organized in such
conditions; the values of impartiality, epistemic diversity, and democracy attached to political sortition;
the increasing public legitimacy of this kind of democratic innovation; and so on’. (344)

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 First wave selection by lot and radical
democracy

◦ Most of the deliberative minipublics from the first wave did not have a strong impact over the wider
public, and instead could be thought as replacing a deliberative democracy that included all citizens,
thus becoming elitist.
◦ On the other hand, most of them were top-down and merely consultative, as well as a one-off instance.
◦ Accordingly, Sintomer argues that, although they have successfully shown that there can be reasonable
deliberation amongst lay citizens, they have had little capacity to make substantial changes to people’s
lives.
◦ Since they were created by authorities, it was unlikely that they would be able to subvert power
structures (Sintomer, 2018: 349).
Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy
 Second wave selection by lot and radical
democracy

◦ The main difference between the first and second wave experiments is that the latter are empowered—
not merely top-down.
◦ ‘In addition, random selection has also been advocated within social movements (…) There are now real
grassroots movements that call for “real democracy now” and include in that perspective the
reintroduction of random selection in politics and even legislature by lot’ (Sintomer, 2018:349).
◦ Also, sortition no longer just supplements representative democracy since there are a number of cases
that are coupled with direct or participatory democracy (Sintomer, 2018:349-350).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Legislature by lot

◦ Sintomer concludes that a sortition legislature could be one of the most promising options if we take the
lesson from the first two waves of experiments:

That they cannot be organised arbitrarily by rulers, that they should have real decision-making power to
make actual changes to people’s lives, and that there will be not one perfect model to implement
everywhere (Sintomer, 2018:352).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Legislature by lot

◦ ‘A sortition chamber should take the form proposed by David Owen and Graham Smith in their article in
this special issue. As with the Athenian popular courts, the sortition chamber should be a popular body
of 6,000 citizens, with pools of members frequently selected randomly for participation in minipublics
working on concrete issues. The 6,000-citizen body would itself be rotated regularly, every year or few
years’ (Sintomer, 2018: 352).

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy

 Bibliography

◦ Sintomer, Y; (2018) “From Deliberative to Radical Democracy? Sortition and Politics in the Twenty-
First Century”, Politics & Society, Vol 46 (3), pp. 337-357.

Dr María Pía Méndez Mateluna - Political philosophy