Selection of decision-makers by random sample
In governance , sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery , in order to obtain a representative sample.[ 1] [ 2] [ 3] [ 4]
In ancient Athenian democracy , sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy .[ 5] [ 6] Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy .
Today sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in common-law systems. What has changed in recent years is the increased number of citizen groups with political advisory power ,[ 7] [ 8] along with calls for making sortition more consequential than elections , as it was in Athens , Venice , and Florence .[ 9] [ 10] [ 11] [ 12]
^ Engelstad, Fredrik (1989). "The assignment of political office by lot". Social Science Information . 28 (1): 23–50. doi :10.1177/053901889028001002 . S2CID 144352457 .
^ OECD (2020). Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave . Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. doi :10.1787/339306da-en . ISBN 9789264837621 . S2CID 243747068 .
^ Landemore, Hélène (January 15, 2010). Deliberation, Representation, and the Epistemic Function of Parliamentary Assemblies: a Burkean Argument in Favor of Descriptive Representation (PDF) . International Conference on "Democracy as Idea and Practice", University of Oslo, Oslo January 13–15, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 8, 2013.
^ Shah, Alpa (2021). "What if We Selected our Leaders by Lottery? Democracy by Sortition, Liberal Elections and Communist Revolutionaries" . Development and Change . 52 (4): 687–728. doi :10.1111/dech.12651 .
^ Headlam, James Wycliffe (1891). Election by Lot at Athens . The University Press. p. 12 .
^ Cambiano, Giuseppe (2020). "Piccola archeologia del sorteggio" . Teoria Politica (in Italian) (10): 103–121.
^ Flanigan, Bailey; Gölz, Paul; Gupta, Anupam; Hennig, Brett; Procaccia, Ariel D. (2021). "Fair algorithms for selecting citizens' assemblies" . Nature . 596 (7873): 548–552. Bibcode :2021Natur.596..548F . doi :10.1038/s41586-021-03788-6 . PMC 8387237 . PMID 34349266 .
^ Fishkin, James (2009). When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation . Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199604432 .
^ Ostfeld, Jacob (November 19, 2020). "The Case for Sortition in America" . Harvard Political Review . Retrieved February 24, 2023 .
^ Reybrouck, David Van (June 29, 2016). "Why elections are bad for democracy" . The Guardian . ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved February 24, 2023 .
^ Rieg, Timo; Translated from German by Catherine McLean (September 8, 2015). "Why a citizen's parliament chosen by lot would be 'perfect' " . SWI swissinfo.ch (Op-ed.). Retrieved May 24, 2023 .
^ Wolfson, Arthur M. (1899). "The Ballot and Other Forms of Voting in the Italian Communes" . The American Historical Review . 5 (1): 1–21. doi :10.2307/1832957 . JSTOR 1832957 .