Democracy: Should We Replace Elections With Random Selection? (MANCEPT)
| Dates: | 9 March 2023 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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Dr Annabelle Lever (Sciences Po, Paris)
Abstract: Over the past ten years or so, a lively debate has developed about how democratic voting
should take place and, to a lesser extent, on the considerations that should guide citizens when
exercising their right to vote. However, just as the ethics of voting has become an interesting subset of
the literature in political theory, another literature has taken off, which suggests that, if one cares about
democracy, thinking about voting is likely to be a waste of time. Thus, some people claim that voting is
not really a democratic way to select people for positions of power and authority and should be replaced
in whole or in part by random selection or sortition, as it is often called. If right, there would be no
gain to democratic theory or practice in considering whether voting should be secret, mandatory,
strategic or not and whether or not it should be focused on the common good of one’s country rather
than other moral or political considerations. From such a perspective, it is probably a mistake to take
such matters seriously, if one cares about democracy. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to explore the
claim that lotteries are more democratic than elections as, in principle, it seems possible to think that
there are a variety of uses for randomly assorted assemblies without supposing that they are inherently
more democratic than elections. Hence, this paper starts by looking at the two main forms of equality
which make lotteries seem so democratically appealing; it then argues that these two forms of equality
come apart and that, unfortunately, their appeal is likely to prove more apparent than real. Finally, the
paper considers the reasons to value randomly selected assemblies even if their egalitarian claims are
easily overstated.
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Samuel Alexander Building
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