"No Donald Trump, Nigel Farage or Liz Truss; no Zack Polanski, Jacinda Ardern or Volodymyr Zelenskyy either. No political parties and no elections, but instead a random bunch of ordinary people chosen by lottery to run the country for two-year spells, like a sort of turbo-charged jury service except with the jurors holding an entire country's fate in their hands."
"Landemore now lectures at Yale but was born and raised in France, and has worked closely with two citizens' assemblies set up by Emmanuel Macron following the gilets jaunes street protests of 2018, ostensibly triggered by rising fuel tax. (The first was challenged to produce better solutions for tackling the climate crisis if they didn't like Macron's, while the second considered assisted dying, an issue on which British politics is not currently covering itself in glory.)"
Electoral representation is presented as deeply flawed and potentially beyond repair, with a proposal to replace parties and elections by randomly selected citizens serving limited terms. Citizens' assemblies chosen by sortition would deliberate on major issues, exemplified by assemblies convened after the gilets jaunes protests that addressed climate policy and assisted dying. Comparable examples include Iceland after its banking crash, Belgian local government experiments, and the Irish assembly that guided legalisation of abortion and created broad ownership of a sensitive decision. Participation is described as producing human benefits such as lasting friendships, stronger civic bonds, and breakthroughs when strangers meet face to face.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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