Demarchy
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Demarchy is a term coined by Australian philosopher John Burnheim to describe a political system without the state or bureaucracies, and based instead on randomly selected groups of decision makers (sortition). These groups, sometimes termed "policy juries," "citizens' juries," or "consensus conferences" would deliberately make decisions about public policies in much the same way that juries reach verdicts on criminal cases. Demarchy attempts to achieve democratic representation without needing elections—it is "democracy without elections."
Demarchy attempts to overcome some of the functional problems with conventional representative democracies, which in practice have often been subject to manipulation by special interests and a division between professional policymakers (politicians and lobbyists) vs. a largely passive, uninvolved and often uninformed electorate. According to Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process.
More generally, random selection of decision makers is known as sortition. The Athenian democracy made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery rather than by election. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, a group of citizens was randomly selected to create the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform to investigate and recommend changes to the province's electoral system.
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[edit] Demarchy and the problem of modern politics
Demarchy is an attempt to produce a form of democracy that is free from many of the influences and problems that are part of modern politics.
[edit] Electioneering
Most modern democracies are made up of republics or parliaments. In both of these cases, citizens participate in the direct election of individuals to represent them. Unfortunately, most citizens have neither the time nor the inclination to adequately study which person or party to vote for (see Rational ignorance). As a result, much time and money is devoted to political canvassing and advertising—where politicians promote themselves in much the same way as a commercial product. The result of this is that people vote according to their impressions of the politician and party based upon political advertising, plus any other form of media that has influenced them. The problem with this is that people may not necessarily vote for the best candidate since they have not taken the time to examine whom to vote. Demarchy does away with the election process, thus saving the time and money involved in self-promotion, and instead gives power to a person who has not attempted to promote themselves in this manner.
[edit] Institutional corruption in political parties
Demarchy could also replace traditional political parties. Since people are randomly selected to act as representatives, there is very little chance that the person involved is part of a "party political machine." While random selection will not remove political bias, what it will do is select a person as a representative who has not had to compromise their own beliefs in order to gain political alliances and support. Institutional corruption (such as a person being supported by businesses in order for both to mutually benefit from the situation) is also unlikely—any corruption would occur after the person is selected and is more likely to be reported (since the person selected would probably not be used to corruption at that scale).
[edit] Making decisions based upon political expediency
Many politicians make decisions based not necessarily upon what is the best thing to do, nor upon their own ethics and morals, but upon what is best for their own political gain. A politician is dependent upon his or her good standing with voters, as well as an ability to "fit in" with the party political structure. Since a person's time in politics sometimes is short, it is only natural that they do everything possible to continue their career. Demarchy, because it is based upon random selection, does not make a person's career dependent upon popularity, and, because a demarchy is likely to remove the direct influence of political parties, there is no "party line" that the individual must adhere to. This is not to say that political alliances will not be formed after a person's selection—but that the structure of demarchy is less suited to decision making based upon politics.
[edit] Areas of thinking and debate
Although this form of democratic thinking has yet to be popularized or rigorously examined and critiqued, there are three broad areas of thinking:
The first area of thinking concerns whether those randomly chosen should replace a representative democracy. In this sense, rather than elect politicians to serve in a representative council and/or senate, people are randomly chosen to fulfill this role. The alternative to this is that representation is dispensed with entirely and those randomly selected are appointed to make decisions within a specific government department or area of responsibility. For example, a person may be selected to make decisions about national defense, or they may be selected to make decisions about the environment—and they do so as part of a group of randomly selected individuals.
The second area of thinking concerns the range and extent of decision-making and focuses upon macro- vs. micro-government. Should Demarchy be practiced at a federal/national level only, should it be practiced at a local/community level only, or should it be practiced at all levels of government? This issue is important, but focuses more upon other issues of democracy that is not necessarily specific to random-selection of decision makers.
The third area of thinking concerns whether those randomly selected should first meet some form of minimum criteria (such as level of education, lack of criminal record, age, and so forth) in order to be selected, or whether anyone should be allowed to be represented. In the former case, some form of meritocracy would apply.
Burnheim's model of demarchy involves the partial or complete dissolution of government departments and bureaucracies, which are replaced by citizen's juries. Demarchy as a concept does not necessitate such a radical step as integral to its purpose.
When one considers how much time and effort politicians and bureaucracies expend in gaining or supporting political strength, the practice of demarchy may be quite efficient. Politicians in western governments spend a good deal of their time either influencing others or being influenced by others. The purpose of this influence is that politicians and lobbyists can achieve their political goals. Because demarchy selects decision-makers randomly, the time and effort spent on politician machinations and manipulation is limited. In theory, therefore, demarchy could be a more efficient system of democracy than having elected officials.
[edit] Problems of implementation
No modern nation has attempted to use demarchy as a primary system for political decision making, so it is difficult to assess problems of transition or shortcomings of the system.
Possible barriers to implementation include:
- The difficulty of convincing incumbent politicians and political parties to give up power voluntarily
- Public uncertainty over adopting an untried system
- The veto power of minority groups over legislation (in some systems) or amendments to a national constitution, if necessary
Political candidates are generally familiar with the issues facing their constituents, and are elected based on how the constituents judge their reaction to those issues. A randomly selected group of people may not actually be well-educated about the political problems of the day (because they would not be professional politicians). Without the need to curry favor among voters to succeed in future elections, they would have little incentive (other than public opinion) to listen to their constituents. Without the vetting process of an election, there would be no opportunity to reject obviously incompetent candidates. There is also little incentive, other than the laws which also apply to existing politicians, for the randomly selected legislators to avoid corrupting the system for personal gain.
Demarchy is designed to make balanced decisions by including a diversity of people in a consensus-forming process. It is unclear how this could be applied to an office which is held by a single person, such as a president. Elimination of such offices would be criticized as leaving the country without clear leadership in times of crisis or military emergency. An alternative to elimination might be the election of the executive by a randomly selected group of people, or a change to a system where the legislature chooses an executive in the form of a prime minister. (Many countries already use the latter parliamentary system of government.)
[edit] Courts as an example
An example of direct democracy is the use of most democracies to use a jury of peers in criminal cases. The jury is normally a body of randomly selected citizens who decide the guilty or not guilty verdict, which is a prime example of direct democracy.
[edit] Demarchy in fiction
The concept of demarchy played an important role in Frederick Pohl's science fiction novel, The Years of the City (ISBN 0-671-46047-1), which is set in a near-future New York City. In the novel, all government offices, including the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court, are filled by average citizens chosen using a form of selective service. Appointees are aided in their duties by android-like Digital Colleagues, extensive computer databases, and an overall goal of reducing bureaucracy and legislation rather than creating more. The last of the book's five sections (Gwenanda and the Supremes) focuses on the story of a Supreme Court Justice.
In Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space series of novels the concept of demarchy has been used to flatten hierarchies. Here, in one of the human factions—the demarchists—everyone is theoretically equal in the realm of government and all major political related issues are voted upon by everyone in a technological version of Greece's direct democracy. Joan D. Vinge also uses demarchy in the sense of electronic direct democracy in her 1978 novel The Outcasts of Heaven Belt (later incorporated into The Heaven Chronicles), perhaps the earliest use of the term.
[edit] Klerostocracy
Demarchy could also be called klerostocracy, as kleros is the Greek word for casting lots. Klerostocracy would literally mean, "Rule by random selection." In Book 4 of Aristotle's The Politics,<ref>Aristotle's Politics</ref>
| I mean for example, that it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected (assigned by vote) oligarchic. |
[edit] Lottocracy
The concept of demarchy is similar to but slightly different from the concept of lottocracy.<ref>The term was coined by L. León in his book The World Solution for World Problems (ISBN 90-900259-2-8, no copy rights attached)</ref> Burnheim ... insists that the random selection be made only from volunteers.<ref>Brian Martin, "Demarchy: A Democratic Alternative to Electoral Politics", Kick It Over, No. 30, Fall 1992, pp. 11-13.</ref> In the chapter A Concept for Government, León states: ... that first of all, the job must not be liked.<ref>A Concept for Government, León</ref>. A detailed protocol for lottocracy is described in the same chapter.
[edit] See also
- This entry is related to, but not included in the Political ideologies series or one of its sub-series. Other related articles can be found at the Politics Portal.
[edit] Notes
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[edit] References
- Martin, Brian (1995-96). "Democracy Without Elections". Social Anarchism 21: 18-51.
- Callenbach, Ernest, Michael Phillips (1985). A Citizen Legislature.
- León, L (1988). The World-Solution for World-Problems: The Problem, Its Cause, Its Solution. (Hard copy available at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, LC Classification: H61 .L445 1988)
- Brian Martin: Writings on Demarchy and Democracy.
- Sclove, Richard E (July 1996). "Town Meetings on Technology". Technology Review.
- Global Public (January 2006). "Randomly selecting government officials". Ethics & Democracy.es:Demarquía
