Sortition as Anti‐Corruption

Popular Oversight against Elite Capture

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6230109
AutoresSamuel Bagg (0000-0001-6126-3232, University of South Carolina, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume68
Fascículo1
Páginas93-105
Data de publicação2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ajps.12704
OpenAlexW4220846533
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas37
Referências citadas48

Random selection for political office—or “sortition”—is increasingly seen as a promising tool for democratic renewal. Critics worry, however, that replacing elected and appointed officials with randomly selected citizens would only exacerbate elite manipulation of political processes. This article argues that sortitioncancontribute to democratic renewal, but that its genuine promise is obscured by the excessive ambition and misplaced focus of prevailing models. Casting random selection as a route to accurate representation of the popular will, most contemporary proposals require randomly selected citizens to perform legislative tasks, whose open‐endedness grants substantial discretion to elite agenda setters and facilitators. The real democratic promise of sortition‐based reforms, I argue, lies in obstructing elite capture at critical junctures: a narrower task of oversight that creates fewer opportunities for elite manipulation. In such contexts, the benefits of empowering ordinary people—resulting from their immunity to certain distorting influences on career officials—plausibly outweigh the risks

Democracy · Discretion · Economics · Elite · Language change · Law and economics · Legislature · Management · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Representation (politics · Selection (genetic algorithm · Sociology · Task (project management · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Public Administration