The Political Potential of Sortition

Book Reviews

Bibliographic Data

ID10692372
AuthorsPeter Stone (0000-0003-1546-752X, Stanford University, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume60
Issue240
Pages664-666
Publication date2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9213.2010.660_11.x
OpenAlexW2138464981
LanguageEN
Citations received10

The practice of sortition, the selection of political officials by lot, dates back to the early days of classical Athens. It has seen robust expression in Athens and other city‐states such as Renaissance Venice and Florence, and it survives in the modern Anglo‐American jury. The theory of sortition, the explanation of why anybody would want to select political officials in this manner, has never been nearly as robust. Traditionally, when philosophers discussed it, as did Plato, it was usually to dismiss the practice with contempt. But if Plato were right, one would expect systems employing lotteries to be so poorly designed as to collapse overnight. Yet Athens prospered in the hyper‐competitive Mediterranean world of antiquity, and the Venetian system lasted for five hundred years. Clearly sortition accomplished something, but just what this ‘something’ might be has received precious little theoretical attention. In The Political Potential of Sortition, Oliver

Art · Art history · Contempt · Jury · Literature · Political science · Politics · Selection (genetic algorithm) · The Renaissance · Classics · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

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