Elections and lot
Athens filled many offices by lot; Manin (1997) shows how representative government chose election, favouring distinguished elites.
Modern experiments
Fishkin (2011) developed deliberative polling; citizens' assemblies followed. Sintomer (2018) separates deliberative and radical strands, comparable to participatory budgeting.
Lottocracy and critiques
Guerrero (2014) and Landemore (2020) propose lottery-based bodies; critics cite weak accountability and expertise, while Owen and Smith (2018) stress design.
FAQ
- What is it in simple terms?
- Picking citizens at random, like a jury, to deliberate on politics.
- Does it replace elections?
- Mostly it complements them through assemblies and polls.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Manin, B. (1997). The principles of representative government. Cambridge University Press. Traces historically why lot gave way to election, explaining the concept's origins.
- Guerrero, A. A. (2014). Against elections: The lottocratic alternative. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 42(2), 135–178. Proposes single-issue lottery-selected legislatures; the key normative case.
- Fishkin, J. S. (2011). When the people speak: Deliberative democracy and public consultation. Oxford University Press. On deliberative polling with random samples of citizens.
- Sintomer, Y. (2018). From deliberative to radical democracy? Sortition and politics in the twenty-first century. Politics & Society, 46(3), 337–357. Classifies contemporary sortition experiments into deliberative and radical strands.
- Owen, D., & Smith, G. (2018). Sortition, rotation, and mandate: Conditions for political equality and deliberative reasoning. Politics & Society, 46(3), 419–434. Examines rotation and mandate as design conditions for lot-based bodies.
- Landemore, H. (2020). Open democracy: Reinventing popular rule for the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press. Envisions an 'open democracy' with lottery-based representation.
- Van Reybrouck, D. (2016). Against elections: The case for democracy (L. Waters, Trans.). Bodley Head. A popular book that brought sortition to wide audiences.