In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of public officials or jurors using a random representative sample.[1][2][3] This minimizes factionalism, since those selected to serve can prioritize deliberating on the policy decisions in front of them instead of campaigning.[4]
In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.[5][6] Sortition is often classified as a method for both direct democracy and deliberative democracy.
Today sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in common-law systems. What has changed in recent years is the increased number of citizen groups with political advisory power,[7][8] along with calls for making sortition more consequential than elections, as it was in Athens, Venice, and Florence.[9][10][11][12]
^Engelstad, Fredrik (1989). "The assignment of political office by lot". Social Science Information. 28 (1): 23–50. doi:10.1177/053901889028001002. S2CID 144352457.
^OECD (2020). Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. doi:10.1787/339306da-en. ISBN 9789264837621. S2CID 243747068.
^Landemore, Hélène (January 15, 2010). Deliberation, Representation, and the Epistemic Function of Parliamentary Assemblies: a Burkean Argument in Favor of Descriptive Representation(PDF). International Conference on "Democracy as Idea and Practice", University of Oslo, Oslo January 13–15, 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 8, 2013.
^Graeber, David (April 9, 2013). The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. Random House Inc. pp. 957–959. ISBN 978-0-679-64600-6. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
^Headlam, James Wycliffe (1891). Election by Lot at Athens. The University Press. p. 12.
^Cambiano, Giuseppe (2020). "Piccola archeologia del sorteggio". Teoria Politica (in Italian) (10): 103–121.
^Fishkin, James (2009). When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199604432.
^Ostfeld, Jacob (November 19, 2020). "The Case for Sortition in America". Harvard Political Review. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
^Reybrouck, David Van (June 29, 2016). "Why elections are bad for democracy". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved February 24, 2023.
^Rieg, Timo; Translated from German by Catherine McLean (September 8, 2015). "Why a citizen's parliament chosen by lot would be 'perfect'". SWI swissinfo.ch (Op-ed.). Retrieved May 24, 2023.
^Wolfson, Arthur M. (1899). "The Ballot and Other Forms of Voting in the Italian Communes". The American Historical Review. 5 (1): 1–21. doi:10.2307/1832957. JSTOR 1832957.
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery...
is to make a random selection, and may refer to: Cleromancy, a form of sortition in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered...
an oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot. Electoral...
Cleromancy is a form of sortition (casting of lots) in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling...
Referendum Right to petition Right to protest Right to candidacy Right to vote Sortition Territorial peace theory Tyranny of the majority Voting War referendum...
The Sortition Law (Portuguese: Lei do Sorteio), officially Law No. 1,860 of 4 January 1908, introduced compulsory military service for the Brazilian Armed...
There have been various proposals to integrate sortition into government structures. The idea is that sortition could introduce a new dimension of representation...
established in 1115, was led by the Signoria whose members were chosen by sortition. In 10th–15th century Frisia, a distinctly non-feudal society, the right...
only wealthy males could vote, and the Athenian democracy, which used sortition to elect candidates, almost always male, Greek, educated citizens holding...
sometimes used to resolve a dispute between two parties. It is a form of sortition which inherently has two possible outcomes. The party who calls the side...
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to politics and political science: Politics – the exercise of power; process by which...
with social justice in mind. It consisted of 150 citizens selected by sortition and stratified sampling, who were sorted into five sub-groups to discuss...
government where people are randomly selected from the citizenry through sortition to either act as general governmental representatives or to make decisions...
rather than acquiring their positions by inheritance or sortition (at the Greco-Roman time, sortition was conventionally regarded as the principal characteristic...
Referendum Right to petition Right to protest Right to candidacy Right to vote Sortition Territorial peace theory Tyranny of the majority Voting War referendum...
The reform of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, has been a topic of discussion in UK politics for more than...
delegates from among themselves, typically by election or, less commonly, by sortition. These select citizens then meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature...
the Congress the party selected four committees among its members by sortition, responsible for healthcare, housing, social welfare, and democratization...
Medieval Italy Italian Renaissance Italian city-states Maritime republics Sortition Signoria on Encyclopædia Britannica "Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance...
direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing officials, and conducting...
Referendum Right to petition Right to protest Right to candidacy Right to vote Sortition Territorial peace theory Tyranny of the majority Voting War referendum...
Referendum Right to petition Right to protest Right to candidacy Right to vote Sortition Territorial peace theory Tyranny of the majority Voting War referendum...
the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition. The assembly had four main functions: it made executive pronouncements...
(including all single-winner systems) Proportional Semi-proportional Other: sortition, etc. Mixed system (yes/no) Single-winner/multiple winner system List...
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