Article in the New Republic on the founder of Extinction Rebellion who sees a move to Sortition, selecting our representatives randomly from the general population, as the best way that we can design our future together and avoid climate catastrophe. Here is the link to full article –
The centerpiece of Hallam’s plan is a radical reinvention of democracy aimed at turning elections into a historical relic. If there’s one thing Americans seem to agree on, it’s that our elected officials do a poor job of representing our interests. According to a 2021 Pew survey, 67 percent think most politicians are corrupt, and 65 percent believe the political system should be profoundly altered. The reason for our mistrust, Hallam says, is quite simple: Despite the widespread belief that we live in a democracy, i.e., a government ruled by the people, the electoral process guarantees the opposite—that only those with access to money, privilege, and elite social status (often all of the above) get anywhere near real power.
This is by design. By the time the Constitution was being drafted in the late 1780s, American elites had already soured on democratic rule, what Founding Father Benjamin Rush called “the Devil’s own government.” They therefore implemented a host of constitutional mechanisms designed to preserve aristocratic prerogatives (most notably, the Electoral College and the apportionment of senators by state rather than population). These systems, along with Citizens United, a democracy-killer the Framers never dreamed of, warp our politics to this day.
For Hallam, the path forward demands a look way, way back, to the origins of democratic governance in ancient Athens, where it was understood that, as Aristotle held, elections were fundamentally “oligarchical.” In his time, representatives were selected not by election but by drawing lots, a process called sortition. It’s a cumbersome word, and not one you tend to hear much outside a small but growing circle of self-styled democracy nerds—earnest academics who, like Hallam, believe our system is due for a fundamental reset. Even so, the concept lives on in our modern jury system, in which enormous power, sometimes over life and death, is granted on a temporary basis to a randomly selected group of citizens.
The approach works remarkably well. On the whole, jurors serve with impressive seriousness of purpose, viewing their work as a sacred duty. Corruption is vanishingly rare. The isolation of the jury room seems to tamp down partisanship. And as it turns out, getting a group of everyday people together, providing them with basic facts, and letting them hash things out results in reasonably good decisions. Not every jury verdict is perfect, certainly, but perfection is not the standard. The standard is reflecting the will of an informed public, and in this respect, there’s little doubt that sortition beats election hands down.
In recent decades, sortition-based citizens’ assemblies have been convened in numerous countries, including France, Australia, Spain, Germany, Britain, Iceland, the U.S., and Ireland, where one such group focused on the contentious issue of abortion, leading to a national referendum that overturned that nation’s ban. These experiments have repeatedly demonstrated that average people, chosen by lottery in a manner designed to represent the full spectrum of political, ethnic, age, gender, and other categories, generate sound policy with minimal rancor. Perhaps more important, by removing expensive campaigns from the political process, sortition undercuts a system in which only the most slick, calculating, and narcissistic need apply, eliminates the corruption of incumbency, and removes the key mechanism through which wealthy elites manipulate the system. “The first thing is these are ordinary people, who are honored to be part of the assembly,” Hallam explained, “so they’re not in this space of power and hierarchy and ‘I know more than you.’ You get rational policy outcomes … but also you create a different political culture, because people listen to each other, and you overcome extreme polarization and all the rest of it.”
The major threat to the Republic has always been “the culture of the rich,” he added, “which puts self-interest before the public interest.” (While this dynamic has a long history, the spectacle of a handful of billionaires dismantling America’s social safety net and civil rights law puts the issue in unusually stark relief.) Under a representative lottery system, Hallam added, “by definition, the one percent are just one percent of the chamber.” As a result, citizens’ assemblies tend to garner exceptionally high levels of public legitimacy. Members of the wider community understand that decisions are being made by people like them and that, indeed, they too may one day be called to serve.
It’s important to note: Sortition-based assemblies are not a partisan project. They are as liable to arrive at conservative policy prescriptions as liberal ones. That’s the point of democracy. For Hallam, specific decisions matter less than the system through which they’re determined. Policies are like eggs, he said. “You want to design the chicken that lays the egg.” Moreover, political categories shrink in significance when the focus is on genuine deliberation rather than surly displays of tribalism. By putting actual power in the hands of average people, assemblies act as an antidote to the political resentment and resignation that sustain our polarized climate. And critically, in cases where a people’s movement actually does manage to topple a regime, assemblies could provide a governance model with wide legitimacy, avoiding the sort of power vacuum that occurred in Egypt after Mubarak was deposed, for instance, and tamping down authoritarian strains that might arise within the movement itself (see Russia, 1917).
Many readers will remain unconvinced. They will doubt the intelligence of their fellow citizens. On learning that assemblies will hear from experts as they deliberate, they will spot an opportunity for bad actors to stack the deck. They will imagine ways in which bias will warp the attempt at representative sampling. They will predict that, as in any group interaction, certain people (loud, charming, aggressive, etc.) will tend to dominate the process.
These are all good points, and advocates of sortition-based democracy have devised a variety of mechanisms to deal with them. While such details are well beyond the scope of this piece, a 200-page study published in 2020 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development offers one good primer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, while the OECD report recommends ways to institutionalize the use of assemblies as a supplement to governmental decision-making, it stops short of endorsing a wholesale replacement of the electoral process. And indeed, in framing the idea as the centerpiece of a political revolution, Hallam parts company with the more tweedy academics who tend to study the subject.
As for those who are persuaded, as he is, that the urgency of climate collapse not only demands but invites a more radical implementation, it’s natural to wonder how exactly he proposes to get there. How does a wonky experiment turn into an authentically transformative revolutionary project?
How does a wonky experiment turn into an authentically transformative revolutionary project?
This may be the toughest question of all, particularly for those of us living in the U.S., a country that seems much too big, complex, powerful, and fundamentally complacent to ever ditch the neoliberal paradigm. Hallam isn’t so sure. “The most exciting thing about American culture is its understanding of the pro-social potentiality of disrupting systems, which Europe doesn’t get,” he suggested. And he readily acknowledged that many of Extinction Rebellion’s most impactful strategies were borrowed from Silicon Valley business culture: the move fast and break things ethos; the holocratic management structure; the acceptance and careful study of failure; relentless iteration, and so on.
Nonetheless, he seems to agree that this change is more likely to begin elsewhere. Imagine the following scenario:
In a rural municipality in a modest-size European country, an experiment is underway—residents selected by lottery have been invited to participate in a People’s Assembly, a series of meetings held over eight weekends. On the first day, after a friendly interaction over coffee and cake, 100 participants divide into groups led by trained facilitators. Their first order of business: identifying the key challenges facing the community. Suggestions range from a lack of affordable housing to the need for a traffic light at a busy intersection. As the session concludes, three priorities are selected by vote. Committees are formed to recruit experts to bring participants up to speed on possible solutions.
Some deliberations are broadcast on social media, drawing an avid audience. Viewers love seeing recognizable types who might be expected to be at odds treating each other with civility and even affection. Citizens in other areas hatch plans for similar experiments. At the end of its term, the People’s Assembly announces a set of policy proposals. It also reveals the selection of one of its members to run for local office on an independent ticket.
The elected representative, Lena, is a high school civics teacher and mother of two, whose enthusiasm, intelligence, and respect for a range of opinions impressed her colleagues during deliberations. While she has scant financial resources and zero experience in politics, she can boast an appealing personal story and a network of supporters who served alongside her and will work hard on her behalf. After all, she has pledged to follow the lead of the assembly (the next cohort, with all new members) when placing votes and setting priorities.
The media loves Lena. She’s a breath of fresh air, an underdog, a real person. The contrast with her opponent, a career politician dependent on wealthy donors, is stark. Lena triumphs, delivering her acceptance speech surrounded by current and former students.
As the idea gathers steam, assemblies are held around the country. The empowerment of ordinary people redirects the populist energy that once fed the far right, which begins to falter. When the following election brings more Lenas into the political sphere, they form a caucus and begin pushing for government recognition of the assembly model. They pass legislation ensuring assembly members are paid for their time, leading to expanded participation.
In time, assembly-based candidates form a party, which quickly adopts its own strict term limits, cycling in new members, upending a culture of stagnant incumbency, and making traditional parties look corrupt and out of touch. When massive floods hit the region, the government is caught flat-footed. Volunteers mobilized by the People’s Party quickly create a network to provide housing, food, and other assistance, cementing the movement’s legitimacy. As localities are beset by further extreme weather events, officials routinely turn to their local assemblies for organizing help and ideas on how to respond.
The country’s political culture perceptibly begins shifting in their direction, and boosters of the model announce a National Assembly with an ambitious goal: to write a new Constitution. Citizens selected by sortition brainstorm and deliberate for months, with meetings carried live on public television. By the time they unveil the contents of their proposal, their work has broad legitimacy. Some elements are controversial—especially the provision requiring a climate impact study for every new piece of legislation—but the televised deliberations demonstrate that objections have been carefully considered. While polling shows 80 percent of the public in favor of the new Constitution, however, the political establishment opposes the change and votes it down.
The new Constitution’s proponents, who have been expecting this outcome, call for protests. People come out in force, blocking traffic. The capital is brought to a standstill. The crowds double the next day, when the nation’s high school students ditch class to join the demonstrations. Labor unions get on board, calling a national strike. The battle makes international news. A pro-democracy movement emerges in country after country, eventually even reaching the U.S.
Could it really happen—a democratic revolution without a drop of blood spilled? Could we survive as a nation without a Chuck Schumer or a Mike Johnson leading the way? In an era when our institutions are rapidly shedding legitimacy; when public anger leads to a national debate over the murder of corporate CEOs; when an empowered far right teams up with a corrupt oligarchy and begins openly dismantling the last vestiges of our democratic system; and when the climate emergencies (let’s not forget those) begin to really bite, I think it’s possible. It certainly sounds a lot better than the other options on the table.
For now, Hallam is well aware, many will cling to the status quo for as long as they can, even those well-credentialed, liberal elites who presumably know better. “They’re all sitting on their hands, right?” he told me as the last few minutes ticked down on his prison phone allotment. “But what needs to be said to the whole space is, ‘Look, the worst possible thing imaginable is going to happen to your values in the next 10 years if we don’t get our shit organized, right? So you have an absolute moral obligation to look at nonfascist alternatives.’”