Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: This short paper describes the growing trend of democracy by lot, or sortition, as a modern form of democratic innovation. It highlights the case of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, which is establishing a permanent citizens' council (Bürgerrat) chosen randomly to make policy recommendations. This practice is seen as a response to a crisis in traditional electoral democracy, offering a way to create more representative citizen bodies. The text also traces the historical roots of this idea to classical Athenian democracy and medieval Catalunya, and discusses how new technologies and statistical methods make it more feasible today. The paper concludes that while these initiatives are complex, they represent a hopeful path for democratic reform in an era of political disillusionment.
Author: Marta Poblet
Institution: RMIT University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4413376727