Politics of Random Selection: Making Good Use of Sortition

What should you do when you have decided to use the drawing of lots in a procedure? What practical questions arise? What options are available? What are the details? What advantages and disadvantages should we expect from each option? What are the risks to be aware of and the precautions to take?

The literature on sortition consists of three main genres: monographs, arguments for and against, and the history of the procedure in one or more dimensions. This book stands a little apart from this framework. Its method is largely deductive and theoretical in reasoning. It has a practical purpose which is aimed at specialists as well as naïve users and interested parties: precise enough to satisfy an informed public and simple enough to be accessible to citizens and practitioners.

Gil Delannoi begins with a general theory of political procedures and its relations with the typology of political regimes. Sortitive democracy is also studied as a third option distinct from the familiar representative and direct types. Sortition is analysed through its main uses, effects, and objectives. Several detailed potential uses are proposed for political actors at the end of the book.

Treating procedures like delicate flowers or rare birds is far from superfluous. To forget this aspect is to stick to generalities, and to ignore crucial details.

Gil Delannoi is a senior researcher (FNSP), professor of political theory at Sciences-Po Paris, and a fellow of the Centre de recherches politiques. His main interests include political theory, the history of ideas, the history and theory of democracy, institutional design, literature, and music.He led an international research programme on random selection for political office. It was the first opportunity to bring together the main authors from all countries. The research, funded by Sciences-Po, included lectures or workshops at other universities, such as Trinity College (Dublin), Queen Mary (London), University of Lausanne (2008-2013) in a programme whose main co-organizers were Antoine Chollet, Oliver Dowlen, Laurence Morel, and Peter Stone. It continued in various workshops during the IPSA congresses (Montreal 2014, Lisbon 2021).