Two essays, printed back to back in a single volume, offer complementary solutions to the democratic deficit in Britain and the USA

    350 pp., August 2008
    £14.95/$29.90 978-1845401085 (pbk.)
    £30/$58 978-1845401382 (cloth)

    Series: Sortition and Public Policy

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    A People’s Parliament by Keith Sutherland

    This controversial and hard-hitting book questions the role of the political party in the post-ideological age and concludes that it would be better for government ministers to be appointed by headhunters and held to account by a ‘people’s parliament’ selected by lot. Unlike it’s 2004 predecessor The Party’s Over: Blueprint for a Very English Revolution Sutherland’s new book acknowledges an ongoing role for the political party to achieve the ‘representation of interests’ (Pitkin, 1967). However, in order to avoid factionalism -- that ‘grand cankerworm of a Commonwealth’-- parties should be only one element in a mixed constitution, that combines expert advocacy with informed popular decision making.
     
  • 'As a follow-up to his stimulating The Party’s Over (2004) Keith Sutherland now gives us a revised blueprint – more of a pink print, actually – for a very English revolution. About time too – 350 years has been too long to wait! The party system, the crown, the judiciary, even parliament – all are revisited, revised and – echoing Richard Crossman of hallowed memory (for some) – reshaped. Echoing Sutherland, I say – Amen to that.” Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, University of Cambridge
  • 'Sutherland’s model of citizen’s juries ought to have much greater appeal to progressive Britain.' Tim Luckhurst, Observer
  • 'An extremely valuable contribution.' Graham Allen MP, Tribune
  • 'A political essay in the best tradition – shrewd, erudite, polemical, partisan, mischievous and highly topical.' Contemporary Political Theory

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  • Table of Contents
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Index

    • A Citizen Legislature by Ernest Callenbach & Michael Phillips

    The American founders proposed that their legislature should be ‘an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large’. Whether or not this was true at the time, the exponential growth of the population, skyrocketing campaign funding, the power of pressure groups, the grease of the pork-barrel and the dominance of charisma and demagoguery means that the US Constitution could now better be described as a kleptocracy. This pioneering essay proposes selecting Congressional members by random lot (leaving the Senate and Presidency unchanged) to ‘restore a direct, powerful voice in Washington to the whole of America’.

    Originally published in 1985, this new edition includes an introduction by political scientist Peter Stone
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