Books
Politics of Random Selection: Making Good Use of Sortition
£12.95
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.
Paperback
110 pp.
£12.95
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.
Mitchell Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York –
“In this troubled era, when thinkers and politicians debate how to fix our anxious western democracies, Gil Delannoi, an especially thoughtful French political scientist, has written an original and challenging book. He retrieves ‘Sortition’ — the idea of random selection — from the history of democracy for contemporary use. Mixing astute analyses and recommendations for practical politics — even for universities — Delannoi’s lucid argument demands serious attention both by political theorists and by today’s democratic citizen.”
Philippe Urfalino, Professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris –
“In the form of an instruction manual, Gil Delannoi offers an original reflection on the use of random selection in collective choice. Adopting a practical point of view, one of the best specialists on the subject avoids the unquestioning enthusiasm that this designation method sometimes gives rise to. This concise book provides the essentials on the possible uses of random selection in democracy.”