Keith Sutherland: Election by lot and the democratic diarchy
PGR seminar
Much of the discontent with contemporary democracy centres on the belief that Members of Parliament do not represent voters 'descriptively'. This paper argues that descriptive representation could be best achieved by the adoption of 4th century Athenian practice, in which legislative judgment was enacted by large citizen juries, selected by lot.
| A Department of Politics seminar | |
|---|---|
| Date | 26 March 2015 |
| Time | 16:00 |
| Place | Amory |
Event details
The claim by politicians to ‘act for’ their constituents' substantive interests is compromised by the fact that the similarity of persons selected by preference election leads to a failure to adequately describe or 'stand for' the rich diversity of a modern multicultural society. This paper (the introduction to Sutherland's PhD) argues that the two distinct aspects of the concept of representation (acting for and standing for) require different selection mechanisms and that preference election only applies in the former case.
Location:
Amory
