Demarchy
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Demarchy is a term coined by Australian philosopher John Burnheim to describe a political system without the state or bureaucracies, and based instead on randomly selected groups of decision makers. These groups, sometimes termed "policy juries", "citizens' juries", or "Consensus Conferences", would deliberate and make decisions about public policies in much the same way that juries reach verdicts on criminal cases.
Demarchy attempts to overcome some of the functional problems with conventional representative democracies, which in practice have often been subject to manipulation by special interests and a divide between professional policymakers (politicians and lobbyists) vs. a largely passive, uninvolved and often uninformed electorate. According to Burnheim, random selection of policymakers would make it easier for everyday citizens to meaningfully participate, and harder for special interests to corrupt the process.
More generally, random selection of decision makers is known as sortition. The Athenian democracy made much use of sortition, with nearly all government offices filled by lottery rather than by election.
Areas of thinking and debate
Although this form of democractic thinking has yet to be popularized or rigourously examined and critiqued, there are three broad areas of thinking:
The first area of thinking concerns whether or not those randomly chosen should replace a representative democracy. In this sense, rather than elect politicians to serve in a representative council and/or senate, people are randomly chosen to fulfil this role. The alternative to this is that representation is dispensed with entirely and those randomly selected are appointed to make decisions within a specific government department or area of responsibility. For example, a person may be selected to make decisions about national defence, or they may be selected to make decisions about the environment - and they do so as part of a group of randomly selected individuals.
The second area of thinking concerns the range and extent of decision making and focuses upon macro- vs micro-government. Should demarchy be practiced at a federal/national level only, should it be practiced at a local/community level only, or should it be practiced at all levels of government? This issue is important, but focuses more upon other issues of democracy that is not necessarily specific to random-selection of decision makers.
The third area of thinking concerns whether or not those randomly selected should first meet some form of minimum criteria (such as level of education, lack of criminal record, age, etc) in order to be selected, or whether anyone should be allowed to be represented. In the former case some form of Meritocracy would apply.
Burnheim's model of Demarchy involves the partial or complete dissolution of government departments and bureaucracies which are replaced by citizen's juries. Demarchy as a concept does not necessitate such a radical step as integral to its purpose.
When one considers how much time and effort is expended by politicians and bureaucracies in gaining or supporting political strength, the practice of Demarchy is quite efficient. Politicians in western governments spend a good deal of their time either influencing others or being influenced by others. The purpose of this influence is that politicians and lobbyists can achieve their political goals. Because Demarchy selects decision-makers randomly, the time and effort spent on politician machinations and manipulation is limited. In theory, therefore, demarchy could be a more efficient system of democracy than having elected officials.
Demarchy could also be called Klerostocracy - kleros is the Greek word for casting lots. Klerostocracy would literally mean "rule by random selection".
Demarchy attempts to achieve Democratic representation without needing elections - it is "Democracy without Elections".
The concept of Demarchy played an important role in Frederick Pohl's science fiction novel, The Years of the City (ISBN 0-671-46047-1), which is set in a near-future New York City. In the novel, all government offices, including the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court, are filled by average citizens chosen using a form of selective service. Appointees are aided in their duties by android-like Digital Colleagues, extensive computer databases, and an overall goal of reducing beauracracy and legislation rather than creating more. The last of the book's five sections ("Gwenanda and the Supremes") focuses on the story of a Supreme Court Justice.
In Alister Reynolds Revelation Space series of novels the concept of Demarchy has been used as flattening of heirarchies. Where everyone is theoretically equal in the realm of government and all major political related issues are voted upon by everyone in a technological version of Greece's direct democracy.
See also
External links
- Brian Martin, "Demarchy: A Democratic Alternative to Electoral Politics", Kick It Over, No. 30, Fall 1992, pp. 11-13.
- Ernest Callenbach & Michael Phillips, "A Citizen Legislature", 1985
- Publications on demarchy and democracy
- Richard E. Sclove, "Town Meetings on Technology", Technology Review, July 1996.
