Resources
Here you can find some of the best materials that explore and promote deliberation by randomly-selected citizens
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How to run a Civic Lottery
MASS LBP
A guide to designing fair selection mechanisms for deliberative public processes.
Sorteo y Democracia
Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía
Primer monográfico dedicado en España a la relación entre el sorteo y la democracia.
Citizen Initiative Review (Oregon model)
SWI swissinfo.ch
This short video explains the concept of Citizen Initiative Review (aka Oregon model) based on the 2018 pilot-project in Massachusetts (USA) and the planned pilot-project in Switzerland.
How we select members of a citizens' jury
Malcolm Oswald
A description of how Citizens Juries c.i.c. advertises and recruits a stratified sample of citizens for a citizens' jury.
Sharing Sortition With Some Soul
Adam Cronkright & Simon Pek
The authors suggest that there are two main stumbling blocks keeping us from communicating effectively about sortition: (1) an affinity to language that doesn’t always fit our audiences, and (2) a lack of skill and comfort with persuasion—especially in the realm of emotion. As illustrative examples, they offer concrete ways to overcome these challenges and conclude with an invitation for others to join them in making messaging about sortition more captivating and memorable.
Pathways Through Participation
Ellie Brodie, Tim Hughes, Véronique Jochum, Sarah Miller, Nick Ockenden & Diane Warburton
Pathways Through Participation was the result of 2.5 year qualitative research, aiming to improve our understanding of how and why people participate, how their involvement changes over time, and what pathways, if any, exist between different activities.
How to commission a Citizens’ Assembly or Reference Panel
What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people? | TEDx
Brett Hennig
If you think democracy is broken, here's an idea: let's replace politicians with randomly selected people. Author and activist Brett Hennig presents a compelling case for sortition democracy, or random selection of government officials -- a system with roots in ancient Athens that taps into the wisdom of the crowd and entrusts ordinary people with making balanced decisions for the greater good of everyone.
Citizens Juries c.i.c. policy on public observers
Citizens Juries CIC
Guidance for public observers on what is expected behaviour when observing a citizens' jury.
Should we draw lots for fairer elections?
SWI swissinfo.ch
To what extent are elections truly democratic? At the dawn of democracy in Athens, elected representatives used to be picked by lot. This idea is back in vogue: two Lausanne researchers have examined the notion of chance in politics.
The Way to Fix Our Democracy
Campbell Newman
Former Queensland Premier
Opinion Piece from the political Right in The Australian newspaper about the Geelong Citizens' Jury.
El sorteo en política: Cómo pensarlo y cómo ponerlo en práctica
Oliver Dowlen y Jorge Costa Delgado
Guía para la utilización del sorteo que busca conciliar dos inquietudes: comprender cómo la filosofía política clásica modificó las formas de discusión política en nuestro presente y proponer una herramienta práctica derivada del mundo político antiguo.
Sorted: Civic Lotteries and the Future of Public Participation
Oliver Dowlen
By examining use of civic lotteries through history, this report explains how sortition can lower the barrier to political participation and extend a meaningful, new franchise to citizens wishing to serve their communities. This report makes the case for reviving a neglected democratic tradition – one that works in partnership with existing institutions and elected legislators to create a more powerful and direct role for citizens.
Make democracy great again | TEDx
Charly Pache
TEDx talk about sharing power and diversity in democracy, with the help of citizen assemblies and sortition.
Building a public culture of economics
Invitación a un debate: el sorteo y las Cámaras sorteadas como mejoras institucionales de la democracia
Jorge Cancio
Propuesta para crear nuevas "cámaras sorteadas" en todos los niveles administrativos, desde una cámara al mismo nivel que el Congreso y el Senado españoles actuales hasta cámaras sorteadas para cada municipio. Ejercerían sus poderes de acuerdo con los procedimientos deliberativos.
People and Participation
Involve
People and Participation sets out how to plan for participation and choose appropriate participation methods. It provides practical detail, drawing on the experiences of hundreds of practitioners who have used new methods to involve the public in issues ranging from local planning to nanotechnology. Deepening and strengthening democracy depends on success in learning lessons about why some kinds of participation lead to better and more legitimate decisions, while others do not.
Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation
Graham Smith
How can we design institutions that increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision-making process? At a time when disillusionment is growing with democratic institutions, this classic book draws important lessons from the systematic analysis of democratic innovation around the world, including citizens' assemblies in Canada, participatory budgeting in Brazil, direct legislation in California and Switzerland and emerging experiments in digital democracy.
The People's Verdict
Claudia Chwalisz
This study of almost 50 long-form deliberative processes in Canada and Australia makes the case that adding informed citizen voices to public decision-making leads to more effective policies. By putting the problem to the people, giving them information, time to discuss the options, to find common ground and to decide what they want, public bodies gain the legitimacy to act on hard choices.
