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  1. Home
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  3. The Government of Chance
  • Cited by 12
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
February 2023
Print publication year:
2023
Online ISBN:
9781009285650
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009285650
Subjects:
Political Theory, Politics and International Relations, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Information

Book description

Electoral democracies are struggling. Sintomer, in this instructive book, argues for democratic innovations. One such innovation is using random selection to create citizen bodies with advisory or decisional political power. 'Sortition' has a long political history. Coupled with elections, it has represented an important yet often neglected dimension of Republican and democratic government, and has been reintroduced in the Global North, China and Mexico. The Government of Chance explores why sortation is returning, how it is coupled with deliberation, and why randomly selected 'minipublics' and citizens' assemblies are flourishing. Relying on a growing international and interdisciplinary literature, Sintomer provides the first systematic and theoretical reconstruction of the government of chance from Athens to the present. At what conditions can it be rational? What lessons can be drawn from history? The Government of Chance therefore clarifies the democratic imaginaries at stake: deliberative, antipolitical, and radical, making a plaidoyer for the latter.

Reviews

‘This study is a magisterial compendium of the uses of sortition across the ages and across cultures and for varying purposes. It is a must read for anyone interested in the application of random selection for a whole range of social and political purposes.’

James Fishkin Source: Perspectives on Politics

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