DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION AND CITIZEN LOTTERIES:
from Ancient Athens to the French Climate Assembly

An OSUN Course from the Hannah Arendt Center

COURSE DESCRIPTION

In this class we review the history of democracy from its ancient roots in a lottery-based system to the emergence and dominance of modern electoral democracies. We then approach the emerging movement to include lottery-based citizens’ assemblies as well as other democratic innovations such as participatory budgeting in Brazil, and “digital” democracy in Taiwan. We will study recent assemblies in France, Ireland, Colombia, and Canada. We will look at the newly established permanent citizen assembly in Paris. And we will ask: can lottery based assemblies help decrease polarization? Do they have an effect on government policy? Are these innovations conducive to certain policy issues but ineffective at solving others?

Register today! Class starts August 29th

FACULTY

WHAT IS SORTITION?

What is Sortition?

Roger Berkowitz

Greek Democracy

Roger Berkowitz

The Story of Sortition

Roger Berkowitz

Lessons From the Irish Citizen Assemblies

Jane Suiter

The Preferendum: When Sortition Hits the Masses

David Van Reybrouck

Institionalizing Sortition

David Van Reybrouck

Why & How to Organize Climate Citizens’ Assemblies

Eva Rovers

Representing the Future Through Sortition

Michael MacKenzie

How To Become a Demos

Yasemin Sari

Arendt and Council Democracy

Shmuel Lederman

America as a Project

Tracy Strong

Revitalizing American Democracy

SPEAKERS FROM 2021 CONFERENCE

CONFERENCE READINGS

“Representative government is in crisis today, partly because it has lost, in the course of time, all institutions that permitted the citizens’ actual participation, and partly because it is now gravely affected by the disease from which the party system suffers: bureaucratization and the two parties’ tendency to represent nobody except the party machines.”

— Hannah Arendt, 1970

DOWNLOAD THE READER

VIDEOS

Videos of the 2021 Conference Livestream Can be Accessed Here:

Click to Access Video Archive