Random citizens vs politicians: is the referee biased?
Citizens induced reforms seem a good way to push the political system for changes. But when your main opponent is also the referee, can the outcome really be fair?
Of course when you buy the referee it may not be enough to ensure your victory: For example when your team has a really bad day and the other a particularly good one. But still. With adversaries of similar strength that gives you an edge.
It feels a bit the same when looking at how random citizens selected through sortition have performed against elected representatives. If you look at the below examples — and there are more- you can but only be impressed by the outcomes of these deliberative processes.
They are what you would want from politics:
- free from self-interest and political games
- genuinely of a better quality and
- of a higher implementation potential than what our assemblies, houses of representatives, senate and co. would have come up with.
Iceland and its so-called ‘crowdsourced constitution’ experiment in 2011 is often and rightly so considered a model of its kind.
As per the article sourced here it was not without useful lessons-learned. But the main reason it failed is because the Parliament where it ended-up after having been approved by a two-third majority of the voters just ignored it. Because it did not try and rally the political elite discredited after the 2008 financial crisis, this outsider’s initiative was simply discarded by the insiders.
Earlier on in the Netherlands, in 2006, another interesting initiative took place for the reform of the electoral system. A consultative process involving 140 ordinary citizens developed the proposal. Ultimately (but not only), the initiative was simply rejected by political parties who realised that they would risk losing some power.
The problem is simple, at the end of the day our elected representatives are also the referee. In almost none of these initiatives have they relinquished their authority. They are the ones to decide if they will pursue or not the recommendations put forward by their fellow citizens.
Now that we are stuck with elected representatives, they logically behave as a barrier to change. They are maybe convinced that they are right, that deliberative processes are a danger to democracy.
Sounds like a nice little bias. When you are the insider you would do anything to keep your position…
The question remains: how can we move towards a democratic system truly open to its citizens when the ones in charge of reforming it have no vested interested in doing so?
