Trends in Theorizing Sortition

Abstract

In recent years, political scientists have devoted increasing attention to sortition – the random selection of ordinary citizens for political decision-making. This has been accompanied by a number of real-world experiments in which randomly-selected bodies provide input into the political process. The result has been a large and growing literature on the topic. Recent contributions to that literature have detailed proposals for expanded use of sortition, most of which combine election and sortition in innovative and ambitious ways. The use of sortition in these proposals is justified in various ways, many of which involve the way random selection can generate bodies capable of high-quality deliberation. There is more controversy regarding the connection between sortition and democracy. Some regard sortition as a uniquely democratic selection mechanism, while others regard election and sortition as advancing competing democratic values, generating the need for a tradeoff between them. Future research on sortition will no doubt further explore both the value of sortition and its democratic credentials.