A discussion with Marjan Ehsassi, executive director of FIDE North America, about citizens' assemblies and how they can be used in politics, business, and academia.
Lawrence Lessig writes about citizen's quorums in his book _They Don't Represent Us_. When I read it in 2020 I was hopeful that it and other anti-corruption techniques might see more experimentation in the US.
It seems however to be business as usual no matter which party controls what part of government. I'm hopeful that this kind of thing can work and would love to know the path or paths to experimentation and adoption. Certainly we need to get more everyday non-politiician Americans involved in the political process. Part of that is starting from ground zero in terms of trust.
I liked Tom McNabb's mention of swiss-style local committees but am unsure how it might be implemented in places like where I live with a 200k person population. It might be fun to try and prototype a campaign sometime.
There's definitely more to learn from here. We have bits and pieces of ideas that could work and then we need to scale them and see which work best. I like the idea of prototyping campaigns in this vein!
There have been suggestions made that a “House of Citizens” should be used in the British legislative system to replace the House of Lords using the same model you have suggested.
I believe however the argument for adding an additional House or Chamber to any countries legislature that can accurately represent the electorate and involve people directly in the democratic process is by far the better solution.
Countries do need a House that solely focuses on the political issues, alongside a House that can solely focus on the legal issues, so why not have a House of the People?
I’d vote for it, and if called I would serve my term.
Thanks for the thought you inspire.- A "House of the People" is ambitious and imaginative. However, embedding a citizens' assembly as a fourth branch of government risks muddling still more our constitutional structure. Assemblies excel at informing and pressuring elected bodies, but granting them institutional parity could blur accountability and weaken representative responsibility. Their strength may lie in serving as an advisory conscience rather than a governing branch.
Excellent interview! Democracy is in need of reform and sortition based citizen assemblies have a part to play there. I appreciate how Marjan Ehsassi isn’t advocating for a specific version / vision of how these assemblies ought to be, but rather accepts that this form of government is still in a sort of experimental stage and the details are being worked through. On that subject, I have two questions: (1) Has anyone attempted to hold citizen assemblies remotely, and if so, how did they perform compared to in person assemblies? (2) Have citizen assemblies been used anywhere to make appointment decisions? For example appointing a judge, city manager, ombudsman, or members of non-partisan commission?
These are good questions. I've made plans to follow the next US-based citizens assembly as a journalist, so I'll keep these in mind as I follow the process and learn more.
Election by lottery lacks transparency. So not only do you need to come up with an alternate system for this, but for our corrupt jury system. Presumably corrupt only, as, perfectly, lacking transparency we never could know if it was pure white snow.
I don't see why you don't just, Swiss-style, have absolutely everyone be a member of a local comittee. Make them local enough and you have your small focus groups that you are talking about for issues either they select themselves or that are parcelled out to the individual block-level committees.
France, the most corrupt nation on earth is hardly a good example except for the basic overall concept which is a great one--vive, and revive la true France.
Selection by lottery is not transparent. And in practice, with jury selection, the process ends up so complicated and full of off-the-cuff negotiations between accused and accuser, such that in practice, it's ckearly not a transparent system.
Once one doesn't have *a fixed body of electors*, transparency is out the window, in my opinion.
Finally, legislation is so long, it bears, Swiss-style a larger body of these committees you are talking about, and if selected by block, you still have small, focused, groupings which can be assigned issue-specific topics or which can appoint from among themselves subject experts for city-wide issue-specific committees--in Buffalo, there's too much snow, and the dark winters make people tired, so do it on zoom if asking people to head downtown...
I actually agree with needing to do it in-person in order to have everyone truly involved in the discussions. But I could see the need for more transparancy in the selction process. I'll be curious to learn more about how it works.
(Though with jury selection it seems pretty clear, the two lawyers debate over who would be a good fit, I don't think it's the same in the case of a citizens assembly because there are no lawyers who are trying to make a case, but it's worth learning more about!)
By "fixed body of electors," I don't mean "in person," I just mean "orderly." Right, I hadn't really thought closely about the point the defense lawyer/two opposed lawyers representing both sides provides accountability. I just doubt that in general, supposedly "rolling the dice" is sure not to be just a secret lie and what really is happening is... especially once they start saying, as in jury selection, "this guy doesn't count because..." and "that guy doesn't want to for such and such a reason and so..."
I guess there are ways, like you say, to make it more secure. At local political party meetings, we would have two people counting votes (of maybe fifty people) and five people standing directly over their shoulders watching. So, like you say, names could be picked out of a phone book like this, in theory.
From the sound of it, they do a randomized letter to thousands, and then depending on who volunteers, they might need the right number from each district or something to make sure every area is represented. But I would love a more in-depth understanding of the practice. I’ll report back!
I enjoyed this interview with Marjan Ehsassi about citizens assemblies. She feels like we Americans have lost our respect for process, and I agree. One can see it in the public's general disregard for due process with respect to immigrants arrested by ICE, a disregard that at least one circuit court recently has found shocking. We have to experience democracy to appreciate process and its loss, and Americans don't experience democracy. Assemblies would help.
I think of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which according to Nathan Schneider in his book Thank You, Anarchy focused for the first few months on process. The movement surprised itself early on by its focus on process and not on restructuring Wall Street or the broader financial system. I think it will take these separate spaces for people to learn process that impacts their local areas. In other words, I don't see how representative government can be a partner with democracy as long as money (oligarchy) and personality (something Mussolini championed) control the representatives' votes.
One can understand many political movements as expressions of participatory democracy (a pleonasm if there ever was one). They start with a political end in mind, but they discover what Marjan speaks of, a hunger for participation. I think movements that occupy or that involve encampments are on an important level modeling rival polities, and those polities threaten the established government captured by big money.
But so many political movements founder due to a lack of good process. Francesca Polletta's Freedom Is an Endless Meeting looks at how the pacifist movement, the student civil rights movement, the SDS, and the early feminist movement did right and wrong with respect to process. She thinks we know a lot more now, and she was writing in 2002. I do love the thoughtful way that Marjan describes the assembly members as being selected and the meetings conducted. Facilitation is so important.
It would be so fun to be on a citizen assembly, but I think American governments may end up adopting them simply to check a box. They'll end up deep-sixing the formulated proposals that Marjan speaks of, and citizens would feel used. In other words, in the current political culture, advisory assemblies would act like innovative civics classes that have no applicability outside of the classroom. At least jurors know that their decisions matter.
I'm interested in her article about making the assemblies a fourth branch. This comports with at least two other Elysian articles, one by J. K. Lund ("What if your side hustle is being in Congress?") and one by me ("It's time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states"). Hannah Arendt's On Revolution essentially argues for America to adopt a fourth branch of government modeled on Jefferson's village-states. There's so much good energy around this idea. Let's make it happen this time.
Of what possible use is a fourth branch, when the other three are now controlled by one man? Perhaps a much stronger imperative involves a mechanism that overhauls the entire system; that is proportional on the basis of ideology, rather than geography; that is far more parliamentarian; that has provisions for national referenda; that eliminates the toxic corruption of unlimited dark money (cf., Citizens United and then McCutcheon), and -- for the good of the nation -- adds an "insurance" clause to the effect that NO ReThuglican can ever sit on any judicial bench: not small claims court, traffic court,...or what is now the Extreme Court.
I asked on the call whether this fourth branch should just replace congress altogether. She said no because we still need people that devote their careers to thinking about these issues, but I still wonder about that as a possibility.
Of course, the republican ideal--at least, the ideal in a representative republic--is that we have no career politicians, no "people who devote their careers" in the legislature. The part of her talk supporting both elective bodies and, seemingly, career politicians (including her husband?) was disheartening.
In a better republic, we'd have no politicians at all.
What a refreshing concept, that We the People are smarter than the dictator. The people living the issues get to decide instead of depending on a representative who does not represent, nor pay attention to phone calls and letters their staff answers with form letters.
I love this idea. Too many potential innovations are warped or killed by officials with hidden agendas. I’ve found Edward de Bono’s six-hat framework for collaborative innovation to work beautifully with mixed groups. No more lowest-denominator decisions or dominance by so-called devil’s advocates.
Lawrence Lessig writes about citizen's quorums in his book _They Don't Represent Us_. When I read it in 2020 I was hopeful that it and other anti-corruption techniques might see more experimentation in the US.
It seems however to be business as usual no matter which party controls what part of government. I'm hopeful that this kind of thing can work and would love to know the path or paths to experimentation and adoption. Certainly we need to get more everyday non-politiician Americans involved in the political process. Part of that is starting from ground zero in terms of trust.
I liked Tom McNabb's mention of swiss-style local committees but am unsure how it might be implemented in places like where I live with a 200k person population. It might be fun to try and prototype a campaign sometime.
There's definitely more to learn from here. We have bits and pieces of ideas that could work and then we need to scale them and see which work best. I like the idea of prototyping campaigns in this vein!
There have been suggestions made that a “House of Citizens” should be used in the British legislative system to replace the House of Lords using the same model you have suggested.
I believe however the argument for adding an additional House or Chamber to any countries legislature that can accurately represent the electorate and involve people directly in the democratic process is by far the better solution.
Countries do need a House that solely focuses on the political issues, alongside a House that can solely focus on the legal issues, so why not have a House of the People?
I’d vote for it, and if called I would serve my term.
Thanks for the thought you inspire.- A "House of the People" is ambitious and imaginative. However, embedding a citizens' assembly as a fourth branch of government risks muddling still more our constitutional structure. Assemblies excel at informing and pressuring elected bodies, but granting them institutional parity could blur accountability and weaken representative responsibility. Their strength may lie in serving as an advisory conscience rather than a governing branch.
Excellent interview! Democracy is in need of reform and sortition based citizen assemblies have a part to play there. I appreciate how Marjan Ehsassi isn’t advocating for a specific version / vision of how these assemblies ought to be, but rather accepts that this form of government is still in a sort of experimental stage and the details are being worked through. On that subject, I have two questions: (1) Has anyone attempted to hold citizen assemblies remotely, and if so, how did they perform compared to in person assemblies? (2) Have citizen assemblies been used anywhere to make appointment decisions? For example appointing a judge, city manager, ombudsman, or members of non-partisan commission?
These are good questions. I've made plans to follow the next US-based citizens assembly as a journalist, so I'll keep these in mind as I follow the process and learn more.
Election by lottery lacks transparency. So not only do you need to come up with an alternate system for this, but for our corrupt jury system. Presumably corrupt only, as, perfectly, lacking transparency we never could know if it was pure white snow.
I don't see why you don't just, Swiss-style, have absolutely everyone be a member of a local comittee. Make them local enough and you have your small focus groups that you are talking about for issues either they select themselves or that are parcelled out to the individual block-level committees.
France, the most corrupt nation on earth is hardly a good example except for the basic overall concept which is a great one--vive, and revive la true France.
Why does it lack transparency? What don't you know about the citizens' assembly process?
Selection by lottery is not transparent. And in practice, with jury selection, the process ends up so complicated and full of off-the-cuff negotiations between accused and accuser, such that in practice, it's ckearly not a transparent system.
Once one doesn't have *a fixed body of electors*, transparency is out the window, in my opinion.
Finally, legislation is so long, it bears, Swiss-style a larger body of these committees you are talking about, and if selected by block, you still have small, focused, groupings which can be assigned issue-specific topics or which can appoint from among themselves subject experts for city-wide issue-specific committees--in Buffalo, there's too much snow, and the dark winters make people tired, so do it on zoom if asking people to head downtown...
I actually agree with needing to do it in-person in order to have everyone truly involved in the discussions. But I could see the need for more transparancy in the selction process. I'll be curious to learn more about how it works.
(Though with jury selection it seems pretty clear, the two lawyers debate over who would be a good fit, I don't think it's the same in the case of a citizens assembly because there are no lawyers who are trying to make a case, but it's worth learning more about!)
By "fixed body of electors," I don't mean "in person," I just mean "orderly." Right, I hadn't really thought closely about the point the defense lawyer/two opposed lawyers representing both sides provides accountability. I just doubt that in general, supposedly "rolling the dice" is sure not to be just a secret lie and what really is happening is... especially once they start saying, as in jury selection, "this guy doesn't count because..." and "that guy doesn't want to for such and such a reason and so..."
I guess there are ways, like you say, to make it more secure. At local political party meetings, we would have two people counting votes (of maybe fifty people) and five people standing directly over their shoulders watching. So, like you say, names could be picked out of a phone book like this, in theory.
From the sound of it, they do a randomized letter to thousands, and then depending on who volunteers, they might need the right number from each district or something to make sure every area is represented. But I would love a more in-depth understanding of the practice. I’ll report back!
I enjoyed this interview with Marjan Ehsassi about citizens assemblies. She feels like we Americans have lost our respect for process, and I agree. One can see it in the public's general disregard for due process with respect to immigrants arrested by ICE, a disregard that at least one circuit court recently has found shocking. We have to experience democracy to appreciate process and its loss, and Americans don't experience democracy. Assemblies would help.
I think of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which according to Nathan Schneider in his book Thank You, Anarchy focused for the first few months on process. The movement surprised itself early on by its focus on process and not on restructuring Wall Street or the broader financial system. I think it will take these separate spaces for people to learn process that impacts their local areas. In other words, I don't see how representative government can be a partner with democracy as long as money (oligarchy) and personality (something Mussolini championed) control the representatives' votes.
One can understand many political movements as expressions of participatory democracy (a pleonasm if there ever was one). They start with a political end in mind, but they discover what Marjan speaks of, a hunger for participation. I think movements that occupy or that involve encampments are on an important level modeling rival polities, and those polities threaten the established government captured by big money.
But so many political movements founder due to a lack of good process. Francesca Polletta's Freedom Is an Endless Meeting looks at how the pacifist movement, the student civil rights movement, the SDS, and the early feminist movement did right and wrong with respect to process. She thinks we know a lot more now, and she was writing in 2002. I do love the thoughtful way that Marjan describes the assembly members as being selected and the meetings conducted. Facilitation is so important.
It would be so fun to be on a citizen assembly, but I think American governments may end up adopting them simply to check a box. They'll end up deep-sixing the formulated proposals that Marjan speaks of, and citizens would feel used. In other words, in the current political culture, advisory assemblies would act like innovative civics classes that have no applicability outside of the classroom. At least jurors know that their decisions matter.
I'm interested in her article about making the assemblies a fourth branch. This comports with at least two other Elysian articles, one by J. K. Lund ("What if your side hustle is being in Congress?") and one by me ("It's time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states"). Hannah Arendt's On Revolution essentially argues for America to adopt a fourth branch of government modeled on Jefferson's village-states. There's so much good energy around this idea. Let's make it happen this time.
Of what possible use is a fourth branch, when the other three are now controlled by one man? Perhaps a much stronger imperative involves a mechanism that overhauls the entire system; that is proportional on the basis of ideology, rather than geography; that is far more parliamentarian; that has provisions for national referenda; that eliminates the toxic corruption of unlimited dark money (cf., Citizens United and then McCutcheon), and -- for the good of the nation -- adds an "insurance" clause to the effect that NO ReThuglican can ever sit on any judicial bench: not small claims court, traffic court,...or what is now the Extreme Court.
I asked on the call whether this fourth branch should just replace congress altogether. She said no because we still need people that devote their careers to thinking about these issues, but I still wonder about that as a possibility.
Of course, the republican ideal--at least, the ideal in a representative republic--is that we have no career politicians, no "people who devote their careers" in the legislature. The part of her talk supporting both elective bodies and, seemingly, career politicians (including her husband?) was disheartening.
In a better republic, we'd have no politicians at all.
The people already have the power. State legislatures can be abolished.
What a refreshing concept, that We the People are smarter than the dictator. The people living the issues get to decide instead of depending on a representative who does not represent, nor pay attention to phone calls and letters their staff answers with form letters.
I love this idea. Too many potential innovations are warped or killed by officials with hidden agendas. I’ve found Edward de Bono’s six-hat framework for collaborative innovation to work beautifully with mixed groups. No more lowest-denominator decisions or dominance by so-called devil’s advocates.