Keith Sutherland (Exeter, Imprint Academic): Alex Parsons’ inspired proposal for the delegated vote would help to restore democratic legitimacy. However it does nothing to address the more fundamental problem of how to facilitate informed political decision making in mass democracies. Political psychologists can predict, with 80% accuracy, voters’ judgments about complex issues, solely on the basis of emotional preferences and passions that bear no logical relation to policy issues. In 82% of twentieth-century cases, the tallest candidate won the US presidential election, and surveys show that the public does slightly worse in estimates of the parties’ positions on most issues than it would do if it proceeded by flipping a coin.
As the age of representative democracy has segued into the age of manipulative populism, there is a need for more radical alternatives than Mr. Parsons’ proposal. In classical times electoral representation was viewed as a mechanism to preserve aristocratic privilege; the truly democratic principle was the appointment of office-holders by sortition (the random casting of lots). Sortition went out of use for a number of reasons, but is still retained for jury service, as it is believed that "12 good men and true" can represent the considered judgment of the community. Note that jurors are not delegates (like modern MPs), but deliberative representatives in the Burkean sense.
But if so for trial juries then why not the High Court of Parliament? Sortition is coming back into fashion among a number of writers, motivated both by a philosophical concern with social justice and a more practical concern with ensuring that the trains run on time. Serious proposals have been made advocating the lottery for the House of Lords, the US House of Representatives, and the House of Commons. The Labour Government has clearly been inspired by the "deliberative" turn in political science (derived from the work of James Fishkin); indeed Michael Wills, the minister of state responsible for constitutional renewal, is currently participating in a debate on this forum over how best to fulfil the government’s commitment to a citizens summit.
But if policy matters are to be decided by citizen juries then what is the point of political parties? Or, to put it slightly differently, if the job of ministers is to implement policy decisions arrived at by public deliberation, then should they not be appointed on merit, rather than by clambering up the greasy pole of party politics?
