'Zo geldt het bijvoorbeeld als democratisch om bestuursbeambten toe te wijzen door loting (...); als oligarchisch, ze toe te wijzen door verkiezing.'
('It is thought to be democratic for the offices of constitutional government to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected oligarchic.')
Aristoteles, 350 v.C.
'Démocratie: Gouvernement populaire. État populaire. Forme de gouvernement où les charges se donnent au sort.'
('Democratie: Volksbestuur. Volksstaat. Regeringsvorm waarbij de ambten worden vergeven door het lot.')
uit: woordenboek van Richelet, dat in 1680 voor het eerst verscheen
'Le suffrage par le sort est de la nature de la démocratie; le suffrage par choix est de celle de l'aristocratie.'
('Selection by lot is in the nature of democracy, selection by choice is in the nature of aristocracy';
'Loting is in wezen democratisch; verkiezing aristocratisch.')
Montesquieu, 1748
'Is not representation an essential and fundamental departure from democracy? Is not every representative government in the universe an aristocracy?'
John Adams, tweede president van de VS (1735-1826)
'Having a choice of rulers is not the same as ruling.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'in the past century, elections have also established a monopoly grip in the minds of many as being the hallmark of democracy. That’s ironic, because the ancient Greeks, who invented the word, were always clear that sortition is the essential definition of democracy and that elections only produce oligarchies.'
Hugh Pope, The region that’s experimenting with government by lottery, februari 2023
'The Greeks recognized that whoever runs for elected office in the first place usually projects a peculiar power-seeking personality type.'
Ansel Herz, the Stranger, februari 2023
'Athenian democracy, though it had the grave limitation of not including slaves or women, was in some respects more democratic than any modern system.'
Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1945
'If you look at the history of our so-called “representative democracies,” they originate in what historians call representative governments, which were designed in opposition to the twin dangers of monarchy and democracy. Democracy back then was identified with mob rule and the tyranny of the majority. So the ancestors of our representative “democracies” were historically never intended to give the mass of ordinary people actual power. James Madison famously wrote that the American republic is characterized “by the total exclusion of the people in its collective capacity from any share in” government, and he thought this was a good thing!'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'De grootste verrassing van mijn onderzoek voor dit boek [Tegen verkiezingen] is de ontdekking dat de Founding Fathers in Amerika en de revolutionairen in Frankrijk de democratie niet hebben mogelijk gemaakt, maar juist hebben tegengehouden. (...) Ik citeer James Madison, vader van de Amerikaanse Grondwet, die letterlijk heeft gezegd: "wij willen geen democratie." '
David Van Reybrouck, 'Loten is democratischer dan stemmen', Trouw, 6 oktober 2013
'Historians today point out the many anti-democratic mechanisms the Framers built into the Constitution — long terms of office, tiny numbers of representatives, a minoritarian Senate. Yet few note that, in practice, elections themselves make for the chief oligarchic feature.'
Nicholas Coccoma, Boston Review, november 2022
'Thomas Paine proposed a role for lotteries in Common Sense, but his egalitarian radicalism on behalf of democracy made him an outlier among the Founders; by the end of his life he was widely despised and ostracized from circles of influence.'
Nicholas Coccoma, Boston Review, november 2022
'As in France, the ascendant American bourgeoisie instituted voting, not lotteries, upon overthrowing the monarchy.'
Nicholas Coccoma, Boston Review, november 2022
'All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.'
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
'However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.'
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
'The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty'
George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
'The question is not whether American democracy will die, but whether it will be instituted for the first time.'
Nicholas Coccoma, Boston Review, november 2022
'The cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy.'
John Dewey (1859-1952)
'I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted.'
H.L. Mencken, Amerikaans journalist, A Purge for Legislators, 1926
'The great majority of public problems, indeed, are quite simple, and any man may be trusted to grasp their elements in ten days who may be — and is — trusted to unravel the obfuscations of two gangs of lawyers in the same time.'
H.L. Mencken, Amerikaans journalist, A Purge for Legislators, 1926
'Parties don't want us to think. They want to win. They want to win the election. And they will do whatever they can to win: negative attack adds, misinformation on social media, whatever. That's what they are: they are machines designed to win elections.'
James Fishkin, TED-talk Democracy When the People Are Thinking, 2018
'Our country was actually born in a vision not of competing political parties, but if you've read the Federalist Papers, you'll know that Madison had the idea that the representatives were supposed to refine and enlarge the public views. They were supposed to deliberate about the merits of public policy in the Senate. How long has it been since you heard anybody call the Senate the world's greatest deliberative body? That's what they used to try to call it. Right now it's partisanship and deadlock.'
James Fishkin, TED-talk Democracy When the People Are Thinking, 2018
'Do you know that the Electoral College was originally supposed to be a deliberative body, where the electors would meet and deliberate about who was the most qualified person to be president? It worked only with one candidate: George Washington. That worked for two elections, and that was the end of that.'
James Fishkin, TED-talk Democracy When the People Are Thinking, 2018
'Who is doing the thinking? People who are trying to influence us are doing the thinking. We've undergone a long journey from Madison, who had this vision of a republic with deliberation in the public interest, to... Madison Avenue. And anybody who's been to New York knows that Madison Avenue is the home of the advertising industry, where people are always trying to influence you, to buy cars, or cigarettes, or whatever it is. The theorists of democracy fully admit that the same techniques used to influence you to buy one brand of soap rather than another, are also used to influence you to vote for one candidate or one ballot proposition, rather than another.'
James Fishkin, TED-talk Democracy When the People Are Thinking, 2018
'We [in the US] are entrenched in wealth and power, yet it is clear that things are starting to happen. Personal freedom is what is important but it has become all twisted and perverted. We have a lot of education to do in the US. If we have to fight for democracy, let’s fight for a real democracy.'
Wayne Liebman, gepensioneerd arts die activist voor burgerberaden is geworden, The Urban Activist, 2023
'We have a democracy that people have to fit around. I want to create a democracy that fits around people.'
Jacinta Ojevwe, Innovations in Participatory Democracy (IPD) Conference, maart 2018
'In a democracy elections are supposed to encourage participation, but they don't. They discourage it. Lotteries encourage participation.'
Malcolm Gladwell, The Powerball Revolution, juli 2020
'When economies weaken the weak and politics humiliate the humble, people flock towards those that make them feel proud. But most populist voters are not fascists -- not yet. They may become so if democracy finds no ways to include them.'
David Van Reybrouck, Keynote, Hannah Arendt Conference, New York, oktober 2021
'People are not rejecting democracy as an ideal but simply rejecting a system that claims to be a democracy but really isn’t.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'I learnt a lot of things. I learnt about the environment. I learnt how to listen to other people. I learnt how to debate. But the most important thing I learnt was the force of collective intelligence. We must invest in it.'
Éloïse, 17 jaar, uit Duinkerken, een van de 150 gelote Franse burgers voor het Franse klimaatberaad, The Guardian, november 2020
'Maybe in a hundred years we will look back and think that this was really crazy that we thought elected parliaments were more legitimate than randomly selected ones.'
Hélène Landemore, 2021
'Vernedering leidt tot ressentiment, leidt tot agressie, leidt tot onredelijkheid. Niet meer willen praten met mekaar. Maar neem die vernedering weg, neem die individuele burger au sérieux, behandel hem niet enkel als kiesvee, of als referendumvee. Vraag dóór. Laat je niet afschrikken door die woede. Zie die woede als een cadeau. Populistische woede is een cadeau in prikkeldraad gewikkeld. Het gaat om betrokkenheid. Het gaat om een verlangen naar betrokkenheid. Erken dat. En besef dat er misschien één principe is, dat ongelooflijk van belang is, en dat voortdurend wordt vergeten, en dat is mogen meedoen, mogen meetellen. En dat geldt zowel voor een derde generatie migrant, als voor een blanke fabrieksarbeider, als voor een gepensioneerde, of wat dan ook. Mogen meetellen is het essentiële principe in een samenleving die zich democratisch wenst te noemen. En dat principe hebben we met voeten getreden. We vernederen mensen door hun woede vervelend te vinden en dan maar weg te moffelen. Wat mij verbaast is hoe weinig emotionele intelligentie er bij de politieke bestuurslaag zit. Het verlangen om mogen mee te tellen is een emotioneel verlangen, het is een essentieel verlangen, overal ter wereld.'
David Van Reybrouck, Bas Heijne interviewt Van Reybrouck, HUMAN, mei 2018 [1:14:26]
'We need to make our democracies more inclusive. This requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities in the political system. An interesting idea put forward by Mr. Van Reybrouck, would be to select parliaments by lot instead of election, in the way many jury systems work. This would prevent the formation of self-serving and self-perpetuating political classes.'
Kofi Annan, voormalig secretaris-generaal van de Verenigde Naties, The Crisis of Democracy, 13 september 2017
"The Citizens’ panel have proven that this form of democracy works. It should become part of the way we make policy. I will propose to give Citizens Panels the time and resources to make recommendations before we present certain key legislative proposals."
Ursula von der Leyen, Twitter, 9 mei 2022
'An allotted body is uniquely competent in the way that matters: it is competent to determine what are the values and interests of the sampled population. It is competent to take decisions that would represent those values and interests, while individuals [in] bodies that are constituted in other ways are not.'
Yoram Gat, EqualityByLot.com, september 2020
'While elections have a democratic face, to the extent that everyone gets an equal vote, they also have an oligarchic face, because of this principle of distinction, which means that only some people have access to political office. More often than not, the implications of election-based selection of rulers are largely plutocratic, bringing to power those who can finance expensive political campaigns. If we distribute power unequally, we shouldn’t be surprised if, in the end, the people in power are taken from a narrow socioeconomic elite and if, as a result, governance outcomes are unrepresentative of what most people want.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'That representative government has in fact become oligarchic is true enough... what we today call democracy is a form of government where the few rule, at least supposedly, in the interest of the many.'
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, 1963
'the dominant narrative today is these Citizens' Assemblies are just something that could or should complement our existing institutions and it's something that might enhance or help strengthen representative democracy as we know it today, and I feel like that actually has been detrimental to making the real fundamental change happen. And that's why we're trying to shift the narrative and open up an imagination that actually another democratic future is possible, and that we could be shifting power to Citizens' Assemblies. And this could eventually really be the heart of a democratic system, if we start to make those steps, taking us in that direction. And it means questioning the premise of elections. It means really bringing up our history of philosophy, and thinking like actually elections are not a democratic form of governing ourselves and this is not the only way of doing things. And it seems radical I think to some people to say these things today. And I think it's only when we start to question our own assumptions in this time of deep crisis, and open up an imagination that another way could be possible, that we're going to start seeing the real shifts of power.'
Claudia Chwalisz, Democracy without Politicians, maart 2023
'Years of speaking to politicians about citizens’ assemblies have shown us that the majority do not think there is a serious democratic crisis. And why would they? They have committed their lives to making representative democracy work; they are in a way the ultimate political insiders. They tend to see citizens’ assemblies as just another lobby trying to get their attention, so it is no surprise that they do not listen.'
Rich Wilson en Claire Mellier, Getting Real About Citizens’ Assemblies, oktober 2023
'I once viewed citizens’ assemblies as a necessary complement to strengthen representative democracy as we conceive of it today. However, conducting a deeper analysis of hundreds of assemblies when I was at the OECD, and being involved in the design of the world’s first permanent citizens’ chambers with people selected by lot, changed my perspective. The more fundamental issue is that a system defined by elections, with political parties and politicians, is designed for short-termism, for debate, for conflict and for polarisation. It puts re-election goals and party logic ahead of the common good. Adding on new forms of democratic institutions like citizens’ assemblies to an electoral system does not address the underlying democratic problems of an elections-based system.'
Claudia Chwalisz, Assembly Required, juni 2023
'The current wave of deliberative processes focuses on helping governments increase their legitimacy and pays too little attention to helping citizens achieve the change they want to see. These often top-down invited spaces end up depoliticizing citizen engagement at best, and at worst they provide legitimacy for governments that are in effect opposed to the changes citizens want.'
Rich Wilson en Claire Mellier, Getting Real About Citizens’ Assemblies, oktober 2023
'We have a wealth of evidence today that citizens’ assemblies are effective and democratic – leading to better decisions by leveraging our collective intelligence – and that they are fair and legitimate, recognising people’s agency and establishing political equality. But one-off assemblies are not changing the system. There is a need to shift political and legislative power to institutionalised citizens’ assemblies so that they can eventually become the heart of our democratic systems, defining a new democratic paradigm.'
Claudia Chwalisz, Assembly Required, juni 2023
'Google tried to find out which groups cooperate the best. Surprisingly they discovered that it's not groups with the smartest members, or the closest friends, or for instance containing women. No, successful groups are those in which the members experience a high degree of psychological safety.'
Claudine Nierth, German More Democracy Association, 2021
'What [the Citizens’ Assembly] has done is provide a safe, respectful, and equal environment in which to have a conversation about things that governments, our political system, and our society find difficult to talk about . . . we now trust the [Citizens’ Assembly] system, and we have the spectacle right now of the political system fighting amongst themselves to have the next issue to be discussed by the next Citizens’ Assembly.'
Art O’Leary, the chief executive of Ireland’s Electoral Commission, DemocracyNext Launch Event, 2022
'how do you create responsible citizens in the long term without giving citizens responsibility?'
Verena Friederike Hasel, Germany’s democracy problem, 2019
'There are times when I think one could replace our leaders with citizens chosen at random and get a better result.'
Andrew Yang, kandidaat bij de presidentiële voorverkiezingen van 2020, Twitter, juli 2020
'As long as we give power to those who seek it, the righteous ones, the good ones, who don't seek power, will not be included.'
Étienne Chouard, TEDx Talks, 2012
'I can only point out that even today, in common-law systems, sortition is used to select prospective jurors who have a say over life-and-death decisions. Today, it is a life and death instance for Pakistan, and citizens need to take their governance in their own hands.'
Dr. Anjum Altaf, Getting out of the mess, 20 november 2022
'Every time you hear that public trust in government is declining, flip it around. The real issue is that governments don’t trust or work to empower people. Until this is acknowledged and addressed, the democratic crisis will persist.'
Peter MacLeod, 14 oktober 2022
'Shouldn’t the citizens be the ones determining the power structure rather than those who are in power?'
Yoram Gat, Equalitybylot.com, januari 2023
'De grootste weerstand voor nieuwe democratie komt van oudere politici en oudere journalisten.'
David Van Reybrouck, Bas Heijne interviewt Van Reybrouck, HUMAN, mei 2018
'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.'
Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
'Emancipatie zonder participatie leidt altijd tot frustratie.'
David Van Reybrouck, Bas Heijne interviewt Van Reybrouck, HUMAN, mei 2018
'We have democratized a regime that is fundamentally elitist and we've reached the limit of what it can do. So maybe it's time to imagine something more radically democratic which is centered around ordinary citizens rather than socio-economic elites.'
Hélène Landemore, 2021
'If we are honest with ourselves, we should admit that our so-called “representative democracies” are really at best liberal-republican-elected oligarchies, and sometimes downright plutocracies.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'Deliberatieve democratie is relatietherapie voor de natiestaat (...) Het is een manier om duistere krachten in goede banen te leiden.'
David Van Reybrouck, Revitalizing Democracy, oktober 2020
'It is African therapy for western democracies gone astray.'
David Van Reybrouck over deliberatieve democratie, februari 2023
'Het gaat niet om het oplossen van conflicten; het gaat om het omgaan met conflicten.'
David Van Reybrouck, Revitalizing Democracy, oktober 2020
'Deliberatieve democratie betekent mét mensen praten die anders zijn, in plaats van óver ze te praten.'
David Van Reybrouck, Revitalizing Democracy, oktober 2020
'Mit dialogorientierter Bürgerbeteiligung erfahren Politik und Verwaltung viel früher, was die Bürger bewegt.'
('With dialogue-oriented citizen participation, politics and administration learn much earlier what moves the citizens.')
Barbara Bosch, Bürgerrat.de, oktober 2022
‘If you are a lobbyist, you are going to have a much harder time dealing with a parliament drafted by lot, than a parliament that has been elected traditionally. (...) A random sample of citizens is a lobby of itself: it’s a lobby of the people.’
David Van Reybrouck, Revitalizing Democracy, oktober 2020
'An even more advanced solution that we should explore, as strange as it might sound the first time you hear it, would be to select citizens in a controlled, random manner and draft them into service as House representatives and senators, while still keeping them at home. Assign them to limited terms of office, as a form of national service, an exercise of their civic duty. Their reluctance to serve could be viewed as an asset.'
Jim Rogers, Street Smarts, blz. 243, 2014
'I would sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.'
William F. Buckley, Jr, 1961, AZquotes.com
'They are prepared to engage very intensively, very occasionally, if they believe that their time and energy has a chance of making a difference. When there's something real on offer, they will step up.'
Peter MacLeod, Revitalizing Democracy, oktober 2020
‘This assembly is unusual for me. Usually, I am facilitating for people who are experts. But here I found that amateurs are really good at deliberating things. They bring such a variety of real-life experience.’
Gespreksbegeleider bij het Franse burgerberaad over euthanasie, Nieuwsbrief DemocracyNext, januari 2023
'Normally, I help people in making presentations to boards. But I find there’s no real difference between citizens, professionals and experts, except that the citizens tend to feel freer to express what they actually think… This kind of democracy has a future.'
Gespreksbegeleider bij het Franse burgerberaad over euthanasie, Nieuwsbrief DemocracyNext, januari 2023
'Another surprise bonus from one citizens’ assembly? A woman who thanked the organisers for choosing her husband for a group – he’d started watching the news and reading the papers and they were having much more interesting conversations at dinner.'
Peter Hartcher, The Sydney Morning Herald, oktober 2022
'Le peuple anglais pense être libre, il se trompe fort : il ne l’est que durant l’élection des membres du parlement ; sitôt qu’ils sont élus, il est esclave, il n’est rien.'
('Het Engelse volk denkt dat het vrij is, maar het vergist zich deerlijk: het is alleen vrij tijdens de verkiezingen van de leden van het parlement. Zodra zij gekozen zijn, is het slaaf, is het niets.')
Rousseau, Du contrat social ou principes du droit politique, 1762
'De dag dat je macht hebt, is eigenlijk de dag dat je hem weggeeft.'
('The one day you're in power, is in effect the day you give it away')
David Van Reybrouck over verkiezingen, NRC Handelsblad, oktober 2021
'Voting to elect a representative is essentially voting to abdicate your right to participate in law- and policy-making.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'Alles wat je voor mij doet zonder mij, doe je tegen mij.'
Centraal Afrikaans spreekwoord, Tegen Verkiezingen, bladzijde 101
'If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.'
Emma Goldman (1869-1940)
'If history teaches us nothing else, it teaches us this: what appears undisputed today will look very different tomorrow. The most stable and predictable societies have undergone major upheavals. (...) Pick the first year of any decade in the past fifty years, 1960, 1970, all the way through the millennium. The conventional wisdom that existed at the start of each decade was shattered over the following ten or fifteen years.'
Jim Rogers, Street Smarts, blz. 29-30, 2014
'The president of the French National Assembly said [to the citizens drawn by lot]: "You have to realize that sortition will never replace elections." And the whole 200 people fell silent. It was like a penny dropping. And everyone suddenly thought: "Oh gosh, you mean that *could* happen?" '
Hugh Pope, The Keys to Democracy: A Conversation with Hugh Pope and Yves Sintomer, maart 2023
'De politiek is niet bij machte om op eigen kracht te veranderen.'
Herman Tjeenk Willink, NRC Handelsblad, 9 september 2021
'Ik denk dat we onszelf structureel onderschatten. We hebben het idee dat de grote verandering bij de politiek ligt, terwijl die kracht bij ons ligt en zich niet beperkt tot het stemhokje of de aankopen die we doen.'
Eva Rovers, kunsthistorica en schrijver, Nooit Meer Slapen, april 2022
'Les sciences politiques démontrent qu'il n'y a pas de correlation entre ce que la majorité des gens veulent et ce qu'ils obtiennent, sauf qu'ils ont les mêmes préférences que le 10 pourcent le plus riche de la population. Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire? Ça veut dire qu'on est gouverné par des gens qui ne sont intéressés que par ce que veulent les corporations (...). Ce système ne marche plus, ne marche pas, et on va dans le mur.'
Hélène Landemore, november 2022
'On ne peut pas savoir si un élu est véritablement compétent au poste où on l’a nommé. La seule chose dont on est sûr, c’est sa compétence à se faire élire.'
Arthur Massicot, Le modèle du Tribunat, Démocurieux, augustus 2023
'Seuls ceux qui estiment avoir ces qualités supérieures vont se porter candidats à l’élection. Les électeurs font donc leur choix parmi des élites qui se considèrent elles-mêmes comme supérieures au reste de la population. Ce n’est pas pour rien si « élite » et « élection » ont la même étymologie.'
Arthur Massicot, L’élection est-elle aristocratique ?, Démocurieux, oktober 2023
'Les citoyens peuvent consentir à la procédure de tirage au sort de la même manière qu’ils consentent à celle de l’élection, même si cela se traduit par une incapacité à choisir directement leurs dirigeants.'
Arthur Massicot, Voter n’est pas consentir, Démocurieux, november 2022
'Ik hoop dat de democratische vernieuwing zal komen vóór de crisis, en niet erna. Want het zou wel eens heel erg mis kunnen lopen.'
David Van Reybrouck, 'Loten is democratischer dan stemmen', Trouw, 6 oktober 2013
'Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That is our basic function: to develop alternatives, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.'
Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
'(...) the democratic appearance of our governance systems is like a vanishing optical illusion. However, once it sinks in, it gives ground for hope that another, genuinely democratic, political system could be possible. (...) With my team at the OECD, we have documented around 600 examples since the 1980s, calling this trend the “deliberative wave”. We have a fair deal of modern evidence that sortition allows for real democracy to be possible.'
Claudia Chwalisz, Reclaiming democracy: The deliberative wave, juni 2022
'At the moment, the fields of democratic innovation and deliberative democracy are really dominated by the idea of complementarity: Citizens assemblies are not there to replace elections, they complement our existing institutions. From all the work I have done in this field, I am not convinced by this approach. We have been misnaming the system that we have today as democracy. It is actually an elected oligarchy, and was designed as one.'
Claudia Chwalisz, DemocracyNext: Replacing Elections with Deliberation, september 2022
'While citizens’ assemblies today are largely advisory and complementary to our existing electoral institutions, it is not impossible to imagine a future where binding powers shift to these institutions— or where they perhaps even replace established governing bodies in the longer term.'
Claudia Chwalisz, A Movement That’s Quietly Reshaping Democracy For The Better, mei 2022
'The 1948 UN Declaration on Human Rights anchored the idea that democracy = elections. (...) We should update the Declaration of Human Rights to redefine democracy beyond elections. Let’s do it with a Global Citizens’ Assembly.'
Claudia Chwalisz, Twitter thread, 25 november 2022
'De taakverdeling tussen gekozen en gelote vertegenwoordigers lijkt me de grootste theoretische en praktische uitdaging voor de komende jaren.'
Hélène Landemore, 2020
'We need political theorists to think up worlds that don’t exist yet, in order to expand our imaginations. All I claim to do is provide a new lens through which to see the world. In order for things to happen, in life and in politics, you first need to visualize them.'
Hélène Landemore, Can “Lottocracy” Save Democracy From Itself?, september 2021
'Is it really so radical to imagine a system where everybody has equal political power? Is it so radical to imagine a new set of democratic institutions, that are designed to recognize that everybody has agency and dignity, that are designed to channel our collective wisdom, and that are designed to help us find common ground on the issues that we are collectively facing in society?'
Claudia Chwalisz, toespraak op bijeenkomst RadicalxChange, oktober 2022
'Given the massive disrepute into which institutional politics has fallen, preserving the status quo is neither realistic nor sufficient. A "real utopia" is needed, and randomly selected assemblies and other mini-publics must be part of this new landscape. The changes to come are huge, and even revolutionary.'
Yves Sintomer, The Government of Chance, februari 2023
'If you are not at the table then you’re probably on the menu.'
herkomst onbekend, QuoteInvestigator.com