Radical Political Reform: Replacing Politicians with Random Citizens
Imagine a political system without Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, or Liz Truss. No political parties, no elections, and no career politicians. Instead, ordinary citizens selected by lottery would govern the country for two-year terms, similar to an intensified jury service where participants hold an entire nation's destiny in their hands.
The Case for Citizen Power
Hélène Landemore's Politics Without Politicians presents a compelling argument for dramatically expanding citizen authority in governance. For those intrigued by innovative political solutions, this book offers a refreshing perspective. For skeptics who view such proposals as impractical idealism during serious times, the discussion warrants careful consideration.
Landemore, currently a Yale lecturer with French origins, has collaborated extensively with citizens' assemblies established by Emmanuel Macron following the 2018 gilets jaunes protests. These assemblies addressed critical issues including climate crisis solutions and assisted dying legislation. Her research also encompasses Iceland's post-banking crash initiatives, Belgian local governance experiments, and Ireland's widely praised assembly that guided the country through abortion legalization.
Human Benefits of Participation
The book's most impactful sections detail the profound personal transformations experienced by French citizen jurors. Participants reported forming lasting friendships, strengthening civic bonds, and achieving genuine breakthroughs in understanding through face-to-face dialogue rather than social media conflicts. These accounts provide valuable insights for anyone concerned about political polarization.
While the persistent rise of France's far right demonstrates that public participation alone cannot eliminate populism's appeal, Landemore's model offers potential for depoliticizing contentious issues that British politicians often avoid. From social care reform to trans rights and immigration policy, citizen assemblies could facilitate more civil discourse and nuanced decision-making.
From Theory to Practical Governance
Where the argument becomes less convincing is Landemore's leap from advocating citizen juries for specific issues to proposing they could entirely replace elected parliaments. Her preferred system of "lottocracy" involves randomly selecting ordinary people to form governing bodies for two-year terms.
Practical questions immediately arise: Would employers preserve participants' jobs during their service? What happens when individuals discover unexpected governing talents and resist returning to ordinary employment? How would natural leaders emerging from this process be appropriately elevated within the system?
Safeguards and Crisis Management
Traditional democracy's fundamental protection remains the ability to remove ineffective leaders through elections. Landemore proposes instead a continuous series of referendums on major issues to ensure citizen representatives align with public will. This approach raises concerns given recent experiences with divisive referendums in Scotland and Brexit.
The most significant limitation involves crisis management. While citizen assemblies excel at deliberating complex social issues like abortion rights or climate policy over extended periods, they seem ill-equipped for sudden emergencies requiring expert knowledge and rapid response. Discovering that a foreign power has annexed territory, facing economic collapse, or confronting a deadly pandemic demands specialized experience that random selection cannot guarantee.
Systemic Flaws and Human Nature
Landemore correctly identifies politics' frustrating aspects: corruption susceptibility, elite groupthink, disproportionate influence by wealthy interests, and domination by overconfident personalities. However, abolishing professional politicians doesn't eliminate these problems—it merely transfers them to amateur replacements who face identical pressures and temptations.
Wouldn't vested interests simply redirect lobbying efforts toward citizen parliaments? Could power corrupt ordinary people plucked from obscurity as easily as career politicians? These questions echo George Orwell's warnings about revolutionary ideals deteriorating in practice.
The ultimate flaw in any political system remains human nature itself—both in leaders and those who select them. While current global challenges make alternative governance models appealing, Landemore's proposal raises substantial practical concerns about implementation and crisis readiness.
