posted 21st February 2026
‘That’s so random!’ is not normally a compliment. It suggests at best a weird coincidence, at worst a chaotic lack of planning.
But what if randomness could actually be a virtue? What if it was the best way to choose the people who run our lives? That doesn’t make much sense. And yet it’s been done before, is done now, and could be done even more. It’s called sortition.
Sortition means the appointment of people in authority by random selection. In Ancient Athens citizens were selected by lot to serve on governing committees. This was a big commitment, lasting a year, carrying a lot of power. Similar systems were used in Venice and Florence in the Middle Ages. All citizens were considered of equal status and capability, so it didn’t matter who was chosen. (Though it is important to remember that these were relatively small city states, and also that women, slaves and foreigners were excluded from citizenship.)
In the modern era, some countries use citizens’ assemblies to consider controversial issues. In Ireland in 2017, a citizens’ assembly was convened to discuss the thorny issue of abortion, at that time illegal. It was a deeply divisive issue, owing to Ireland’s strong sense of its identity as a Catholic nation. Ninety-nine people were carefully selected to represent a range of age groups, regions, beliefs and social classes. They spent six weekends listening to medical, legal and philosophical experts, and campaigners for and against legalising abortion. Then they discussed what they had learnt in small groups. At the end of the process they voted in a secret ballot; 64% favoured legalisation.
A year later, a national referendum was held on the issue, and the result was almost exactly the same. The campaign for the referendum and its aftermath were remarkably well informed and even tempered, in large part because the issues had been aired in such a civilised fashion first. This made a marked contrast to our own experience with Brexit just two years previously. Ireland’s abortion debate is often held up as an example of how citizens’ assemblies can be very effective at resolving difficult questions.
Sortition already exists in the British constitution and legal system. Our head of state is effectively chosen at random. King Charles got the job not because he won the most votes or because his CV, references and interview skills impressed an appointments panel; he is our king because his mother was our queen. Juries, who have the power to send someone to prison for life by determining their guilt, are selected at random. Miscarriages of justice do occur, but almost always because of incompetence or corruption on the part of police in their preparation of evidence, or failures by a defendant’s lawyers.
So should we use sortition more often?
For
Politicians tend to be drawn from a very narrow section of society; they are overwhelmingly middle-class graduates with very little experience of life outside politics. Selecting lawmakers to reflect the overall composition of society would make government more truly representative.
Anyone who actually wants to be in a position of power shouldn’t be. Politics often attracts people for the wrong reasons: an inflated sense of their own importance at best, the opportunity for corruption at worst. Making participation in politics something everyone might be called on to do once in a while would make it a civic duty, to be approached with humility and respect, rather than the end point of a lifelong narcissistic obsession.
If anyone and everyone might find themselves selected for political activity, politicians would no longer seem like an alien class. Cynicism and mistrust of politicians would greatly decrease. Sortition would increase faith in democracy.
Some countries have compulsory military service, on the grounds that all citizens have a responsibility to participate in protecting the nation. Why not have compulsory political service on the same grounds - that we all have a responsibility to participate in governing our nation?
Against
Sortitive decision makers lack accountability. When Liz Truss crashed the economy in 2022, she was swiftly removed from office, and her party went down to a resounding defeat in the election two years later. If a citizens’ assembly had made equally poor decisions, there would be no comeback.
Sortitive decision makers lack commitment. They are likely to resent having to put their lives on hold to discuss things they have little interest in, and will not take the job seriously.
Sortitive decision makers lack expertise. Governing a country is a complex, difficult business, and should not be left to amateurs doing it on their weekends.
Sortition is undemocratic. Voters will have no say in the selection, and the criteria will end up being made by unelected bureaucrats, who may skew the system in favour of interest groups. In the southern states of America in the early twentieth century, local officials made sure that black people were excluded from juries; as a result, innocent black men were routinely found guilty of assaults on women, while leaders of lynch mobs who had murdered black people walked free.
Motions that go with this topic
1. This house would replace juries with judges.
2. This house would set up a citizens’ assembly to determine government policy on the economy / the environment.
