Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections

Democracy is in trouble. What is going wrong? What should we do? Lottocracy argues that the problem is with the heart of modern democracy: the election. Elections are failing as accountability mechanisms. Elections provide short-term incentives, leading elected politicians to downplay long-term catastrophic concerns. Elections create division where none need exist. The most powerful among us take advantage of this to control who is elected, what policies are enacted, and which problems are ignored. What should we do? Alexander Guerrero takes seriously the possibility that although electoral democracy has been better than all systems that have been tried, the basic mechanism at its core is broken and unworkable. Lottocracy introduces a new form of democracy. Lottocratic systems include many new elements, but the most striking is the shift from using elected representatives to using representatives selected through lottery. Guerrero introduces and discusses lottocratic systems, their potential advantages and concerns. The argument engages with foundational philosophical questions, considering how rights of political participation, political equality, political power, considerations of accountability and legitimacy, and the nature of democracy are illuminated and reconfigured once we move past the electoral representative framework.