nach oben

Constitutional Political Economy

Erschienen in:

01.03.2012 | Original Paper

Constitutional choice in ancient Athens: the rationality of selection to office by lot

verfasst von: George Tridimas

Erschienen in: Constitutional Political Economy | Ausgabe 1/2012

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

Contrary to modern democracies ancient Athens appointed large numbers of government officers by lot. After describing the Athenian arrangements, the paper reviews the literature on the choice between election and lot focusing on representativeness of the population, distributive justice, minimization of conflicts, quality of appointees and administrative economy. It then examines why in drawing up the constitution a self-interested citizen may give up voting for government officials and appoint them by lot. It is shown that appointment by lot is preferred when the effort required to choose candidates is less than the benefit expected from their actions as government officials. It is also found that, given the choice, office motivated candidates may unanimously agree to selection by lot but not to election.

Nächster Artikel Agenda control in an unstable multiparty parliamentary democracy: evidence from the Israeli public sector

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

See Aristotle (1984), Hansen (1999) and Ober (2008). For a short review of the establishment of democracy in ancient Athens and its principal institutions of governance, see Tridimas (2011). The interested reader is also referred to the volume by Raaflaub et al. (2007) for the lively debate surrounding the origins of democracy, and Cartledge (2009) for a discussion of various political institutions of ancient Athens. Bitros and Karayiannis (2010) show how institutions and the moral norms of Athens were instrumental in her economic success. Pitsoulis (2011) discusses the origins of the majority voting rule.

The sophisticated allotment machines operating with bronze and wooden tickets at a time when there were neither paper tickets nor plastic balls, how they worked and how they ensured that no foul play took place, are described in Aristotle (1984). A summary of the stages of the process and related issues can be found in Engelstad (1989).

See Ober (2008) for an incisive analysis of how the institutions of the direct democracy of the Athenians succeeded in revealing, collecting and transmitting the required knowledge to enable a large and diverse body of ordinary citizens to make the policy choices which resulted in the elevation of Athens to a great economic and military power.

See Engelstad (1989), Manin (1997) and Dowlen (2008) for details.

“To hold political office implied the possibility of acquiring economic gain by procuring mercenaries to foreign princes among other means. Such income fell to those holding the post of chairman in the community. The idea that everyone should have an equal chance of getting the gains of such position quickly emerged. Consequently the office was filled by the drawing of lots. If the lot fell to poor people… they had the right to sell the office to the highest bidder” (Engelstad, 1989, p. 26).

Vergne (2010) presents a brief review of the literature and a systematic classification of contributions that explore random selection and of authors who advocate its adoption.

Sortition has also been the subject of recent reform proposals. For example, in a widely discussed proposal about the reform of the UK previously hereditary House of Lords (which scrutinises legislation passed by the House of Commons, the elected chamber of the Parliament), called “the Athenian option”, Barnett and Carty (2008) proposed that its members will be selected by lot rather appointed by the government.

‘Thinking about the political use of lot may have led the Greeks to an intuition not unlike the notion of mathematically equal chances. It was true, in any case, that lot had the effect of distributing something equal in terms of number (to ison kat’arihtmon), even if its precise nature eluded rigorous theorization’ (Manin, 1997, p. 39).

On the rationale for choosing jurors by lot, Mulgan (1984) p. 554, writes: “Trial by jury is trial not by experts but by ‘good men and true’, average citizens…Athenian juries may have been much larger and may have had much wider discretion and jurisdiction; nonetheless, modern and ancient trial by jury shares the same idea of trial by random cross section of citizens on behalf of the citizen body as a whole”.

Note that in practice equality of voting rights may be violated because of the intricacies of voting rules and differences in the numbers of voters across different constituencies).

The attachment of present-day democracy to electoral outcomes is nicely illustrated in the following example given in Tangian (2008): In 1985 the French Constitutional Council (constitutional court) struck down as non-democratic and illegal a proposal to introduce selection by lot (of 3/4 of members) in the French Superior Council of Universities.

See Goheler (2010) for further discussion of sortition as an instrument of control.

Attempts to bribe serving officers cannot be ruled out; the intensity of this problem was addressed by the scrutiny carried out by the Athenian courts.

See Mulgan (1984) and Levy (1989) for further discussion.

See, for example, Bendor et al. (2001) for a review of the literature on delegation, Kessler (2005) for a critical comparison of policy making by policy experts in indirect democracy and ignorant citizens in a referendum using the median voter framework, and Maskin and Tirole (2004) for a comparison of accountability of elected officials, who may pander to public opinion, and politically independent policy agents.

Formally, J prefers election and N prefers sortition when $ P > \lambda \left[ {1 + (C^{J}/ \Updelta_{\Uplambda 0}^{J} )} \right]\,{\text{and}}\,1-P < (1-\lambda )\left[ {1 + (C^{N} /\Updelta_{\Uplambda 0}^{N} )} \right] $, which after manipulating yields the condition $ P > \lambda + (\raise.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 1$}\kern-.1em/ \kern-.15em\lower.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 2$} )\left\{ {\lambda \left[ {\left( {C^{J} /\Updelta_{\Uplambda 0}^{J} } \right) + \left( {C^{N} /\Updelta_{\Uplambda 0}^{N} } \right)} \right]-\left( {C^{N} /\Updelta_{\Uplambda 0}^{N} } \right)} \right\} $, which cannot be ruled out a priori. Similar considerations apply to the case J prefers sortition and N prefers election.

Amar, A. R. (1984). Choosing representatives by lottery voting. Yale Law Journal, 93, 1283–1308.CrossRef

Aristotle. (1984). The Athenian Constitution, translated by P. J. Rhodes. Penguin Classics: London.

Barnett, A., & Carty, P. (2008). The Athenian option: Radical reform for the House of Lords (2nd ed.). Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Bendor, J., Glazer, A., & Hammond, T. (2001). Theories of delegation. Annual Review of Political Science, 4, 235–269.CrossRef

Bitros, G. C., & Karayiannis, A. D. (2010). Morality, institutions and the wealth of nations: Some lessons from ancient Greece. European Journal of Political Economy, 26, 68–81.CrossRef

Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent. Logical foundations of constitutional democracy. University of Michigan Press.

Cartledge, P. (2009). Ancient Greek political thought in practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dowlen, O. (2008). The potential of sortition. A study of the random selection of citizens for public office. Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Dowlen, O. (2010). Sortition and liberal democracy. In G. Delannoi & O. Dowelen (Eds.), Sortition. Theory and practice (pp. 53–68). Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Engelstad, F. (1989). The assignment of political office by lot. Social Science Information, 28, 23–50.CrossRef

Goheler, G. (2010). Controlling politics by sortition. In G. Delannoi & O. Dowelen (Eds.), Sortition. Theory and practice (pp. 91–104). Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Goodwin, B. (2005). Justice by lottery. Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.

Hansen, M. H. (1999). The Athenian democracy in the age of Demosthenes. Structure, principles and ideology. London: Bristol Classical Press.

Headlam, J. W. (1891). Election by lot in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kessler, A. S. (2005). Representative versus direct democracy: The role of informational asymmetries. Public Choice, 124, 157–177.CrossRef

Kyriazis, N. (2009). Financing the Athenian state: public choice in the age of Demosthenes. European Journal of Law and Economics, 27, 109–127.CrossRef

Levy, D. (1989). The statistical basis of Athenian-American constitutional theory. Journal of Legal Studies, 28, 79–103.CrossRef

Lockard, A. A. (2003). Decision by sortition: a means to reduce rent-seeking. Public Choice, 116, 435–451.CrossRef

Lyttkens, C. H. (2008). Appointment by lottery in ancient Athens. A mistake with important consequences. In P. Beskow, S. Borgehammar, & A. Jönsson (Eds.), Förbistringar och förklaringar (pp. 426–434). Skåneförlaget: Festskrift till Anders Piltz.

Manin, B. (1997). The principles of representative government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Maskin, E., & Tirole, J. (2004). The politician and the judge: Accountability in government. American Economic Review, 94, 1034–1054.CrossRef

Mueller, D. C. (1991). Constitutional Rights. Journal of Law, Economics and Organisation., 7, 313–333.

Mueller, D. C. (1996). Constitutional democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mueller, D. C. (1997). Constitutional public choice. In D. Mueller (Ed.), Perspectives on public choice: A handbook (pp. 455–480). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mueller, D. C. (2003). Public choice III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mueller, D. C. (2005). Constitutional political economy in the European Union. Public Choice, 124, 57–73.CrossRef

Mueller, D. C., Tollison, R. D., & Willet, T. D. (1972). Representative democracy via random selection. Public Choice, 12, 57–69.CrossRef

Mulgan, R. G. (1984). Lot as a democratic device of selection. Review of Politics, 46, 539–560.CrossRef

Ober, J. (2008). Democracy and knowledge. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Pitsoulis, A. (2011). The egalitarian battlefield: Reflections on the origins of majority rule in archaic Greece. European Journal of Political Economy, 27, 87–103.

Raaflaub, K. A., Ober, J., & Wallace, R. W. (2007). Origins of democracy in ancient Greece. Berkely: University of California Press.

Stone, P. (2007). Why lotteries are just. The Journal of Political Philosophy, 15, 276–295.CrossRef

Stone, P. (2009a). Lotteries, justice and probability. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 21, 395–409.CrossRef

Stone, P. (2009b). The logic of random selection. Political Theory, 37, 375–397.CrossRef

Tangian, A. (2008). A mathematical model of Athenian democracy. Social Choice Welfare, 31, 537–572.CrossRef

Taylor, C. (2007). From the whole citizen body? The sociology of election and lot in the Athenian democracy. Hesperia, 76, 323–346.CrossRef

Tridimas, G. (2011). A political economy perspective of direct democracy in ancient Athens. Constitutional Political Economy, 22, 58–82.

Vergne, A. (2010). A brief survey of the literature of sortition. In G. Delannoi & O. Dowelen (Eds.), Sortition. Theory and practice (pp. 69–87). Exeter: Imprint Academic.

Titel: Constitutional choice in ancient Athens: the rationality of selection to office by lot
verfasst von: George Tridimas
Publikationsdatum: 01.03.2012
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Constitutional Political Economy / Ausgabe 1/2012
Print ISSN: 1043-4062
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-9966
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-011-9112-1