Hlne Landemore has established herself as one of the key figures in current democratic discussions.In Politics without Politicians, she clarifies a theory already presented in her previous works: in order to make room for ordinary citizens, the representative paradigm of contemporary democracies must be transcended.In this pedagogical book, combining personal narratives, empirical observations, and normative reflections, Landemore calls for an expansion of our democratic imagination to free the exercise of power from the monopoly of professionals.The book thus explores new institutional designs capable of challenging the modern division of political labor.The first chapter lays out this general ambition.Starting from the observation that representative systems no longer seem 'capable of delivering either democratic or good governance' (1), the author proposes envisioning an alternative democracy, 'constrained but not determined by what is' (9).Her approach rests on two orientations: on the one hand, the elaboration of a democratic horizon freed from the electoral principle; on the other, the identification of concrete opportunities for citizen participation less dependent on the control of politicians.The argument begins with a critique of representative government.Chapters Two and Three extend and radicalize a well-known thesis in political theory, according to which elections function as a principle of distinction (Manin 1997), separating politicians from the mass of ordinary citizens.Although somewhat simplified, this reading clearly suggests that a permanent upper class tends to retain political power for its own benefit.Landemore advocates overcoming this form of political exclusion to 'bring the shy people out' (6).Chapters Four and Five revisit her now well-established defense of sortition, drawing on both its historical uses and contemporary revivals.Random selection appears as a tool capable of limiting the capture of political power by a minority, fostering more evenly distributed participation 'across all classes' (102).Moreover, although often criticized as lacking accountability, such assemblies are shown by the author to be compatible with various mechanisms of answerability.Through public justification procedures or the review of their proposals via referendums, citizens can hold their randomly selected peers accountable.More broadly, by encouraging a plurality of forms of participation, Landemore argues for the possibility of greater 'collective intelligence' (109), as illustrated by the Icelandic constitutional process (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013).This analysis strengthens both the normative and instrumental significance of sortition-based institutions.The final five chapters extend this momentum by exploring the specific circumstances under which such innovations can arise, focusing on two French participatory experiments: the Citizens' Convention on Climate and the Citizens' Convention on End of Life.
Oscar Basnier (Wed,) studied this question.