The use of random selection in politics is no longer an academic utopia. Since the 2010s, several European countries have established citizen assemblies composed of members selected by chance, with specific mandates and public resources. Democracy through random selection is now part of a concrete movement, supported by institutional frameworks that go beyond mere experimental stages.
Permanent Citizen Assembly in Paris: When Random Selection Becomes an Institution
Most analyses of random selection in politics focus on one-off initiatives: a climate convention, a panel on end-of-life issues. The Paris case deserves attention because it illustrates a shift towards permanence.
Since 2021, the Citizen Assembly of Paris has evolved from an experiment into a permanent institution with annual rotation of its members. The city modified the composition of this assembly in 2023-2024 to include non-EU residents living in Paris and young people aged 16-17. This choice extends political citizenship beyond the traditional electorate, which no classic election allows.
The assembly has formal rights to bring matters before the Paris Council, marking a transition from consultation to co-production of norms. Random selection is no longer used just to gather opinions: it directly feeds into the municipal decision-making process. Dedicated resources on this topic are documented at https://www.sortition.net/, which lists initiatives for democracy by lot around the world.
The Ostbelgian Model and Permanent Sortition in Europe
The German-speaking community of Belgium (Ostbelgien) has taken the logic further than Paris. Its Permanent Citizen Council, composed of randomly selected members, does not merely deliberate on imposed topics. It sets its own agenda and convenes thematic panels.
This model is considered one of the most advanced implementations in the world. It directly influences other European cities. Berlin and Vienna are exploring similar frameworks, with projects extending into 2025-2026.
The difference from traditional citizen conventions is structural. In a one-off convention, the government chooses the topic, timeline, and scope of recommendations. In the Ostbelgian model, randomly selected citizens have autonomy over framing the questions. This autonomy changes the very nature of the mandate.
Known Limitations of These Permanent Frameworks
The institutionalization of random selection does not resolve all tensions. The question of democratic legitimacy remains open: can a group of unelected citizens commit a community to structural choices? Field feedback varies on this point depending on national contexts.
The rate of effective participation is also problematic. Accepting a citizen mandate for several months, even if compensated, requires available time. The socio-economic profiles of participants do not always reflect the desired diversity, despite mechanisms for stratifying the sample.
Random Selection and Election: Two Distinct Political Legitimacies
Random selection and election do not produce the same type of representation. Election relies on voluntary choice, a program, and competition among candidates. It grants legitimacy through the explicit consent of voters. Random selection is based on statistical chance and produces a descriptive sample of the population, closer to its actual composition in terms of age, gender, and socio-professional category.
Aristotle already distinguished between these two mechanisms. For him, election pertains to aristocracy (the government of the best), while random selection characterizes democracy in the strict sense. Modern democracies have largely opted for election following the revolutions of the 18th century, associating political representation with the presumed competence of elected officials.
The return of random selection does not aim to replace election. Current models combine both procedures in hybrid architectures. The idea is not to eliminate elected parliaments but to add citizen chambers with deliberative powers on specific topics.
What Random Selection Changes in Decision-Making
An elected official reasons based on their re-election, their party, their funders. A randomly selected citizen has none of these filters. This absence of partisan interest alters the quality of deliberations on topics where long-term considerations conflict with electoral cycles: climate policy, tax reform, land use planning.
The experiences conducted in Ireland on marriage equality and abortion illustrate this mechanism. The Irish citizen assembly, composed of randomly selected members, produced recommendations that were then put to a referendum. Random selection allowed for the unlocking of issues that parliament dared not decide.
Technical Conditions for Credible Random Selection in Politics
The selection procedure determines the credibility of the framework. A poorly designed random selection produces a biased sample and undermines the legitimacy of the whole. Several technical criteria condition the reliability of the process:
- The survey base must cover the entire concerned population, not just those registered on electoral rolls, to avoid reproducing the biases of abstention.
- The stratification of the sample (by age, gender, place of residence, education level) corrects the imbalances of pure chance and ensures descriptive representativeness.
- Compensation for participants must offset income loss to allow participation from employed, self-employed, or precarious individuals.
- The duration of the mandate and prior training for the selected individuals condition the quality of deliberations on complex topics.
These parameters are not secondary. A random selection without stratification reproduces the inequalities it claims to correct. The most advanced frameworks, like those in Ostbelgien or Paris, incorporate these constraints from the design stage.
Democracy through random selection does not replace existing institutions. It opens a political space where ordinary citizens, without partisan mandates, participate in decisions that engage the community. The transition from experimentation to permanent institutionalization, observed in several European cities, marks a significant development in recent years. The question is no longer whether random selection has a place in politics, but under what conditions it produces legitimate and applicable decisions.
