The Jurga Manifesto: A Democracy Built on Sortition

By Alex Kovner

People are fed up with politicians. We want them to act like athletes in an honest sport, competing fairly according to rules not of their own devising. Instead, we see politicians shamelessly manipulating the rules to suit their own interests. Existing proposals for deliberative democracy place citizen panels at the discretion of these very politicians, making them little more than weapons of political warfare.

The Jurga Manifesto places deliberative minipublics at the heart of democracy, in the form of the jurga: a body of randomly chosen citizens empowered to pass judgement on both laws and candidates for office. Political parties are replaced by proposing agencies whose only role is to serve up policy options to the jurga. Stripped of any ability to manipulate process, politicians compete on substance, and can only influence government by finding favour with an institution of unparalleled democratic legitimacy: the jurga.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1788360265
• ISBN13: 9781788360265
• Release Date: February 2020
• Publisher: Imprint Academic
• Length: 160 Pages