Against Elections

Choosing our rulers by popular vote has failed to deliver true democratic government: that seems to be the verdict of history unfolding before our eyes. Cogently and persuasively, David Van Reybrouck pleads for a return to selection by lot, and outlines a range of well thought out plans for how sortitive democracy might be implemented. With the popular media and political parties fiercely opposed to it, sortitive democracy will not find it easy to win acceptance. Nonetheless, it may well be an idea whose time has come

J. M. Coetzee

This fine iconoclastic work could not be more timely ... demonstrate[s] that far from safeguarding our right to self-determination, elections are actually impeding our democracy

Karen Armstrong

A sovereign remedy for the raging crypto-oligarchy of our turbulent times

Professor Paul Cartledge, author of Democracy: A Life

Mounts a convincing case that we have wrongly conflated democracy with elections

Observer

Very persuasive … There are few new big ideas in politics and few answers to the serious challenge faced by democratic politics ... invigorating and advance[s] a promising practical idea … fresh, challenging and uncomplicated

Daniel Finkelstein, The Times

Van Reybrouck wants to revive a system in which government is not just for the people, but really by the people … a persuasive description of a system designed to be soundly based in popular assent

Financial Times

Riveting

Irish Examiner

Excellent . . . Why does our system keep electing people whose incomes, assets, interests and psychology are hugely at variance with ours? Because that is what it is designed to do

George Monbiot, Guardian

A sovereign remedy for the raging crypto-oligarchy of our turbulent times

Professor Paul Cartledge, author of Democracy: A Life

Choosing our rulers by popular vote has failed to deliver true democratic government: that seems to be the verdict of history unfolding before our eyes ... [this] may well be an idea whose time has come

J. M. Coetzee

Mounts a convincing case that we have wrongly conflated democracy with elections

Observer

This fine iconoclastic work could not be more timely ... demonstrate[s] that far from safeguarding our right to self-determination, elections are actually impeding our democracy

Karen Armstrong

Van Reybrouck wants to revive a system in which government is not just for the people, but really by the people … a persuasive description of a system designed to be soundly based in popular assent … A President Trump might focus attention on his views

Financial Times

Very persuasive … There are few new big ideas in politics and few answers to the serious challenge faced by democratic politics ... invigorating and advance[s] a promising practical idea … fresh, challenging and uncomplicated

Daniel Finkelstein, The Times