Would choosing the second chamber by sortition be an effective way to achieve a 50:50 balance between men and women? John Dryzek argues that the upper chamber – in Australia as in the UK, a deliberative forum – would be a good place to start, and looks at ways to ensure women sitting in deliberative assemblies get an equal voice and hearing

Dryzek, John

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By Democratic Audit UK 2017-3-24Gender equality in Parliament: how random selection couldget us theredemocraticaudit.com /2017/03/24/gender-equality-in-parliament-how-random-selection-could-get-us-there/Would choosing the second chamber by sortition be an effective way to achieve a 50:50 balance between men andwomen? John Dryzek argues that the upper chamber – in Australia as in the UK, a deliberative forum – would be agood place to start, and looks at ways to ensure women sitting in deliberative assemblies get an equal voice andhearing.Women’s Equality Party supporters join the Pride march in London, 2016. The WEP wants equalrepresentation for women in Parliament. Photo: patrickdevries2003 via a CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 licenceSortition constitutes political assemblies not by election, but rather by random selection from the citizenry. It hasbeen around longer than elections, and was used over 2500 years ago in ancient Athens.Today, random selection of citizens to make vital community decisions is most familiar when it comes to the jury incriminal cases. However, there is increased interest in random selection to constitute deliberative citizens’assemblies, citizens’ juries, and similar forums. Most of these have an advisory role on a policy issue (such ashuman biotechnology, or city planning), so do not legislate. But the failures of existing legislative assemblies haveled to recent advocacy of sortition to select legislatures – dispensing with elected politicians. David van Reybrouck’sbook Against Elections: The Case for Democracy is a recent prominent statement along these lines. (Editor’s note:You can read a review of van Reybrouck’s book here.)A good place to start would be the upper house. We have evidence that shows ordinary citizens are much betterthan professional politicians when it comes to the key virtue of reflection: willingness to change one’s mind ifpersuaded. Upper houses like the Australian Senate are supposed to be houses of review and reflection – not justmirrors of the partisan advocacy that goes on in the lower house.In ancient Athens, all the citizens were male, and so sortition did nothing for gender equality. Today, of course,around 50% of citizens are female, and so sortition would automatically yield 50-50 representation.Yet 50-50 representation is not enough to yield real equality. Twenty years ago Iris Marion Young pointed out thatenthusiasm for deliberative democracy – which puts meaningful communication at the heart of politics –could still lead to what she called the ‘internal’ exclusion of women (and others). Iris Young was a leadingpolitical theorist, best known for her work on justice and communicative democracy. For Young, internal inclusion1/2occurs when deliberation is restricted to dispassionate rational argument, which she believed privileged thespeaking style of white, well-educated males. Young highlighted forms of communication such as greeting, rhetoric,and storytelling to counteract this privilege. Most deliberative democrats now accept this, though we are also wary ofthe subtle exclusions that can accompany these alternative modes.Back in 1996, Young didn’t have much evidence. Today, we have substantial evidence that tells a more complexstory. In their 2012 book The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation and Institutions, Christopher Markowitz and TaliMendelberg show that equal voice and influence is elusive, but can be enhanced by careful attention to institutionalrules. Notably, they find that women’s voice is further disadvantaged (beyond simple numbers) when they arein a minority in groups featuring majority rule. A decision rule of unanimity helps – but only so long as womenremain in a minority. If women are a majority then their voice is advantaged by majority rule. Unfortunately theseresults do not tell us exactly what to do when the balance is 50/50, but the general point that institutional rules matteris important.There is more to the deliberative story: Facilitators of deliberative citizen forums know that achieving equal voice forwomen is hard work, but there are things that facilitators can do to help. For example, Hans Asenbaum in a recentarticle shows that having participants address the facilitator, rather than other participants directly, promotesequality; and that a moderately (but not excessively) assertive facilitator who encourages the telling of personalstories can help equalise communicative influence.To conclude: one way to achieve 50/50 by 2030 is through sortition accompanied by deliberation – but we have tobe very careful how deliberation is designed. This post represents the views of the author and not those of Democratic Audit. It first appeared at theBroadAgenda Blog.John Dryzek is Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Centenary Professor in theCentre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the Institute for Governanceand Policy Analysis, University of Canberra.2/2

Gender equality in Parliament: how random selection could get us there

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