Why a European Citizens' Assembly should replace sortition with liquid democracy

Abstract

Several previous contributions to this debate identify a dilemma in Kalypso Nicolaidis’ thought-provoking proposal for a European Citizens’ Assembly (ECA) (Cristina Lafont and Nadia Urbinati; Richard Bellamy; Svenja Ahlhaus and Eva Schmidt). Nicolaidis aims to promote a “pan-European participatory ecosystem” characterised by a transnational “demoicratic ethos.” She argues that the ECA could foster these goals, enhancing input, throughput and output legitimacy of collective decision-making within the EU. As critics point out, for the ECA to have such an impact on the quality of transnational democracy, it would have to be equipped with some degree of decision-making authority. However, if it did have such authority, it should not rely on selection by lottery. These critical contributions solve the dilemma by downgrading the ECA to a merely consultative body, arguing that we should strengthen traditional forms of electoral democracy instead. We support both Nicolaidis’ ambition to radically reimagine EU institutions beyond elections and the arguments against lottocracy. Our contribution, therefore, suggests a different way forward, one that Jelena Džankić briefly hints at: replacing selection by lottery with liquid democracy.