Bolivian student governments pioneer deeper democracy
Channel: Democracy Talk
Date: 2016-11-13

Many people, in major representative democracies around the world, aren't too excited about the quality of their governments right now. Exorbitantly expensive elections, unpopular candidates and nasty, superficial campaigns all make for highly unsavory, perilous politics.

Couldn't we humans do better than this?

Bolivia's Democracy in Practice thinks maybe we could. It's field testing random selection of student governments as an alternative to elections. For the last three years, in five different schools, it's been road testing its ideas. 

Encouraging results to date include fairer decisions, greater inclusiveness, more student engagement and better leadership education. The student governors chosen by lot represent their peers more accurately. 

Democracy in Practice's Adam Cronkright and Simon Pek explain the thinking behind their work and where else it might apply. Their approach suggests potential for a radical overhaul of our failing systems of competitive elections.

They spoke to independent journalist Patrick Chalmers on the margins of the Council of Europe's 2016 World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg, France. 

Democracy in Practice was chosen as a finalist among the initiatives presented at the event.