Lot and Democratic Representation: A Modest Proposal

Elections and democracy have not always been closely associated. As historians of democracy often point out, classical Athenians believed that lottery – not election – was the most democratic means of selecting magistrates. Aristotle writes, for instance, that “the appointment of magistrates by lot is thought to be democratic, and the election of them oligarchical.”1 The Athenians used elections sparingly, to choose generals and financial administrators, to fill posts that required a special measure of expertise. They expected that magistrates chosen by election would be disproportionately drawn from the social and economic elite. The Athenians have not been alone in this belief; in fact, as Bernard Manin has illustrated, it can be found throughout the modern republican tradition, from Guicciardini to the framers of the U.S. Constitution. Montesquieu argued, for instance, that “selection by choice is in the nature of aristocracy.”2 In his view, elections gave citizens the opportunity to choose men of particular merit and distinction, whom he expected to be drawn from the upper classes.3 This point of view has lately been restated by a few contemporary democratic theorists. Manin himself, in his Principles of Representative Government, devotes most of a chapter to the proposition that elections have an inherent aristocratic tendency. Elections reward people who succeed in drawing attention to themselves, he says, and both wealth and social distinction attract attention.4 More recently, John McCormick has written that “election is a magistrate selection method that directly and indirectly favors the wealthy and keeps political offices from being distributed widely among citizens of all socioeconomic backgrounds.”5 Wealthy political aspirants are able to “cultivate greater reputations,” to make themselves heard more loudly, and to develop the forms of expertise (rhetorical and other) necessary for political success.6 Such concerns are vindicated by many empirical studies of the social and economic backgrounds of elected politicians. It should come as no surprise that legislators in modern democracies tend to be “better educated, possess higher-status occupations, and have more privileged backgrounds” than their constituents.7 These findings hold true across advanced, industrialized societies as well as developing democracies; they also hold true for national, state, and local office: social and economic elites are overrepresented on city councils, not just national Senates.8 One way to summarize this finding is to say that elections fail to produce descriptively representative legislatures; that is, they fail to fill legislatures with politicians who reflect the empirical characteristics of the population at large. Certain characteristics – notably wealth and social privilege – are overrepresented, while poor, socially disadvantaged citizens are (often severely) underrepresented.9 Why should it matter that social and economic elites tend to win elections? The most pressing democratic concern is that they will write legislation that favors their own interests and neglects the interests of the less well-off. “The most obvious hypothesis,” writes Robert Putnam, “so obvious that it has rarely been scrutinized carefully – is that decision makers will favor the interests of the social groups from which they come.”10 This point need not rest on an assumption of elite self-interest. J.S. Mill observed that a Parliament of even the most altruistic noblemen would be little comfort to the working class: “yet does Parliament, or almost any of the members composing it, ever for an instant look at any question with the