How Sortition Replaces Elected Politicians With Randomly Selected Citizens' Assemblies

Local governments are increasingly bypassing elected politicians to resolve polarized issues by using "sortition"—the ancient practice of drafting ordinary citizens by lottery to form binding policy assemblies. From Paris to East Belgium, these randomly selected bodies are taking over decisions that elected councils find too politically toxic to touch, such as climate policy, urban planning, and homelessness.[2][3]

The mechanism is straightforward but radical. Instead of holding an election, a municipality uses a civic lottery to select a representative microcosm of its population, stratified by age, gender, income, and geography. These citizens are paid for their time, brought together to hear from experts, and tasked with deliberating until they reach a consensus recommendation or draft a bill.[5]

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has tracked a "deliberative wave" of over 700 such assemblies globally since 2010. The environment is the most popular issue, accounting for 17% of all assemblies, as local governments seek ways to navigate the trade-offs of climate action without triggering electoral backlash.[4]

The most advanced implementation is the "Ostbelgien Model" in East Belgium, launched in 2019. The German-speaking region of 70,000 residents established a permanent, 24-member Citizens' Council that serves an 18-month term. This council sets the legislative agenda and convenes separate 25-to-50-member Citizens' Assemblies to deliberate on specific topics over several days.[3]

Participants in Ostbelgien receive between €50 and €95 per session. By removing agenda-setting power from vested interests and short-term electoral cycles, the model allows matters of genuine public concern to bypass political grandstanding. Liesa Scholzen, a politician in the Ostbelgien parliament, noted the shift in governance when addressing visitors in 2023: "I'm just a part-time politician. And I'm a citizen too!"[2][3]

Paris followed suit in October 2021, establishing the Assemblée Citoyenne de Paris as a permanent city-wide institution. One hundred randomly selected residents, drawn from a pool of 1.35 million registered voters, serve a one-year mandate. They are granted extensive rights, including the power to submit formal proposals directly to the Conseil de Paris and set the theme for the city's €100 million annual participatory budget.[1]

In July 2024, the Paris City Council made history by passing major legislation written entirely by this permanent Citizens' Assembly. The bill included 20 concrete measures to combat homelessness, such as funding accommodation for 4,500 people and creating a mobile outreach social work team. Elias Belon, the General Secretary of the Paris Citizens' Assembly, explained the dynamic: "The politicians were very impressed by the capacity of the citizens."[1]

The appeal of sortition lies in its ability to break legislative logjams. Elected politicians are often trapped in short-termism linked to the next election cycle, making them hesitant to impose necessary but unpopular trade-offs. Randomly selected citizens, who do not need to worry about reelection or campaign donors, consistently produce more ambitious and long-term policy solutions.[2][4]

However, the transition to sortition requires elected officials to willingly cede power. Magali Plovie, president of the French-speaking Parliament of Brussels, acknowledged this tension in 2023: "Actually, we welcome Citizens' Assemblies. We know we need to do things differently. Politicians are trapped in short-termism linked to elections, but we need long-term decisions." The success of these models depends entirely on the political will of the executive branch to actually implement the citizens' recommendations.[3]