Randomly Selected "Politicians": Transforming Democracy in the Post-Conflict Context

After decades of violent conflict in Northern Ireland, the 'peace process' led to the historic 1998 Good Friday/ Belfast Agreement and the establishment of power-sharing institutions. However, one major criticism of the process and the resulting power sharing governance relates to the focus upon securing compromise between elites (political party leaders), somewhat at the expense of ordinary citizens. Citizen engagement is constrained by two features of the power sharing system. First, the fact that all politicians elected to the Assembly have to declare themselves to be either 'unionist' or 'nationalist' (or 'other') means that ethno-national issues relating to the nationalist-unionist divide dominate politics, and other issue areas - perhaps relating to social and economic matters - are downplayed in importance. Second, the fact that all political parties are included in the power sharing government means that it is not possible for voters to 'throw out' the government and replace it with a different one. Hence, despite the fact that power sharing has certainly solidified peace and stability, there is still much to be done to ensure a political system in which all citizens are engaged - in terms of being represented and in terms of contributing to decision making.

We propose a practical intervention to help achieve this engagement. We suggest amending the current political institutions by adding a new parliamentary body - an 'upper house'/'second chamber' of randomly selected ordinary citizens. A virtue of randomly selecting citizens is that, as demonstrated by statistical theory, a group of such citizens would look very much like society as a whole. It would contain equal numbers of men and women, and would contain people from low-income backgrounds and ethnic minorities in direct proportion to the numbers of people from low-income backgrounds and ethnic minorities in society. And it would contain the cross section of views that exist right across society. So, if 10 percent of the entire Northern Ireland population are Protestant working class who feel that flags should be flown on public buildings all year round, then (almost exactly) 10 percent of a randomly selected body would contain such people with such views. A randomly selected upper house of parliament would be a mirror image of society as a whole.

Randomly selecting political decision makers has actually been widely used in history - in ancient Athens (often seen as the birthplace of democracy) and in medieval Florence and Venice - and randomness is also the selection mechanism underlying the use of juries in legal trials. Furthermore, there have been some contemporary experiments internationally using randomly selected citizens to make policy recommendations (for example, in British Columbia and in the Irish Constitutional Convention). However, there has not been work on formally incorporating random decision making into the political system in deeply divided places in order to enhance inclusion and allow a legitimate democratic space for 'protest' voices of ordinary citizens.

The purpose of our project is to come up with a good, well worked out, suggestion as to how best to include a randomly selected decision making body into the existing Northern Ireland political system. First, we bring international academic experts together to generate a range of possible ways of doing so. Second, we ask ordinary Northern Ireland citizens what they think of our suggestions. Third, we interview half of all elected politicians in Northern Ireland and identify their main objections to a possible role for randomly selected citizens. Bearing in mind this evidence from public opinion and the opinions of politicians, we finalise our suggestions as to how best to amend existing institutions to build in a role for randomly chosen citizen decision makers. Finally, we illustrate in a small real-world trial citizen decision making in action.

Who will benefit from the research? Why will they benefit?

1/ Northern Ireland society
Our recommendations are designed to aid long term peace and stability by reforming the political system to enhance inclusion and participation, and the perceived legitimacy of the system. The peace process is an ongoing one - from the 1998 Agreement (and its refinement in the 2006 Agreement) to the 2013 Haass Talks - and stabilising democracy over the long term may be helped by directly including ordinary citizens in (one component of) the political decision making system. Northern Ireland society will benefit from our project in two ways. First, our work seeks to provoke a novel and informative debate about democratic systems and the possible advantages of incorporating random citizens as decision makers. Second, our work provides Northern Ireland's political actors with an option to consider in the context of the ongoing debate over political institutional reform to solidify peace and stability.

2/ Northern Ireland politicians: MLAs
Our project represents a novel case of the co-production of knowledge via the incorporation of the views of the political elite into the research design. Specifically, when we have generated our recommendations - through the process of expert academic analysis and information from public attitudes - we engage directly with almost half of Northern Ireland Assembly MLAs to assess their reaction to our draft recommendations. We seek to take on board their concerns, and make clarifications, in the final draft of our recommendations, consistent with maintaining the fundamental radical nature of our proposals.

3/ Commission on Identity, Culture and Tradition
After the failure of the political parties to reach agreement on contentious issues relating to cultural identity, such as parading and flag display, Richard Haass (chair of the 2013 inter-party talks) advocated a systematic public conversation in society as a whole to address these issues. To facilitate this, Haass advocated the establishment of a Commission on Identity, Culture and Tradition. The work of such a Commission, we believe, would benefit enormously from our proposed one-day trial (phase 5) of citizen decision making on the intractable issue of flag display.

4/ Alienated and disaffected individuals and groups
A randomly selected component of decision making would proportionately represent all groups and beliefs in society. This will enable 'protest' and disillusioned voices to have a legitimate input into the democratic system.

5/ Community Relations Council NI
We contribute our ideas and original data to the ongoing work of the CRC NI, particularly relating to the Annual Peace Monitoring Report generated by Research Director Paul Nolan.

6/ United Nations: Mediation Support Unit
We present a report which outlines our suggested ways in which citizen participation and engagement in post-conflict democracy building can be maximised.

7/ European Union: Directorate K Security Policy and Conflict Prevention
We outline how democratic design in post-conflict democracies in the EU can be aided by our recommendations. Specifically, we explicate the implications of our work for the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

8/ Second level students in Northern Ireland
We provide educational resources to second level Politics teachers in Northern Ireland. Linked to our docu-drama, these resources are highly student friendly.

9/ Westminster Committee on Standards in Public Life
We present our findings and explicate how the integrity and legitimacy of the Northern Ireland power sharing system can be enhanced by random selection.