2020/01/10 by Arash Abizadeh · 178 citations
Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Compromise #Context (archaeology) #Democracy #Elite #Federalism #Impartiality #Judicial and Constitutional Studies #Law #Law and economics #Legislation #Legislature #Political Systems and Governance #Political science #Politics #Public administration #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1017/s1537592719004626
published in Perspectives on Politics 19(3), 791-806 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2020/01/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
The two traditional justifications for bicameralism are that a second legislative chamber serves a legislative-review function (enhancing the quality of legislation) and a balancing function (checking concentrated power and protecting minorities). I furnish here a third justification for bicameralism, with one elected chamber and the second selected by lot, as an institutional compromise between contradictory imperatives facing representative democracy: elections are a mechanism of people’s political agency and of accountability, but run counter to political equality and impartiality, and are insufficient for satisfactory responsiveness; sortition is a mechanism for equality and impartiality, and of enhancing responsiveness, but not of people’s political agency or of holding representatives accountable. Whereas the two traditional justifications initially grew out of anti-egalitarian premises (about the need for elite wisdom and to protect the elite few against the many), the justification advanced here is grounded in egalitarian premises about the need to protect state institutions from capture by the powerful few and to treat all subjects as political equals. Reflecting the “political” turn in political theory, I embed this general argument within the institutional context of Canadian parliamentary federalism, arguing that Canada’s Senate ought to be reconstituted as a randomly selected citizen assembly.