Is democracy without elections possible? Could a lottery be better?
Today, elections are so closely tied to democracy that it can be hard to imagine one without the other. Yet in ancient Athens, between 508 and 322 BCE, many public offices were filled not by voting but by lottery, through a system known as sortition. To Athenians, random selection could seem more democratic than elections, which risked favouring the wealthy, the ambitious and the well-connected. A lottery, by contrast, promised a broader and more ordinary form of political representation.
In this animation, Michael Vazquez, associate director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explores why sortition has returned as a serious idea in debates about modern democracy. He explains both its appeal and its difficulties, from its potential to reduce polarisation and money-driven politics to the challenges of competence, accountability and public trust. The film also introduces a contemporary version proposed by the US philosopher Alex Guerrero, designed to update the ancient model for today’s political problems — and to ask whether democracy might be renewed not by more elections, but by rethinking who gets chosen to govern.
Video by TED-Ed
Director: Avi Ofer
Writer: Michael Vazquez
Producer: Sazia Afrin
