Commonlot's Blog

In the new book by Shaazke Beyerle, Curtailing Corruption: People Power for Accountability and Justice, a randomly chosen group of regular citizens — from a matrix reflecting the whole population — served as a ‘citizen jury’ that confirmed results of an investigation into political corruption.

The outcome of this ‘people power’ campaign was that almost 52% (58 out of 112) of the politicians identified as corrupt dropped out of the race. And of the remaining blacklisted candidates who did run, 68% (59 out of 86)  were defeated.

This is a well produced video — with many graphics — assessing the current crisis in politics from the French perspective. Sortition is proposed as a solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzcN-0Bq1cw&list=PLBC0c3-Df5twj6_tS0FO64Xl66xjkqVPo

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/us/with-governors-indictment-scrutiny-of-grand-jury-system.html

“Steps Toward Abolishing War: Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping and A Two-Legged Democracy”
by David Grant

The Peace Studies Lecture
at Saint Lawrence University
4 November 2013

Steps Toward Abolishing War: Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping and a Two-Legged Democracy (no intro) from David Grant on Vimeo.

TEXT WITH VISUALS for the lecture: “Steps Toward Abolishing War: Unarmed Civilian Peacekeeping and A Two-Legged Democracy” (video, following item)
by David Grant

The Peace Studies Lecture
at Saint Lawrence University
4 November 2013