Political Expertise

From "The Trouble With Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy is Wrong," Chapter 13.6

One concern some people express about sortition is the loss of political expertise, which elected politicians are assumed to possess. While people typically have only a vague idea about what constitutes “political expertise,” they presume it must exist.

A belief in political expertise dates back at least to Plato and his analogy of the ship pilot. In arguing against democracy, and selection of political decision-makers by lot, Plato presented the analogy that it would be foolish to choose a ship pilot by lot, because expert pilots should be sought out. However, it is important to appreciate that the political expert is not necessarily suited to judging political decisions. In a virtual response to Plato’s analogy of the the ship pilot, Aristotle gives two counter arguments in his Politics, writing of non-experts that first,

“each individual will indeed be a worse judge than the experts, but collectively they will be better, or at any rate no worse. Secondly, there are tasks of which the actual doer will be neither the best nor the only judge, cases in which even those who do not possess the skill, form an opinion on the finished product. An obvious example is house-building; the builder can certainly form an opinion on a house, but the user, the household-manager, will be an even better judge, So too the user of a rudder, the helmsman, is a better judge of it than the carpenters who made it; and it is the diner not the cook that pronounces upon the merits of a dinner.”

Most policy and law drafting expertise resides in professional staff, rather than the legislators themselves. As noted at the beginning of chapter 12, Senator Edward Kennedy estimated that ninety-five percent of the drafting and negotiating in Congress is done by staff rather than legislators. A sortition democracy should also employ a professional staff.  Most of the political expertise within Congressional offices¹ is actually oriented towards the public relations, fund-raising and the campaign implications of policy, rather than focused on actual policy substance.  Such pseudo-expertise can enhance re-election chances, but may be distinctly detrimental to good policy making.

It is not necessarily the case that political expertise is even a meaningful concept, simply because political decisions inevitably range so widely. Since political judgment involves anticipating the effect of policies and world events on future outcomes, it is possible to assess the performance of political experts by comparing their past predictions with subsequent reality through hind-sight. Philip Tetlock conducted an exhaustive study over twenty years of “expert” political forecasting looking at the accuracy of 284 recognized political experts, and published his findings in his 2006 book, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Could We Know? He had political experts make predictions about future events within their spheres of expertise, as well as give a confidence rating indicating how sure they felt about each prediction. As history passed over twenty years he was able to compare these predictions with what really ended up happening. While a few experts did somewhat better than the guesses of non-experts, his research showed that there is little to recommend the predictions of most experts over “dart-throwing chimps.” Regardless of liberal or conservative leanings, professional background, or status – as a whole, political experts did not perform particularly well. He laments that the evidence shows:

“there is something wrong with existing mechanisms for getting to the truth both in the media-driven marketplace of ideas and in the top-secret world of intelligence analysis. Indeed, one of the more disconcerting results of this project has been the discovery of an inverse relationship between how well experts do on our scientific indicators of good judgment and how attractive these experts are to the media and other consumers of expertise.”

Most alleged political expertise may simply be an illusion (promoted by those who claim to have it). If it does exist, the evidence indicates we are not good at recognizing it. 

So if we can’t count on elections to empower individuals with meaningful political expertise, or superior political judgment, do elections select for other desirable traits? Elections may (or may not) screen out people with extreme intellectual deficiencies, but experience proves that they do not screen out individuals with extreme ethical deficiencies (in fact, just the opposite). 

Expertise and the Executive Role

I discussed the role of the executive at the end of chapter 2, but now want to expand that examination in a sortitional context. We should first make a distinction between the legislative functions of government — deciding “What goal should be pursued” and  “what policy might best achieve that,” and the executive function of government — competently administering the policy decisions of the legislature. In many electoral democracies these functions are more or less intertwined. This is especially true in parliamentary systems where the governing party or party coalition in the legislature takes on the executive role as well. 

In this chapter I am primarily focusing on competence in the legislative realm, rather than the executive. However, I should say a bit about the problems of assuring competency of an executive, and how sortition can play a useful role there as well. Electoral democracies are often undone by placing both policy and administrative roles onto a single individual. It is not possible to use elections to hold one person accountable for two separate functions. The American presidential election is a classic example. A voter may like the policy direction of candidate A, but find that person to be untrustworthy or incompetent, while candidate B is trustworthy and competent, but advocates horrible policies. Genuine democratic accountability requires that an executive serve primarily an administrative role, with policy matters handled by a legislative branch. While there may occasionally be an individual who seems to excel at both roles, whether we are speaking of Napoleon or the modern American “imperial presidency,” the merging of these functions is dangerous and fundamentally undemocratic. 

In ancient Athens most executive functions were carried out by a large number of lottery-selected boards, with ten citizens each. These  boards of magistrates were administrative rather than policy-making. The issue of competency was handled by having the members of these boards work together so they could watch each other, protecting Athens from any individual incompetent, or corrupt member. The magistrates were also subject to a review and settling of accounts at the end of their service. While there was a single individual who served as the nominal head of state in Athens, this position was basically ceremonial (receiving foreign dignitaries and the like). That individual was chosen by lot from among the Council of 500, but each served only a single day before being rotated out. Various democracies used a collective executive, rather than a single “ruler,” in an attempt to defend against the danger of dictatorship. The initial Pennsylvania state constitution established a twelve-member Supreme Executive Council along with a president, and the early French Constitutions also established multi-person executive bodies (which were steadily winnowed down until Napoleon became the sole executive.) 

Policy-making is the essence of politics, and as Hélène Landemore of Yale University points out in her book Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many, that

“…politics is unlike administration, precisely because, unlike for administrative tasks, when it comes to solving political problems, we cannot tell who the experts are. Administrative tasks are those tasks for which we can a priori determine whose knowledge and opinions matter. In politics, however,…we do not have that luxury. Most of the time, because of the unpredictable and ever-changing nature of problems that the community will have to deal with, the relevant knowledge, perspective, or information are simply unknown.”

A key for democracy is to avoid blending policy-making and administration. This was a basis for the council-manager municipal government reform proposals of the Progressive era at the start of the 20th century. This separation was seen as crucial for governmental competence and fighting the rampant corruption of party machines and their spoils system. Under these reforms, which were adopted by many cities, the position of mayor was eliminated or made largely ceremonial, with a city council elected using proportional representation hiring a city manager to handle administration and carry out the policies adopted by the council. Many U.S. cities still use a city manager, but no longer with a council elected by PR, let alone a fully representative legislative body selected by lot.²

Especially if there is a single chief executive (rather than a collective executive), it is essential that this person serve exclusively an administrative function, like a city manager. Unlike “political expertise” (which is likely illusory), “administrative expertise” is real and quantifiable. As with a city manager, it is appropriate for a representative body (in a sortition-based democracy, one selected by lot, rather than an elected city council) to essentially conduct an in-depth hiring process, rather than through a popular election that hinges on advertising and campaign techniques. A relatively small representative group can overcome the rational ignorance that sabotages all large election processes. They can spend the time to genuinely understand the past performance of the candidate, and recruit a competent individual, with genuine administrative expertise. This is far better than electing a chief administrator who is somebody who blows his or her own horn, and puts themselves forward due to narcissistic megalomania, as with so many politicians. Likewise, it would be desirable to use a jury model for evaluating an incumbent or firing a chief executive as well. Sortition would be a useful tool for creating a body that would also assure the executive was competent. Multi-body sortition principles suggest that each of these bodies should be separate. A review panel should not have the corrupting incentive to remove an incumbent just so they get to pick a replacement.

1. Here I am making a distinction between the staff hired to serve individual lawmakers, and bodies such as the Congressional Budget Office, or in my own state, Joint Fiscal office, or similar professional agencies that also serve legislatures.

2. Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only municipality in the U.S. that has continuously used this system – Plan E under state law – since that Progressive era.