The Agenda Council: Using Randomly Selected Assemblies for Democratic Agenda Setting

Political Theory Seminar with guest speaker Zsolt Kapelner, University of Oslo.

Agenda setting is a centrally important dimension of power. How the agenda is set determines which issues come up for decisions and which remain neglected. In democratic societies, legislative agenda setting is of particular importance, as the elected legislature is the main institution through which democratic self-governance is exercised. In contemporary representative democracy, legislative agenda setting is primarily controlled by elected representatives and their parties. However, there is reason to think this arrangement is suboptimal. Elected officials are hard to hold to account for bad agenda setting, and the dynamics of issue competition generate bad incentives when it comes to agenda setting. As a remedy, I propose the Agenda Council, a body of randomly selected citizens responsible for legislative agenda setting. The Agenda Council is modelled on the ancient Athenian institution of the boule or Council which was responsible for setting the agenda for the popular assembly. I argue that the Agenda Council would likely have most of the advantages usually associated with sortition bodies, while exhibiting fewer of the drawbacks associated with them.

For further information about the Political Theory Seminars and to receive the paper in advance, please contact Christian Rostbøll,