Re:Thinking with Adam GrantWhy politics have an elitism problem with Hélène Landemore | ReThinking
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35 min read · 6,674 words- 0:00 – 1:00
Politics as a job vs politics as a civic duty: the elitism problem
- HLHélène Landemore
I think the, the Greeks thought that politics was for amateurs. Politics was for ordinary people who didn't make it a job. But we have convinced ourselves that it's a specific type of job, that only certain types of people can do it, especially lawyers. You know, Congress is made up of like something like between 35% and 40% lawyers. Why? [upbeat music] I think what's scary for people is that when they think ordinary citizens, for some reason, they, they immediately go to like the most extreme people in the population, the trolls on the internet, the disgruntled voters, the, the mass protesters who, you know, break things. But that's not the reality of a random sample of ordinary citizens. Ordinary people are statistically quite average and reasonable. They are engineers, nurses, Uber drivers, uh, craftsmen, uh, workers, uh, stay-at-home moms, students.
- AGAdam Grant
How did you first come to this idea?
- 1:00 – 3:25
The origin story: from political theory to Iceland’s crowd-informed constitution
- HLHélène Landemore
Ah, how did I first come to this idea? I think it started in the 1990s [chuckles] when I read, um, Bernard Manin, uh, "The Principles of Representative Government." It, it was kind of a revelation, but it didn't quite, um, turn me to this more radical vision of politics right away until I, I, I would say I think the second shock was, um, the Icelandic constitutional process. So in 2012, when I went to a conference in Reykjavik and was exposed to this really, to me, a radical way of rethinking the involvement of ordinary citizens in a f- in, in a fundamental thing, which was the writing of the constitution of a country. When I was like, "Wow, so we can actually rewrite the constitution of a country involving n- you know, non-professional politicians." And not only that, but they're actually putting their drafts online for the rest of the public to contribute and, and, and chip in their ideas and, and thoughts. And they did that on the basis of like the first sort of a brainstorming of, of a, of a group of 950 randomly selected citizens. Amazing. And at the end, they put the, the final, uh, document to a referendum. So all of that seemed to me quite, quite novel, and I think at that point I was like, "You know what? Let me go back to that book. Let me go back to..." I mean, I, I had been, you know, researching this, these ideas for, for, for my PhD, so it was not completely like new, but I think it clicked as a, as a viable alternative. It was not just something, oh, we can do this as a, as a supplement to the system. We can actually do this as an actually entirely different system.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow. I have so many questions about how this might work, but I'm struck by the fact that you used the phrase non-professional politicians.
- HLHélène Landemore
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
Some would say professional politician is an oxymoron.
- HLHélène Landemore
Well, uh, yes. I, I, I, I think the, the Greeks thought that politics was for amateurs. Politics was for ordinary people who didn't make it a job. But we have convinced ourselves that it's a specific type of job, that only certain types of people can do it, especially lawyers. You know, Congress is made up of like something like between 35% and 40% lawyers. Why? Why? Do we really need to go to law school to have something to say about the opioid, opioid crisis or, or, you know, uh, housing, uh, inflation, stuff like that? I, I'm less and less certain.
- 3:25 – 5:06
Do legislators need legal training? How lawmaking actually happens
- AGAdam Grant
Well, I, I'm with you there, but just to play devil's advocate, they are legislators. They make laws. Don't you need legal training to do that?
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes, I, I, I would have thought that too, but it turns out when you look closely at what they do in Congress, in parliaments around the world, they actually outsource quite a lot of the actual writing to lobbyists, uh, experts. You know, they come up with the main ideas. They, they write drafts, and then it's sort of taken up by experts. Well, we can do that too. It's not that difficult. And in fact, I saw it done in the convention, um, the Citizens' Convention for Climate in France in 2019, '20. And believe me, it was such a shock. It took me f- I think it took me about five years f- for this reality to, to, to, to sort of, uh, percolate and, and become real. Because for a, for a while, I was like, "Well, they're, they're writing these things. They're making proposals. They're setting an agenda." But no, they were actually doing the more than that. They were literally proposing legislative measures. And how did they do it? Well, they identified the problems. They listened to experts. They came up with ideas. They considered the trade-offs. They put that to paper with the help of, you know, facilitators and then of course a team of people who, uh, support citizen assemblies. And at the end, they, they had a, a, an expert team of, uh, legal experts who helped them translate these visions and these ideas and these proposals into the legalese required for, for, you know, you know, parliament then to process that and turn it into a, a bill and a law. But I mean, it's actually doable by ordinary citizens, it turns out.
- 5:06 – 6:38
Competence tests vs learning-by-deliberating: what citizens’ assemblies assume
- AGAdam Grant
One of the accountability mechanisms that I've been thinking a lot about is [chuckles] the question of how do we make sure that people do have some competence to do these jobs? I do find it troubling that elected office in America is probably the only complex job that requires no expertise, no skill, no training even. And I wonder if in order to opt into the lottery, you should have to demonstrate some basic civics knowledge, even just pass the test that immigrants have to take to become citizens of the US.
- HLHélène Landemore
Okay, so citizens assemblies, the way they're conducted right now require zero competence tests or even proof of citizenship, which could be an issue. Um, I think it's, uh, open for discussion. The assumption is that you come in as you are, you know, with your existing skills and, and your cognitive competencies, and then you're introduced to difficult topics like urban planning, abortion, end of life, um, climate justice, and you spend weeks- Reading, talking, watching videos, uh, exchanging with your peers, asking questions, bringing in experts of your own choosing. And you basically educate yourself and you educate your peers. That's the idea. And so that means you come in as you are. You have people who are, um, [lips smack] you know, neurodivergent. You have, um, people who h- are homeless and extremely s-- you know, uh, under, live under conditions
- 6:38 – 9:14
Why inclusion matters beyond expertise: bonding, empathy, and “healing” politics
- HLHélène Landemore
of chronic stress, right? So they obviously won't be able to contribute as much or, you know, in the same quality of, you know, of, of, of knowledge maybe. But they, the, the, the point is that, and it's a mistake I made early on, I focused too much on these assemblies as, um, [lips smack] sort of, uh, tools for the production of collective intelligence, if you want. That was my, like, angle into this, this world of citizens assemblies and lot-based democracy. Empirically, what I found out is that it's at least as much about emotions, bonding, creation of an, of a common identity, identification of common goals. And for that, you really don't need any competence. You j- again, you just need to show up as you are because you're, you're part of that social fabric, and people need to know and understand that social fabric. For example, I have colleagues who ask me, "W- why do we need to have homeless people in these assemblies?" Uh, again, they, they, they, they're chron- chronically stressed. They, they have very tough life. They don't show up on time. They, you know, they have to be accompanied by special organizations. It's a lot of work. Well, the thing is, it changes the nature of the conversation. It reminds people of the consequences of certain housing policies, of the, the, the cost of evicting people. And elected assemblies over-represent homeowners, so the conversation's not the same. And then when you've seen, when you've met someone who's been living under the threat of eviction or, or has been evicted, and you realize, you know what? It doesn't stop them from having dreams and being full persons with, with plans and desires. It really changes the way we even talk about them. They're no longer like homeless people or, or in the extreme, something like, um, what, uh, President Hollande said, which really shocked me to this day, "The teethless people," you know? Like you don't, you wouldn't dream of, of calling them that. So it policies the conversation. It reminds everybody of the stakes. Okay, but that's the most extreme case. But y- you, you could also think of like, um, you know, you have a lot of retired people in the French assemblies because we are an aging population. Some of them m- may not be contributing to the technical aspects of the conversation that much, but they care. They bring sweets. They give massages to the stressed, you know, participants. They reconcile people. They talk to the youth and s- share wisdom. And all of that is extremely good to, to heal the s- the political body, because we are in pain right now. People are enraged. People are alone. They're disaffected. Um, and I think these assemblies sort of take on that, um, [lips smack] therapeutic function as well.
- 9:14 – 11:59
The philosophical fork: democracy requires trust—or admit you prefer oligarchy
- AGAdam Grant
Okay. So if we're gonna have ordinary citizens lead democracy, don't we have to put a lot of trust in people? The assumptions that you're making about human nature are not assumptions that everyone is comfortable with. They, they happen to be assumptions I share as an organizational psychologist, but I'd love to hear you unpack them philosophically.
- HLHélène Landemore
Well, [sighs] the, the trust in ordinary people, it's something that you would think is a given in a, in an authentic democracy. But the, the, the, the revelation I've had over the last 20 years, I would say, including in myself, is that we don't have it. We don't cultivate it. We don't believe in it, actually. Uh, we are very distrustful of o- other people. But I, I think we, we have to, to choose what, either we are committed to democracy, rule of the people, by the people, for the people, or, and we trust ordinary citizens, or we don't trust ordinary citizens, and in that case, we have to admit that we are oligarchs of sort or supporters of oligarchy, ruled by the few and presumably the best. So in a form of aristocracy or, or maybe a form of technocracy if we think politics is a matter of expertise and knowledge and competence, then we should look to, I don't know, the China model, which is based on a meritocratic selection of rulers. Now, you might ask, "Okay, but where does this faith in the ordinary people come from?" [lips smack] Uh, do we need evidence? Do we need empirical evidence for it? I think, uh, the minute you start asking for empirical evidence, in a way, you are in trouble, because every time we've asked questions about, well, do, does this category of people know enough to be allowed to have a say about the common good, right? Well, we create all kinds of literacy tests and, and obstacles, and we find all kinds of excuses to say, "Well, they don't know enough yet. Let's, let's wait." You know, women, it's too soon. They, they will vote like their husbands. Black people, you know, not quite there yet. Let's wait. Let's wait. So, you know, there's a, a civil rights activist, c- uh, W. E. B. Du Bois, also a the- political theorist who said, "Political rights always precede education." It's never the other way around. You have to trust people first. You have to empower them with the capa- the, the, the capacity of choosing their own fate, and then they will measure up, and then they will educate themselves. That's a leap that the Greeks did first. You know, they, they went without any empirical evidence. They went from, uh, an aristocracy of sorts to a plutocracy of sorts, so that sort of democratized access to power if you are rich enough. And then they decided to make the final leap, which is, you know what? We're gonna remove property qualifications and empower the poorest of the poor. In fact, we're gonna enable them to participate by paying them for participation.
- 11:59 – 14:06
Replacing elections with lotteries: what ‘politics without politicians’ means
- AGAdam Grant
So if we wanted to have a citizen-led government and get rid of politicians, what would this look like? I'm thinking of the line from William F. Buckley, and I'm paraphrasing here, but I'd rather be governed by the first 535 people in the phone book than the current members of Congress. So are we just literally replacing elected officials with a lottery?
- HLHélène Landemore
My earlier book, "Open Democracy," that's the model in, in "Politics Without Politicians." That's a vision, that, that law The, the law of the land is in the hands of ordinary citizens. Ordinary people are, on average, quite reasonable, and then you have these extreme outliers who create a lot of problems and, and take up, suck up all the oxygen and, and give this really bad reputation to, to ordinary people, if you want.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, I would take that a step further even and say [chuckles] you worry about the extremes and the trolls. We've already elected some of those people.
- HLHélène Landemore
Oh, my goodness, yes. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
And in fact, I think we have an adverse selection problem where empirically there's a growing body of evidence in, in my field that the dark triad personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, uh, both draw people to want power and also make them better at getting it, uh, because they excel at superficial charm and being manipulative. And so the narcissists, Machiavellians, and psychopaths are actually more likely to get elected in, [chuckles] um, in a system where we vote than if we draw a random sample via lottery.
- HLHélène Landemore
Absolutely. And in fact, see, it's so interesting that the, the, the prejudice against ordinary people is so deeply ingrained, including in myself, that I always feel the need to defend ordinary citizens as if the elected guys, often they are guys, were not pathological to begin with.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- HLHélène Landemore
So I think, yes, we over s- it, the, the s- the selection mechanism of, of elections over samples for, uh, power-hungry people, narcissistic types, uh, corruptible people. I mean, the, I mean, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of very good people in politics. I, I've met them. I, I work with them. I try to, you know, bring about change through them. But unfortunately, there's also an over-representation of very, very dangerous types, actually.
- 14:06 – 16:55
Why random selection can improve leadership: humility, duty, and self-regulation
- AGAdam Grant
Yes. And I would, I would make the case, and I'm so curious to hear your reaction to this. I think there's a, there's a strong empirical case now that not only do we get better qualities in randomly selected people, but we actually, by virtue of random selection, cultivate better leadership. I, I'm thinking of two papers. Please stop me if you're familiar with either of these. Uh, there's, there's one by Haslam and colleagues and another by Berger and colleagues, where they show that when groups randomly elect a leader as opposed to choosing a leader, um, the leader shows less hubris. It's less likely to go to their head. They're less likely to think, "Well, I'm the chosen one. I, I know what's best for everyone," and more likely to take on a servant leadership kind of role. And I, I think the, the biggest danger we have right now in politics is not ignorance, it's selfishness. And knowing that you are randomly assigned to make laws and to set policy, I think is a tremendous protective mechanism against selfishness.
- HLHélène Landemore
Absolutely. I, I wasn't aware of that paper, although I, I read it, I think in, uh... You, you wrote something for "The New York Times" uh, some time ago where you mentioned those results. I should have gotten back to them. But anyway, the, the thing is that, um, for me, what, what I observed empirically is that the people in these assemblies feel an enormous sense of, of duty and humility, and they feel like, "Well, I didn't come here because I deserved it or because I'm special, so I'd better measure up." Um, and, and, and they do f- and they also discover the power of, of like what I, you know, call collective intelligence in, in a, in a, in, in earlier books. But the, the fact that your contributions is enhanced through the, the collective process of deliberation and, and working through problems together, so it's not even clear who is responsible for what. It's truly a collective, um, output in a way. And so they can all claim a part in it, but they can't causally like figure out who's more responsible for what. And so that, that really maintains a sense of equality and a sense that we are all in it together. And, and yes, there are some natural leaders that emerge and, and they, they, they speak better in, in the, the plenaries, and they maybe work a little bit harder than others, et cetera. But it doesn't really translate into superiority or, or a right to control the proceedings or a right to assert themselves. On the contrary, when, when some people do that, 'cause inevitably you still have, you still have politician types in the sample, that happens, they get sort of ostracized actually, or they-- People get quiet, and you just don't pick up on what they say, and they move on. And so there's a sort of self-regulation to maintain the cohesion of the group, the equality, the, the, the PNS, and to preserve the conditions for this collective im- uh, intelligence to emerge, actually.
- 16:55 – 21:38
Why the idea provokes anger: legitimacy fears, minority rights, and ‘mob rule’ confusion
- AGAdam Grant
I find this vision so compelling. And okay, you mentioned "The New York Times" piece I wrote a few years ago. I have to say it's-- I've never gotten such a polarizing reaction to anything-
- HLHélène Landemore
Oh
- AGAdam Grant
... that I've written-
- HLHélène Landemore
Yeah, I'm not surprised
- AGAdam Grant
... in my whole career. You're not surprised?
- HLHélène Landemore
No.
- AGAdam Grant
Why not?
- HLHélène Landemore
Oh, because, uh, that I get the same reactions. Um, I am, you know, I'm, I'm sort of mild-mannered and not antagonistic, and I, I had people leave the room when I talked about stuff like that. In Chile, there was a guy who stood up and said to me, uh, "You're trying to empower the ignorant masses. It's dangerous," and he just left. And we had the, the, the president of the French National Assembly on the first day of the citizens' convention stand up in front of the 184 members of this assembly and tell them, "It's out of the question that, you know, uh, r-random selection replaces election. You, you have no legitimacy but the one we gave you." I mean, the, the anger and the fear is palpable in some people.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I find this so surprising because, you know, when I, when I look at the, the comments on that article or slew of emails I got, basically half the people I heard from have said, "Of course, this is the way we should do things. It's the most democratic possible system to let, you know, a, a truly random selection of people run the show, uh, for a temporary period of time." And about half came back and said, "This is completely undemocratic. I can't believe you would ever argue for this." And I thought, you know, I, I don't think it would be a good idea, for example, to randomly select a president in the United States. One-- giving one person randomly that much power seems like a risky endeavor. But, you know, for, uh, for a group like Congress, as big as it is, um, I've become increasingly open to the possibility that this would be better than our alternative. So [chuckles] sounds like you're, you've been on board with that for a long time, and you've, you've been writing about this for a long time. How do you think about getting people from, from the resistance that they feel to where you and I are?
- HLHélène Landemore
Uh, I think two things. I think you have to understand a little bit of, uh, maybe statistics or probability theory to understand that indeed no one's proposing to choose the president by lot. Because for the law of large numbers to work its magic, you need numbers, and so you need to, to choose an assembly that's large enough, right? So, so for exe- an executive function like that, you'd probably want a different, uh, mechanism. A president of the United States is not just coordinating an assembly, he's actually, you know, capable of bombing countries, so y- you, you don't want that. So it's m- it's essentially for assemblies, legislative assemblies. Although what I find fascinating is that within the, the, the, the Council of 500 in Ancient Greece, for example, the chair itself, himself was chosen by lot. So it's not that they thought that even for that one person, that one function, which was to sort of coordinate the 500, uh, randomly selected members, they didn't think, "Oh, we need somebody very competent," and... No, they just thought, "You know what? Coordination is not that hard. Let's just pick at random." My experience with people being so worried, um, about the undemocratic nature of lot is that they're, they're usually worried about individual rights and minority oppression and, and things like that, and they have a, you know, a sort of, uh, understandable fear of what happened in the 20th century when, when sort of populist ideas, you know, and movements brought to power, you know, like Hitler or, uh, just dangerous fascists. And they think that random selection is too close to so-called direct democracy. I think it's very different in my view. It's actually not direct at all because you have a selection process and it's deliberative. But so it's trying to, to complicate the picture for them of what that really means to have a, you know, a democracy by lot. Yeah, so I think these are the two things, understanding a little bit that a selection by lot is, uh, has statistical properties that are actually quite good, um, when applied properly, and understanding that democracy by lot is not a form of mob rule.
- AGAdam Grant
Okay. So on the first one, maybe we can make a little progress by replacing high school trigonometry with, uh, a basic statistics class.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Which would be much more useful.
- HLHélène Landemore
Uh, that's possible. Yep.
- AGAdam Grant
Prepare people to think a little more probabilistically.
- HLHélène Landemore
But that said, you know what? What I find fascinating is that statistics is a, is a discipline that was basically formalized, developed, uh, invented in the 19th century. So how did the Greeks, who didn't have any of those concept of like a s- so a random sample or demographic representativeness... It's just there's a, a much more fundamental intuition, which is, you know what, if it's gonna be a democracy, it's gotta be one person and, and we can't all participate in politics all the time, then it's gotta be one person, one lottery ticket.
- 21:38 – 24:04
Juries as the proof-of-concept and the legitimacy problem of ‘rigged’ lotteries
- AGAdam Grant
In, in some ways, we already have the proof of concept here, which is our jury system-
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes
- AGAdam Grant
... works this way.
- HLHélène Landemore
Absolutely. Yep.
- AGAdam Grant
And so if we are willing to let randomly selected jurors do the work of judges and determine the innocence or guilt of a, of a person, why would we not extend that to saying random citizens can do the work of politicians?
- HLHélène Landemore
Uh, I'm with you. I think the, the, the jury as an institution is, is a core sort of, um, democratic process. I mean, Tocqueville recognized it, uh, you know, as, as a, as a form of the people's sovereignty actually and, and a, and a democratic s- school of education. It's judgment by peers. It assumes that, um, you know, you don't need a particular kind of expertise to, to pass a moral judgment. So there is a, a sort of a, uh, limited but very real core of, of, uh, of democratic political power in there.
- AGAdam Grant
I guess one of the trade-offs that we have to deal with here is, on the one hand, I think you're saving a tremendous amount of money and also-
- HLHélène Landemore
Oh, yes
- AGAdam Grant
... energy around campaigns. Um, and I think, like, all the discussions about campaign finance reform and who can actually afford to run for office, that just flies out the window if you go to a lottery. On the other hand, you know, I think about how many questions there already are about voting legitimacy, and now I start to think about, wait a minute, we're gonna ask people to trust that a lottery was fair? We can't even get people to believe that the National Basketball Association is doing a legitimate lottery. People think it's rigged. How do you think about solving that problem?
- HLHélène Landemore
Some of my colleagues suggest that we give up on stratification, meaning, you know, having quotas for certain categories of people we wanna make sure are represented, given that our samples are usually small, in the range of a few hundreds only. And what you could do is go for a very, very large sample, at least 1,000 people maybe, and pick literally on, on the, on the basis of one person, one lottery ticket, and you have little papers in a, in a hat or balls in an urn, and you do it publicly, and you get everybody to go and check and poke in the machine, which is very simple and transparent. Kind of like the way we do for counting paper ballots, you know? Like, so it's minimally riggable, if you want. Why not? That's another solution.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I'd be willing to try that. It, it seems like then we need to have a lottery to choose the people who oversee the integrity of the lottery.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes. I, I think lotteries are a solution to a lot of problems actually.
- 24:04 – 25:34
‘Open democracy or the mob will’: channeling unrest through structured participation
- AGAdam Grant
I'm curious about what you think is at stake if we don't go this route, and I wa- I wanna read you something you tweeted on January 6th-
- HLHélène Landemore
Hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... 2021. You wrote-
- HLHélène Landemore
Okay. That's a long time ago
- AGAdam Grant
... "If you don't open democracy consciously, structurally, the mob will break it open for you."
- HLHélène Landemore
I think there's a fear of the people in all existing electoral governments. People are f- in power are afraid And I think the solution is actually to, to resid- resist that instinct and to open up more. Open up not to the self-selected few who have, who are very vocal and angry, but open up to ordinary people. So you can do that through, you know, citizens' assemblies. You can do that through something like the great national debate that we had in France for, for two months after the Yellow Vest movement. So you had the violent demonstrations of protesters, the Yellow Vests we call them in France. They are people who rejected a fuel tax and decided to don these n- neon yellow jackets to, to sh- show themselves and also be safe on, on the roundabouts where they were protesting on highways and places like that. And these two months of deliberation, conversation, opening up, processing, you know, the anger, venting about politics, figuring out solutions, they were very important. And that's not conceding. That's not weakness. I think it's, it's being smart. It's, it's realizing you cannot govern against your own people. If you do that, you're inviting a revolution.
- 25:34 – 27:58
How to make deliberation work: time, representativeness, and redefining expert-citizen roles
- AGAdam Grant
All right. So I'm just thinking about the sort of the mechanics and complications of how you might make this happen. You had a great piece a few years ago about what an effective deliberative process looks like, and it... I thought it built so beautifully on your earlier work on collective intelligence and, and did such a nice job summarizing the, the body of evidence on-
- HLHélène Landemore
Thank you
- AGAdam Grant
... how we can actually help a, a group become smarter than the individuals in the room, as opposed to dumber, which is too often the case when, uh, when groups gather. Uh, walk me through what you see as the key conditions for effective deliberation.
- HLHélène Landemore
So you need time. That's one thing. You need a sample that's, uh, you know, diverse and representative. You need expert support. So it's, it's a common misconception that these assemblies are just like, you know, a random sample that figures out things on their own. Absolutely not. Just like elected officials, they have to be supported by staff, by experts who come to testify and, and, uh, share their knowledge, learn from the citizens as well, 'cause sometimes it changes our perspective, so there's a back and forth. And so, and the proper relationship between the ordinary citizens and the experts, for me, has to be, uh, that the s- the experts are not on top. And it's very hard for both parts to get to that point because even the s- the education system instills, instills in us that, you know, experts know best, so you need to defer to them. And all of a sudden, you're placed in this environment where you're no longer deferring. You're learning, but you're also deciding and orienting the use of their knowledge. It's hard. It's, it... You have to learn to trust yourself and to, to trust that you're the one in charge. On the side of experts, it's also hard because they're used to deference, and they come in sometimes with certain expectations about the, the, the, the response to the knowledge they are imparting. But what happens, because of course experts often are very smart people, they quickly get it. They realize, "Oh, it's not that kind of environment. Here I'm, I'm at the service of, of citizens, and so I have to engage differently. I have to s- stop using complicated words. I have to, you know, simplify my PowerPoint. I have to use other techniques to convey knowledge. I have to listen. I have to, like, respond to questions as opposed to, uh, imposing a, a certain vision." So it, it's a, it's a learning curve for everyone.
- 27:58 – 32:23
Lightning round and pragmatic reforms: ‘more democracy,’ Ireland’s hybrid model, and scale doubts
- AGAdam Grant
Okay. That is a good segue to the lightning round. I have a few questions-
- HLHélène Landemore
Ah
- AGAdam Grant
... I wanna run by you for rapid fire answers. The first one is, what do you think is the worst idea that people circulate right now about fixing democracy?
- HLHélène Landemore
That we need less of it. Oh my goodness. I've seen so many books about, um, you know what? 10% less democracy, or how about we reintroduce literacy tests to make sure that, you know, people don't vote the wrong way. I think it's, it's a typical example of politicians that are scared, elites that are scared, and that they do not see that the populist sort of, uh, uprising is a direct result of the elitism of our institutions. So for me-
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah
- HLHélène Landemore
... it starts, it starts with making the first overture and saying, "Look, we, we are gonna open up. We're gonna listen and we're gonna learn." Trust people, and they will trust you.
- AGAdam Grant
What is the best advice you would offer to Congress in the US?
- HLHélène Landemore
Support, you know, the exploration of, uh, lot-based democracy. Follow the example of the Irish politicians who were not necessarily completely convinced initially, but in 2012 they said, "Okay, okay, we heard you. We're gonna try." And they did this hybrid citizens assembly with a third politician, two third, uh, citizen, s- uh, randomly selected citizens, and that led to a proposal to, um, allow same-sex marriage that then was, uh, put to a referendum and approved. And it sort of reconciled politicians and, and, uh, the public. In fact, to- today, um, Ireland is the place where I think the prospects for politics without politicians are the least likely because now the, the pro- the, the citizens trust our politicians again. It's quite, quite remarkable, so.
- AGAdam Grant
Wow. Well, that's, that's an ironic effect.
- HLHélène Landemore
It, it is an ironic effect. But, you know, remember, my book, I mean, I, I push the more visionar- um, the more ambitious utopian, um, interpretation of politics without politicians. But I'd be very happy if we went the reformist route and just secured spaces for politics without politicians in a larger electoral system that, that's probably here to stay anyway. So that's, that's a also a goal.
- AGAdam Grant
I, I'm struck by the fact that it's been more than three decades since we had a constitutional amendment in the US, and when I talk to members of Congress about this, they, they say it's basically impossible at this point. And I was in Slovenia recently. Slovenia's constitution was only written in the '90s, and about two years ago, they had an amendment, uh, stating that every Slovenian has the right to clean water. And what I thought was ingenious about this is no one would object to that And it made me wonder if in the US an amendment were, would... If someone would put forth an a- an amendment in Congress that was such an obvious yes, would that open us up to the possibility of other amendments?
- HLHélène Landemore
I love your optimism. I, I see only dysfunction [both laugh] in the current system. I, I think they would, they would turn down f- you know, uh, obvious things like that. I, I don't know. It, it's, it's, uh, unintelligible to me, but, um, [lip smack] uh, they can't get behind universal background checks on, on, on guns or things like that, so I don't know. Maybe.
- AGAdam Grant
This is true. I'm just thinking even less politically controversial than that could be a starting point. But, you know, I, I, I don't wanna be overly optimistic, but I, I do believe that one of the foundations of healthy optimism is refusing to see remote possibilities as impossibilities.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes, I agree with that.
- AGAdam Grant
So let's see. What is something you've changed your mind about lately with respect to democracy?
- HLHélène Landemore
One thing that I have been thinking about is the scale issue, 'cause for years when I brought up the Icelandic example or the Irish example, people told me, "Yes, but you see this only works at s- at the small scale," and that was true of the ancient Athenian city-state, right? And I never understood that argument, and I thought what they meant is that you're not talking about multiculturally diverse countries. And then when France came along in 2020, uh, 1920, with the great national debate and the citizens assembly on climate, I thought, "Here you go. This is a large country with ve- very multicultural population, and it works there as well." But what I didn't fully integrate is the fact that maybe scale does change things.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, things to look forward to in your future books.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes. [chuckles]
- 32:23 – 36:22
Organizational governance crossover and the path forward: bottom-up adoption and politician incentives
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, what's a question you have for me?
- HLHélène Landemore
Oh, um, so I've, you know, obviously listened to some of your talks and, um, and you're, you're thinking about, um, economic organizations. But, um, you don't talk about the political structures within these organizations and how they incentivize the wrong kind of behavior. So it's, it's great to say, "Look, you need to have your, like, your, your team of critics, people who will tell it to you like it is," and, well, I don't know that the way corporate governance is structured, there are real incentive for that truth to be told. And I, I wonder about how you think about that and whether you've given some thought to actually to the politics of, of economic organizations, right? The, the corporate governance structure, the economic incentives, the legal incentives, you know, the fiduciary duty governing all the decision and trickling down all the way to, to the lower level of the organization, because if y- if you don't think about that, I, I worry that personal initiative and, and, you know, um, good intentions are not gonna be enough.
- AGAdam Grant
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I probably under attended to the incentives and political issues, um, that arise, especially at the higher levels of organizations, um, around the kinds of structures and practices that you're talking about. I think some exceptions that come to mind, when I studied Bridgewater, I thought one of the most interesting things they did was as part of their performance review, they evaluated you on whether you constructively challenge the people above you.
- HLHélène Landemore
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
So in order to succeed at your job, you actually have to criticize your boss's boss, and it's sort of the opposite of what I see in most workplaces. And, you know, Bridgewater is far from perfect, but I thought that was a really interesting example of an experiment that more companies ought to run.
- HLHélène Landemore
Interesting.
- AGAdam Grant
So I, I think there's a lot more that could be done on this front. I think you're right.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yes, I think there's so many synergies there that are possible.
- AGAdam Grant
Uh, as do I. Okay, so as we wrap up, uh, let me, let me just ask you one closing question, which is, so after I wrote my "Times" piece, I had some members of Congress reach out and say, "I, I ge- I get it in principle, but in practice, it's gonna require all my colleagues to vote themselves out of a job." And if there's anything that people in Congress value, you know, even more than money, it's holding onto their power.
- HLHélène Landemore
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
So what do we do about that? Like, are you, are you hoping that, you know, some, that some populist will run on a platform of getting rid of politicians altogether?
- HLHélène Landemore
No, because the populists tend to, uh, then set up, uh, their own power, and that's not better. I think the path is more likely very bottom-up, um, and through the multiplication of citizens assemblies up to the point where they, they're shown to be so useful both in proposing solution that can work and in reconciling people with the, with the system that politicians at the higher levels will say, "You know what? Actually, we should do this. It's actually good for us." I think that's the only way. C- talking about in- incentives. They have to see that it's actually good for them, even as they lose power. And for me, the, the most farsighted politician I've met was, is Magali Plovie in, uh, in, in Belgium. She said, "We're gonna lose power, but we're gonna gain in legitimacy," and that's the deal. You're gonna lose power, but you're gonna be able to stay with the power you, you have, maybe less of it, but w- which is more secure. And at the end of the day, why are you in it for? Like, you, you're, you're here to serve. That's the other thing I would like politicians to, to remember is that this is not a position that's owed to them. They are there to serve. They're public servants. So you get the power you get, and you don't get upset. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
That is so elegantly articulated. Well, this is, this has been so much fun. Thank you again, Hélène.
- HLHélène Landemore
Thank you so much. It was really fun indeed. [upbeat music]
Episode duration: 36:32
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Transcript of episode Q4I9dTUjV10
