Eupen: Belgium’s Micro-level Democracy

In eastern Belgium, a Citizens’ Council wields the power to propose legislative changes to wider government. It comprises of twenty-four randomly chosen individuals who debate, agree and disagree on issues they feel are publicly important. Elected officials in top government must consider every proposal that wins an eighty-percent majority of the council. Thus, this micro-level democratic experiment involves rank-and-file citizens in nation-wide decision making.

Oddly enough, a lottery draw selects the Council’s decision-makers. But this situation, one author argues, is positive. For example, Aristotelean politics favoured selection by lottery. This, according to Aristotle, is real democracy as opposed to election which he described was oligarchical [1]. Lottery eliminates the chance of a small self-centered group ruling the country. Just so, this system of random people from a wide spectrum of lifestyles, professions and backgrounds is very democratic. An assortment of people, rather than a privileged few, contribute to the overall state of the nation.

In theory, this idea is beautiful. It oozes a sense of virtue and teems with a warm-hearted idealism. Yet, in practice, the idea may fail to meet expectations. For instance, the lottery process favours engaged citizens, that is, people with an active interest in national politics. So what about the politically impartial? Again, what about the citizens who feel no political responsibility at all, those who feel misrepresented by their state? If the lottery draw selects these sorts of people from the community, then, the whole process could lead to stagnation, or even political shutdown.

Granted; these are possibilities that such a system must come to terms with. There will be obvious safeguards in place to prevent such possibilities.

Truly, a lottery is non-discriminatory – it can never administer preferential treatment to potential candidates, nor will it flatter the politically high-minded. Perhaps this is a necessary step towards a democratic system which involves ordinary people in macro-level decisions. If Belgium is lucky, these lottery draws could produce some excellent politically driven men and women.

Note:

[1] The Economist, 433/9163 (2019), p. 40.

Eupen, east Belgium. © eupen.be