Political Lotteries in European Democratisation

Project Information

POLLOT

Grant agreement ID: 101077623

DOI

10.3030/101077623

EC signature date 15 March 2023

Start date 1 May 2023

End date 30 April 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 999,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 999,00

Coordinated by

FONDATION NATIONALE DES SCIENCES POLITIQUES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - POLLOT (Political Lotteries in European Democratisation)

Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Experiments with lotteries during European democratization can inform proposed democratic innovations today. Recently, lotteries have put citizens together to find solutions to today’s contentious, polarizing issues. The ideal, but unfeasible experiment would randomly vary group characteristics, assign real political power, and observe effects over time. Instead, this project draws lessons from past experiments during democratisation in parliaments in Europe - whereby legislators were randomly assigned to committees - and experiments with such lotteries in online citizens’ assemblies today. These natural experiments with lotteries have never before been digitised and investigated using modern statistical methods, to understand the role of their institutional design and context in opening access to politics. Novel, comparative datasets of legislators, parliamentary activity and offices from different European countries is compiled. Next, the consequences of these lotteries will be analysed within each country, and in a present-day experiment that allows controlled conditions. By opening access to minorities and contributing to strong, deliberative party and committee systems, lotteries reduced polarization and stabilised political conflict over time. From such real politics and lotteries, when inequality and polarization was high, we can better understand the likely long-term effects of combining lotteries and representative democracy today.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The research collects novel data on otherwise well-known cases from archives. First, it produces a novel, comparative dataset on political lotteries, legislators, parliamentary activity and office in historical (mostly late 19th to early 20th century) European countries. Next, the project statistically analyses this data from these natural experiments with lotteries in different European parliaments and compares the results to understand which aspects of institutional lottery design are crucial, and which partisan contexts are conducive, to their success in reducing polarization and conflict. The achievements of the project will be to pull apart selection and deliberation theoretical mechanisms in the explanation of long-term outcomes such as stable party systems or the balancing of conflict between extremes.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results from this historical research can inform institutional design choices in democracies. For example, lotteries are used to draw random assemblies of citizens, which are being introduced today to help safeguard political equality in democracies under increasing pressure from rising economic inequality and polarization. The key needs to ensure further uptake and success of this research is engagement with stakeholders of democratic innovation in democracies. Further research will also be required, particularly in terms of experimenting with different designs to test the theory produced by the project from the historical examples.