What if Representative Democracy Isn’t the Only Way?

This researcher says there’s more than one path to good governance

By Hélène Landemore

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I’ve got both good and bad news. The bad news: electoral politics is beyond repair. The good news: democracy isn’t. We can fix it.

Before we arrive at the good news, we first need to start with the failure of electoral politics. Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to see myself converging on a conclusion associated with the populists of the left and the right. Yet the populists have a point: a system based on electoral representation is no longer — if it ever was — capable of delivering either democratic or good governance.

Consider that the United States Congress currently holds a 15% approval rating and has consistently hovered well below 50%, on average, for decades. Is it because voters can never be satisfied or because Congress consistently does a subpar job?

Consider that in three of the world’s so‑called most advanced democracies — the United States, the United Kingdom, and France — over two-thirds of the population think their governing elites are corrupt. (In my native country of France, this figure reached 74% in 2025!) In both the United States and France, large majorities think their political system needs drastic changes. Sixty‑three percent of Americans express little confidence in the future of the US political system, and 56% of the French want a Sixth Republic.

The National Assembly chamber of Parliament in France

Consider that in recent high-stakes elections, the 2016 Brexit vote in the UK and the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections in the United States, voters seemed to be rejecting the status quo as much as choosing outcomes.

Consider that when the media cover politics they talk only about the horse race, the scandals, the strategizing, the posturing, and rarely — at best superficially — the substance of issues.

Consider that when political scientists crunch the numbers, they find that the preferences of rich people shape policy outcomes and law substantially more than those of the majority do.

We could blame these problems on external factors and forces, such as globalization, capitalism, and the fast-paced changes brought by new technologies, foreign threats, or immigration — all of which undeniably make the job of governing at the scale of a nation-state quite difficult. And politicians are naturally the first to place the blame for their failed policies and the persistent “crisis of democracy” on these external factors.

But excuses can only go so far. Chronic underperformance and widespread dissatisfaction with the system — along with a growing retreat from it — should make one thing clear: there’s a fundamental problem with the system itself. While electoral representation may have made sense two centuries ago, in a vastly different context and for very different populations, it’s no longer up to the task, especially in modern societies of educated citizens with access to information.

I’ve reached this conclusion after a decade or more of resisting it. Like many people, I initially blamed empirical, external factors for the increasingly glaring inefficiencies and injustices of the system.

My thinking was remedial: How can we improve the system without fundamentally changing it? For example, what if we got rid of money in politics or at least engaged in campaign finance reforms that leveled the playing field? What if we reached out more aggressively to minorities, women, and those on low incomes so they are given greater opportunities to run for elections, in the hope that we then have a greater diversity of profiles in government? What if we introduced strict term limits to prevent power entrenchment and expand further the pool of decision-makers? Or what if we did more to educate voters?

For if they were better informed, they would care more, and democracy would yield better and more legitimate results. Surely, my thinking was, we have the politicians we deserve. The problem must be us, not them.

United States Congress

But this line of thinking, as it turns out, is flawed. Worse, it shifts the blame onto the victims — the ordinary citizens, especially those who’ve given up on a failing system.

A question arises: Why do most of us continue to adhere blindly to democracy as we know it and struggle to envision alternatives? The answer is quite simple. It’s inherently challenging to imagine a future that diverges from our current reality and to move from what is to what should be.

The idea I’m proposing might have you initially scratching your head. Politics without politicians? What does that even mean? Sure, politicians are often bad — but aren’t they a necessary evil? Politics is a job, after all. In large, complex industrial societies, surely we need professionals to run the show? If not politicians, then who?

Let me first paint with a broad brush a picture of the alternative system I have in mind. Imagine hundreds of everyday people from all around the country, from every age and walk of life, all selected by a national lottery. They come together for extended periods of time in a parliament-like institution to deliberate and decide ways to address the housing crisis or the opioid crisis, or how to do something about gun regulation. They are paid for their time and all their expenses are covered. Their deliberations are enriched by input from the larger population and by the support of experts and civil servants. Their recommendations either feed into the legislative process, are sent to a referendum, or become law.

When they are done after a few months, they go home and return to their regular lives, though many may now be friends and keep in touch. As generations of people rotate in and out of this parliament, and its equivalents at the local level, the quality of laws and policies improves all around.

In previous works, I called the core elements of this vision “open democracy,” emphasizing that it is a system in which power is accessible to all. Here, I call it “politics without politicians,” partly as a provocation, and partly because it more clearly suggests making room for regular people.

Regular people, ordinary citizens, or everyday people — whatever we want to call them — are different from politicians in that, for them, politics is not a career or a business or even a vocation. In my vision of politics without politicians, politics is neither a job nor a chore. It is instead a civic duty and an occasional, albeit momentous, responsibility.

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On April 25, 2019, inspired by Irish precedents, President Macron announced the Citizens’ Convention for Climate. This convention was, in many ways, the real, albeit delayed, response of President Macron to the Yellow Vests movement, and more generally to the nation that had widely supported it. Essentially he said: “So you think my fuel tax is a bad idea? You go and figure out a better answer to climate change, then.”

On the first weekend of October 2019, 150 randomly selected individuals from all over France, including its overseas territories, met for the first time in the Iéna Palace in Paris, the seat of the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council, which had been put in charge of the hosting and logistical organization of the convention.

I, too, was there on that rainy morning, when umbrellas were lining up at the entrance of the building, with the Eiffel Tower and the French flag soaring in the gray sky. As one of the 25 researchers allowed to follow the convention, I wouldn’t have missed that occasion for the world.

These citizens were embarking on a nine-month process that spanned seven weekends — each an intensive two-day session. Together, they formed one of the most representative cross sections of France ever assembled.

The Citizens’ Convention for Climate in France

Throughout these weekends, they moved between small-group workshops, full plenary sessions, and dynamic discussion formats. Other discussions unfolded more informally, over coffee breaks, meals, and late-night hotel conversations. The formal deliberations were guided by facilitators from three well-established firms: Eurogroup Consulting, Missions Publiques, and Res Publica.

In June 2020, after several months of hard work (not just during but also between physical meetings, from home, and during online webinars), the convention voted on and approved 149 proposals. Among them were, for example, an ambitious proposal to render global housing renovation mandatory by 2030 under threat of sanctions, a ban on publicity for heavily polluting goods, the promotion of vegetarian meals in public schools, constraints on soil artificialization, and a proposal to add a paragraph to the first article of the French constitution specifying that the French Republic “guarantees the preservation of biodiversity and the environment, and fights against climate change” (my translation). Strikingly, none of these 149 proposals included a carbon tax.

One of the most remarkable effects of the assemblies I observed was how they brought people into the deliberative fold, reconnecting them with politics. Participants embraced the deliberative process within the convention. They even found renewed interest in electoral politics as usual.

What stands out is the commitment shown by participants. They returned every weekend, often traveling great distances, and worked long hours when they could have been spending time with family and friends. The second convention, in particular, enjoyed a truly extraordinary retention rate: 184 of 185 participants stayed through to the end. The sole dropout left reluctantly, as a new job conflicted with her participation. This dedication endured despite numerous setbacks and crises, both internal and external, that could have easily derailed the process. It’s a testament to the power of meaningful engagement in fostering commitment and resilience.

This article is an excerpt from Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule, by Hélène Landemore, reprinted with permission from Penguin Random House.

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Hélène Landemore is a political theorist and professor of political science at Yale University. Her work explores the foundations and future of democracy, with a particular focus on participatory and deliberative innovations. She is the author of Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule, and Open Democracy.