James Elder's Reviews > Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen’s Guide to Reinventing Politics

Excellent. Highly recommend that everyone reads this one: it's very short (little more than a pamphlet really) but has some specific, powerful ideas about how we could improve the functioning of our democracy.

The biggest/most radical idea is for the use of 'deliberative citizens panels'. Essentially, a group of people is selected at random (like jury service) and tasked with scrutinising policy proposals. They're paid for their time, and they're given access to all the expert opinion and support that they want. They set their own agenda and in due course they reach a decision backed by a majority (or perhaps a 60% supermajority) and publish their findings. The press are obliged to prominently report these findings, and if there is criticism of them, the panel has a right to reply.

The idea is that such panels could, perhaps, replace the House of Lords, or could perhaps be convened to discuss particular, big, longterm issues (say, energy policy). There could then be a referendum on accepting or rejecting their findings as government policy.

Arriaga tries to keep focused purely on the functioning of democracy, without getting into politics - so I think this is a good read whether you're on the right or the left.

As I say, I urge all my friends to read it. It'll only take you a day or two and it's very cheap on Kindle.