Our January newsletter visits rural Congo, and reflects on the fires.

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WHAT THE LOS ANGELES FIRES SHOULD TEACH US

I’m a fourth-generation resident of Los Angeles County. I live near the Altadena fire, and know hundreds of people who have lost homes. So, I’ve spent much of January talking with victims of these fires—and thinking about the meaning of the fires.

I keep coming back to two essential and related points. First, local communities and their governments need much greater capacity and skill to protect themselves from the threats of the 21^st century, like these fires. Second, since greater capacity means more resources and power for governments, local communities need stronger and smarter and more participatory democracy, as a check on that power.

Democracy Local readers have seen me wrestling with the fires here. I wrote one very emotional column about local self-deception as a factor in the fires, and another about the long-term failure of local governance and planning in the city of Los Angeles. I’m at work on a third about how the U.S. government is dumping its responsibilities for public lands on California communities.

I’d love to hear from you. And I’m excited to be traveling next month to Tokyo, on an Asian reporting tour, where I intend to ask lots of questions about the Japanese capital’s strong record of governing itself, and preventing fire.

LOCALITIES SHOULD USE LOTTERY TO PAY FOR LOTTERY-BASED DEMOCRACY

For the past couple years, I’ve been on too many phone calls to count about organizing citizens assemblies—which are bodies of everyday people selected by lottery, also known as sortition, to deliberate on difficult questions.

On almost all these calls, the same question gets asked.

“We’d love to organize for a citizens’ assembly to demonstrate the possibilities of lottery-based democracy. But how can we pay for it?”

I’ve heard many different answers to the question. Let’s get a government to pay for it. Or a foundation. Or a rich person.

But I’ve never heard anyone make the following suggestion

Why not a lottery to pay for lottery democracy?

It’s not a new or crazy idea. At least one German community has used proceeds from a lottery to help pay the costs of the assembly. And governments at all levels routinely held lotteries to pay for important civic functions and events. In California, where I live, a state lottery provides funds for public schools.

Lotteries have a long history in governance. There is evidence of the Han Dynasty using lotteries to pay for infrastructure projects, including the Great Wall. Augustus Caesar held a lottery to raise revenues for the repair of Rome. Ben Franklin held a lottery to finance fortifications for Philadelphia and George Washington used a lottery to fund a Virginia road. The revolutionary French used a lottery to get people to sell bonds (Voltaire gamed the lottery to win it, and used the proceeds to support his writing, which advanced human thinking on civil liberties. ).

A lottery for lottery-based democracy would make sense for more than financial reasons. It would help spread the world about the too little-known concept of citizens assemblies. Yes, there would be legal and organizational questions about such lotteries.

But if you can’t pull off a lottery, why should you be using lottery-based democracy?

I think the answer is yes. Which is why I’ve added a lottery to Democracy Local’s draft model law on citizens assemblies.

SHOULD AI BE GOVERNED LOCALLY?

Amid proposals for global governance of AI, two of the biggest thinkers in democratic practice—Dr. Stefaan Verhulst (Co-Founder of The GovLab and The Data Tank) and Claudia Chwalisz (Founder and CEO of DemocracyNext)—offer a counter-proposal: doing more AI engagement at the local and regional levels.

Among their suggestions are “Local and Regional AI Assemblies.” They would be:

“Forums where citizens, local governments, and technical experts collaborate to address context-specific challenges and opportunities in AI deployment. This may be to shape the policies of local, national or regional government, as was attempted in Belgium, or of another institution like a university. For example, what rules should govern the use of AI in healthcare? What should be the policies about the use of generative AI by students and teachers?”

LOCAL SNAPSHOTS

Democracy Local’s new feature debuted with briefing conversations and photos of council members in Ormoc City, the Philippines, and Esplugues de Llobregat, Catalonia.

EVENTS

January 31. “Why Democracy Needs Distance.” Democracy Local talks with philosopher Robert Talisse, author of a trilogy of books on democracy and culture. In-person, Los Angeles, Book Soup, 730p.

February 3-5. Consul Conference 2025. Conference for the community of people who use the Madrid-originated digital democracy tool CONSUL, in Grand Canary.

READINGS

Democracy 2076, an effort to manage the future of democracy in the United States, and Harmony Labs have developed fascinating research to understand how media and entertainment depictions of democracy shape our public understanding.

Clark City is a new, planned, climate resilient city in the Philippines. How is it governed and what is its future? Grist explains.

Spanish and Turkish cities have strong reputations for local democracy and self-governance. This research study compares two well-governed municipalities—Granada, Spain, and Melikgazi, Turkey—and lands on a couple of places where Granada is ahead. Granada has a public ombudsman and participatory processes to engage people directly in governance, methods for including children in democratic processes, and strong financial and administrative support for civil society organizations. Melikgazi doesn’t have that supportive infrastructure.

SNAKEBIT

The world has no common measures of local governance capacity—though Democracy Local is working on that. But here is one intriguing measure: can your local community handle snake bits?

Multiple researchers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, writing in The Journal of Oral and Public Health, did a detailed study of snakebites in the Bofidji Ouest groupment, a located along the R8 public road, in a rural area within the Bikoro district in the Equateur province. They found a very high number of snake bites, especially among workers and women, and high rates of deaths, because of lack of health facilities, and anti-venom treatments within those that do exist.

FROM ASIA DEMOCRACY CHRONICLES

Among more great work from our partners is this piece about the lack of response to a humanitarian crisis in the Kurram District of northwest Pakistan

A humanitarian crisis in northwest Pakistan reveals a government unwilling or unable to protect its people

PLAY BALL. PLAY DEMOCRACY

On weekends in Southern California, you’ll find me coaching youth baseball. Youth sports is a big deal in so many parts of the world. But it’s often driven by money and adults. What would it look like to make youth sports a force for democracy? This paper, from scholars in North Carolina and Virginia, seeks to answer that question

DEMOCRACY QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Democracy can be overdone because the pursuit and practice of democracy can crowd out other things that are also unalloyed goods…. When democracy is all we ever do together, when our entire social worlds are structured around our political alliances and our political rivalries, other good things in life get crowded out and transformed into expressions of those allegiances and rivalries. We become really bad at doing democracy when democracy is all we ever do.”

Robert Talisse, author, Civic Solitude

SUGGETED LINKS TO LOCAL DEMOCRACY RESOURCES AND PARTNERS

Democracy International and democracy.community

Asia Democracy Chronicles

Berggruen Institute and NOEMA

International IDEA newsletter

Zócalo Public Square

Democracy Next

Federation for Innovation in Demcoracy-Europe and FIDE North America

Participedia

United Cities and Local Governments

ALDA