A Democracy for the 21st Century

The democratic systems used in most countries today are essentially products of 18th century thinking. No major new democracy has emerged since the end of the Cold War, and existing ones are struggling. If we could go back to the drawing board, what should a resilient, effective, and just democracy look like?

The Challenges of Democracies

Politics across all democracies seems increasingly polarized, with populist movements exploiting the widespread impression that the state is not delivering for its citizens. Communities lose social cohesion and misinformation is spreading and undermining trust in our institutions. Indeed, only 39% of OECD citizens have high or moderate trust in their national government^[1]. Several democracies are sliding toward authoritarian-leaning governments that exploit division and scapegoating, echoing the darkest days of the 20th century. Our democracies are poorly designed to withstand the tides of our unsteady times.

The collapse of the separation of powers

The idea that the legislature, executive, and judiciary should be independent of each other is the foundation of every modern democracy. In practice, this independence is eroding or was never real to begin with.

In parliamentary systems, the party that wins the legislature also forms the government, so the same faction controls two of the three branches. This creates a confusion of purpose: when citizens vote, they are nominally choosing lawmakers, but in practice they are selecting a government. The distinction between the executive and the legislature blurs to the point where the government becomes primarily the lawmaker, using its parliamentary majority to push through legislation. What, then, is parliament actually for and what does "governing" actually mean, beyond producing laws?

In presidential systems, the president generally concentrates significant powers including direct control of the military, tipping the balance of power heavily in favor of the executive. In a world of memes and national victimhood narratives, this focus on a single person risks catastrophic capture by a magnetic personality.

The "separation of powers" depends on all actors playing by the rules, which is a fragile assumption when moral norms disappear.

The justice system and the citizen

The judiciary deserves particular attention, because it is in principle the ultimate guarantee of our civic rights. Yet most people have never interacted with it and would not know how it works. If they do need it, they almost certainly cannot access it without a lawyer, due to the complexity of laws and bureaucratic procedures. This means that the quality of someone's legal representation is directly linked to their financial means, which is a profound injustice in itself. In the United States, the share of people who believe courts provide equal justice fell from 62% in 2014 to 44% in 2025^[2].

There is also an important distinction between "legal" and "just." Courts do not dispense moral justice; they often take a long time to make legalistic interpretations of rules written by parliaments (or by other courts in common law systems). In an appeals system, it even quite frequently happens that subsequent courts arrive at opposite conclusions on the same facts, which undermines the ideas of both justice and predictability.

Complex economic crimes are often hard to prosecute effectively, meaning that justice is little enforced in the economic system. Meanwhile, in an increasing number of countries, judicial appointments are entangled with party politics, leading to a politicization that further erodes public confidence.

A system that guarantees rights in theory but is inaccessible, slow, and to some extent arbitrary is not fulfilling its purpose.

Elections, parties, and the illusion of choice

Our democracies run on parties, organizations that bundle complex positions into take-it-or-leave-it packages, foster ideological loyalty over reasoned debate, may be captured by wealthy donors, and are sometimes internally run like small autocracies.

The election of the legislature by free and universal suffrage is considered the hallmark of democracy. But the process deserves closer scrutiny. Voters are asked to choose among candidates they often know little about, so they fall back on party labels and emotional campaigns rather than informed judgement or personal trust. Once elected, representatives become strongly dependent on their party and must vote along party lines to secure their own standing and future, instead of making an independent judgement based on their own assessment and moral values. The accountability built into re-election is largely theoretical: it is very hard to objectively evaluate a single politician's record over a legislature, and people mainly judge the recent past. In the end, this means that voters are not actually represented in parliament by human beings, but by impersonal political parties.

Elections of the executive are more defensible in terms of personal accountability and knowledge of the candidates, but the qualities needed to win an election are not precisely the same required to be a strong, ethical, and visionary leader. Worse, in most recent elections, many executive candidates ran on divisive we-against-them campaigns instead of offering a positive vision of common prosperity and social cohesion.

The limits of direct democracy

I used to believe that direct democracy holds the answer. Switzerland offers the most developed example: citizens can challenge any law by collecting 50,000 signatures and forcing a referendum^[3]. In theory, the mere threat of a referendum forces parliament to seek broad compromise^[4]. In practice, however, the system has been increasingly captured by the very parties it was meant to check. Research has shown that referendum campaigns are essentially battlegrounds for party visibility, with voters at risk of manipulation by actors not genuinely interested in the outcome^[5]. Even in the best-designed system, parties find ways to game the rules. While direct democracy can complement representative institutions, it cannot fix a broken party system.

A Design for 21st-Century Democracy

Democracy - literally "the rule by the people" – first arose in Athens around 508 BC in circumstances that do not seem totally clear. The key innovation was a random selection of citizens for public office ("sortition"). Aristotle wrote that "it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected oligarchic"^[6]. Athenians understood that elections favored the rich and well-connected aristocrats instead of selecting the best possible leaders.

What we call democracy today is something very different. Our political systems are modeled primarily on the American constitution of 1787, whose central concern was not the rule of the people but the prevention of tyranny following independence from Britain. The founders drew heavily on the doctrine of the separation of powers articulated by Montesquieu^[7]. The American founders were actually distrustful of ordinary citizens. Madison wrote for instance that "had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob"^[8]. The result was a system designed to filter the people's voice through elected elites, not to empower the people.

Interestingly, Montesquieu himself agreed with Aristotle that "the suffrage by lot is natural to democracy; as that by choice is to aristocracy"^[9]. Yet this insight was ignored when the new American republic was built. David Van Reybrouck has actually argued that Enlightenment thinkers preferred elections over sortition because it allowed wealthy elites to keep power through votes instead of birth^[10]. So, we did not exactly get «rule by the people», but elected aristocracy.

Apart from the hard-won inclusion of women and minorities to create universal suffrage, this basic architecture has not substantially evolved since. Even the most recent democratic transitions, from Spain in 1978 to South Korea in 1987 to post-communist Eastern Europe, copied the 18th-century template. No major democracy has tried something structurally new.

Although democracy has become the gold standard of statehood — even dictatorships maintain pro-forma parliaments and elections — it would seem that the idea is in need of a 21st-century update. Here is a proposal of design principles and objectives for a modern state :

Stability and resilience: the system must survive crises, external pressure, and internal conflict without collapsing into authoritarianism or anarchy.
Fundamental rights: every individual and minority is protected by constitutional guarantees.
Long-term decision-making: policy serves the common well-being of current and future generations, not the next election cycle or a privileged clientele.
Competition of ideas, not of ideologies: the system encourages reasoned debate and the testing of new approaches.
Equal participation: every citizen has a meaningful opportunity to shape the decisions that affect their life.
Cohesion: the state actively fosters solidarity and fairness across classes, regions, and generations, and every citizen feels concerned by it.
Justice: citizens know their rights, know how to enforce them, and trust that justice is attainable.

Note that this design does not address the economic system, which would need to be independently redesigned to ensure prosperity, equal opportunity, basic security, sustainability, and fair competition.

The Constitution

The constitution defines the fundamental design of the state. It enshrines the bill of rights, the structure of the state's institutions, the state’s primary objectives, and the rules for its own amendment. The constitution is the highest law. No institution, including the People's Assembly, may override it without going through a referendum process.

The People's Assembly (Legislature)

The fundamental design assumption of modern democracy — that elected representatives indirectly speak for the people — is flawed. The proposal here is to replace parliament with a people's assembly chosen by lot, returning to the oldest democratic principle we know.

The assembly consists of 300 citizens chosen by stratified random selection, ensuring representation across gender, age, education, geography, and socioeconomic background. The Assembly cannot directly change the constitution, but trigger a referendum to that effect.

Why 300? Dunbar's research^[11] suggest that people can maintain 150 social relationships, later extended by other researcher up to 290. This means that if the assembly was to be based on interpersonal relationships and interactions between its members, it must not be much larger than these numbers.

A universal 60% threshold applies to all decisions taken by the Assembly to ensure that decisions are not a statistical fluctuation but also represent the majority view of the population. Statistically speaking, if public opinion is evenly split on an issue, the probability of a representative 300 person assembly reaching 60% approval is less than one in a thousand.

Citizens serve staggered 5-year terms, meaning that every month, 5 new members join the assembly and the 5 longest-serving members leave it (5x12x5=300), thus ensuring a continuous and smooth renewal. New members are selected 6 months before their entry into the assembly, to provide opportunity for personal arrangements as well as onboarding and mentoring by experienced members from their region. Departing members stay six months without voting rights to complete their work and reintegrate into daily life. A full term of service in the assembly is hence 6 years during which the members receive pay from the state and are guaranteed their previous employment.

Legislative initiative lies with the Assembly and with civil society. Any registered association — whether of professionals, civil servants, patients, environmentalists, or any other group — may submit legislative proposals to the Assembly.

The Assembly meets twice a month for plenary voting sessions. In practice, this structured rhythm may produce decisions as efficiently as current parliamentary systems, where party negotiations and coalition management consume months before any vote takes place. Outside sessions, the Assembly conducts work digitally and organized into working groups.

Local assemblies throughout the country operate on the same principles with smaller cohorts.

The Government (Executive)

The government's role is to implement and enforce the laws passed by the Assembly, manage the state administration, conduct foreign policy, command the armed forces in accordance with the Assembly's directives, and respond to crises. It is not the role of the government to propose legislation, but it is required to assist with expertise and data.

The executive should be composed of the most competent and principled people the country can offer, not those best at winning elections or with the most drive for power. As this cannot be achieved through public elections, it is the People’s Assembly that must appoint and recall the members of the government after careful deliberation. This creates ongoing and direct accountability, rather than the current system where leaders face scrutiny only at the next election.

The members of government have collective responsibility for all major decisions. All cabinet sessions are public for full transparency.

The government should consist of no more than 10 members without individual time limits, so that the public is able to know who they are and so that each new appointment is an obvious political event within the country. Each government member presents an annual account of their work and their plan for the upcoming year to the Assembly. While the Assembly may recall any member at any time, this structured annual review ensures regular and public scrutiny.

The Judiciary

If the judiciary is meant to guarantee the rights of every citizen, then every citizen should have a direct relationship with it. Therefore, the first imperative is that citizens serve themselves as lay judges as part of a wider civic service. Through public participation in the justice system, justice becomes tangible and comprehensible to everyone, and is anchored in the lived experience of the population rather than in a closed professional world.

Professional judges are experts required for specialized cases such as complex commercial disputes, economic crime, or constitutional questions. They form an independent, self-governing association, electing their own leadership and filling positions internally, bound by a professional ethics code enshrined in the constitution.

The relationship between the Assembly and the judiciary must be one of mutual accountability. On the one hand, the Assembly can dismiss professional judges, to prevent an unaccountable judicial elite from forming. On the other hand, to prevent the destabilizing situation where courts invalidate laws years after they have taken effect, judicial review happens before enactment, not after. The association of professional judges reviews each proposed law before the Assembly votes. If at least 60% of judges, voting independently, find that a law conflicts with the constitution, the Assembly must modify the law or call a constitutional referendum to resolve the conflict. This way, constitutional questions are settled upfront.

Critically, the system must be accessible and provide equal chances for all. To prevent the justice system from being a contest of financial resources, legal representation must be equalized. Citizens may choose to be represented, but no party in a dispute may deploy more legal resources than the other. A constitutional cap on legal representation — for example, one advocate per party in simple cases — prevents the weaponization of legal complexity by those who can afford armies of lawyers. Public legal advisors are available to all citizens, ensuring that access to competent representation does not depend on wealth.

Civic Service and the Military

Social cohesion is best served by shared experience. A society in which citizens from different classes, backgrounds, and regions never meet as equals is a society that will struggle to sustain democratic solidarity. Universal civic service creates the context for that shared experience where everyone, regardless of background, contributes to the common good and encounters people they would otherwise never meet. This can take the form of military service, but equally of work in healthcare, infrastructure, education, or disaster response.

Civic service must not be a one-off that becomes a distant memory of youth, but a life-long engagement that is an integral and mandatory part of a citizenship, adapted to the individual capabilities. Periodic service at intervals throughout adult life or ongoing part-time commitments (e.g. in volunteer fire departments or as sports coach for children) reinforces the bond between citizens and ensures that every person contributes to the common well-being.

The military dimension matters in its own right. The ability of a state to defend itself is essential to assert its independence, counter foreign influence and protect its citizens. A military anchored in universal service remains connected to civilian society, rather than becoming an isolated professional class with its own political interests.

The Media

The media has become an essential part of how we perceive the world, but misinformation and low-quality journalism are quickly eroding its base as a trusted source of shared understanding. Media should be considered a power in its own right that must be both regulated and protected.

A constitutional media code therefore establishes minimum standards of integrity that media must meet to qualify for accreditation: factual accuracy, transparency of ownership and funding, clear separation of reporting and opinion, and a duty to correct errors. The code does not prescribe how journalism should be practiced, preserving full editorial freedom within these boundaries. Accredited outlets must not be controlled by foreign actors. Every citizen receives publicly funded access to accredited quality media, so that informed participation is a universal right and the economic survival of independent journalism is secured.

Media accreditation is managed by an independent media council, itself partly selected by sortition. Revocation requires a majority of the Assembly and judicial review confirming a violation of the constitutional code, ensuring that no single body can silence critical journalism.

A Final Thought

No country has a defined process to change its entire political system. The change, if it comes, will have to start outside the system: a citizen movement for a better state, built not on ideology but on the shared conviction that democracy can and must be redesigned. Such a movement needs a blueprint and ideas that people can rally around, which is what this canvas is about. Your ideas and critiques are welcome.