Introduction

Abstract

In the introduction, we offer an overview of current proposals to use lottery-based institutions in democratic societies. While these proposals aim to improve the democratic quality of current institutions, we argue that the lottocratic mentality guiding most of the design of lottery-based institutions harbors antidemocratic features that would erode democratic commitments in society more generally. Thus, the negative downstream effects of the spread of this mentality extend well beyond the narrow confines of discussions about the future of such institutions. We then indicate how each chapter contributes to the book’s overall argument against the lottocratic mentality.