Democracy 2.1: when maths reinvent politics

Mathematics and technology are increasingly used in decision-making. The current trend is even to replace human decisions by machine decisions. But in some experiences, technological innovation helps to reinvigorate the most human of all decision process: democracy. This is the purpose of the Democracy 2.1 experiment, launched by the Czech mathematician Karel Janeček: a radical innovation of the voting system, based on mathematical intuitions derived from game theory.

ParisTech Review – How did you shift from mathematics to entrepreneurship and eventually, to the reform of institutions?

Karel Janeček – My approach is basically the same, but I apply it to other areas now. At first, I was a mathematician, but also a player. I started to deviate a little from my main field when I developed a Blackjack software in the early 1990s. In 1995, I founded RSJ, a firm of trading algorithms. Mathematics remained at the heart of these activities. The first real change came with the launch of the Fund Against Corruption, which had nothing to do with my training but reflected a civic concern. Democracy 2.1 brings together both aspects, by introducing mathematical solutions to problems affecting the heart of our democratic system.

According to you, what are the biggest defects of our current systems?

The possibility of voting is at the heart of modern democracy and universal suffrage is a fundamental step. The challenge is to achieve both richer deliberation, allowing more informed decisions, and to choose among representatives those that are most consistent with the preferences of voters. Initially, this model kept its promises: the system was difficult to divert from its purposes. But over time, it became clear that politicians less concerned about the public good could easily use this system to manipulate voters and democracy for their own greed of power or money. Today, this deviation has reached the extremes and the system no longer selects the best, most honest candidates: it rewards the most cunning and loudest. The entry of media moguls in politics does not improve the situation, far from it! It seems to me that although citizens were perhaps more naive in the past, they were, in a sense, more difficult to manipulate.

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