These are all excellent questions (and it's very helpful for me to hear them in terms of thinking through future topics). I'm still reading and learning about them but do have some leanings.
The thing I can say quickly is that I imagine (and hope for) lots of experimentation with different solutions to these issues. There's already a lot of different practices in terms of duration, size, remuneration, etc. There is less experimentation with fully empowered citizen legislatures so far, not surprisingly. And because the assemblies are generally not all that powerful yet, there isn't YET that much need for experimentation with guardrails. But the more powerful they become, the more important guardrails will become.
I will say now (and elaborate later!) that I think mini-publics have some inherent advantages over elected bodies in the corruption sphere, both in the sense of illegal corruption (eg payoffs) and the broader frame of corruption that Lessig and others use (undue influence). Some advantages, as you mentioned, involve the election cycle directly; the susceptibility to corruption there is obvious. But partisan politics and the uneven distribution of power within elected bodies also make elected bodies an easier target.
To my mind, preventing corruption in mini-publics seems like a real but addressable problem. You can do much more than you can under elections to limit access and to censure inappropriate behavior, both on the part of representatives and on those who'd seek to influence them.
The harder-to-solve challenge in my mind will be how to combat the use of conventional politics against mini-publics writ large once powerful entities begin to feel threatened by them. They won't have to attack individual members (though they might); they'll just have to destroy the reputations of mini-publics themselves. I take it for granted that conventional professional politicos these days have highly honed skills in reputation destruction that they can aim wherever they like.
These are all excellent questions (and it's very helpful for me to hear them in terms of thinking through future topics). I'm still reading and learning about them but do have some leanings.
The thing I can say quickly is that I imagine (and hope for) lots of experimentation with different solutions to these issues. There's already a lot of different practices in terms of duration, size, remuneration, etc. There is less experimentation with fully empowered citizen legislatures so far, not surprisingly. And because the assemblies are generally not all that powerful yet, there isn't YET that much need for experimentation with guardrails. But the more powerful they become, the more important guardrails will become.
I will say now (and elaborate later!) that I think mini-publics have some inherent advantages over elected bodies in the corruption sphere, both in the sense of illegal corruption (eg payoffs) and the broader frame of corruption that Lessig and others use (undue influence). Some advantages, as you mentioned, involve the election cycle directly; the susceptibility to corruption there is obvious. But partisan politics and the uneven distribution of power within elected bodies also make elected bodies an easier target.
To my mind, preventing corruption in mini-publics seems like a real but addressable problem. You can do much more than you can under elections to limit access and to censure inappropriate behavior, both on the part of representatives and on those who'd seek to influence them.
The harder-to-solve challenge in my mind will be how to combat the use of conventional politics against mini-publics writ large once powerful entities begin to feel threatened by them. They won't have to attack individual members (though they might); they'll just have to destroy the reputations of mini-publics themselves. I take it for granted that conventional professional politicos these days have highly honed skills in reputation destruction that they can aim wherever they like.