This study programme is designed to investigate how the use of randomly selected citizens in public offices could help to develop impartial state institutions and so add stability to developing democracies. By exploring and identifying problems relating to factionalism experienced by modern states in transition to democracy or seeking to maintain democratic progress, the study then uses several model schemes to assess how sortition could contribute towards their resolution.

As well as examining current theoretical appraisals of the transition to, and consolidation of, democracy, the study will draw on historical examples of the successful use of sortition, modern theories on the value of choosing office-holders by lottery, and particular case-studies of states in transition to democracy to examine these claims.