Full Professor of Political Science at Yale University.
I’m currently a Full Professor in the Political Science department at Yale University and a Faculty Fellow with Yale’s Institute for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), where I founded a research program on Citizens' Assemblies and the “Governing x” conference series.
I’m also Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford, England. In 2023 I served as an advisor to the Democratic Inputs to AI program at OpenAI. I am currently undertaking work supported by Schmidt Futures through the AI2050 program.
My research and teaching interests include democratic theory, constitutional theory, political epistemology, and the ethics and politics of AI.
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Politics Without Politicians
The Case for Citizen Rule
Thesis (Penguin Random House)
Release: February 10, 2026 (preorder available)
Politicians have failed us. But democracy doesn’t have to.
In Politics Without Politicians, I ask the question: What if we didn’t need politicians at all? What if everyday people—under the right conditions—could govern much better?
Drawing on ancient Athenian practices and contemporary citizens’ assemblies, I propose an alternative approach that is alive, working, and growing around the world: civic lotteries that select everyday people to govern—not as career politicians but as temporary stewards of the common good.
I show that we can move beyond democracy as a spectator sport, embracing it as a shared practice—not just in the voting booth but in shaping the laws and policies that govern our lives.
This is not a book about what’s wrong—it’s a manifesto for what’s possible. Politics Without Politicians is fundamentally about how “We the People” take back democracy.
Ezra Klein Interviews Hélène Landemore
A Radical Proposal for True Democracy. What if the solution to our dysfunctional politics is to get rid of the politicians?
New York Times’ The Ezra Klein Show.” on Feb. 23, 2021
Illustration by The New York Times. All rights reserved.