ALLOTMENT

Look up allotment in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Allotment may mean:

• Allotment (financial), a method of distributing securities to investors when an issue has been oversubscribed
• Allotment (radio) (see Bandplan)
• The Allotment, a 1988 book by Colin Ward

Land use

• Apportionment of land by lot
• Allotment (gardening), in the United Kingdom, a small area of land, let out at a nominal yearly rent by local government or independent allotment associations, for individuals to grow their own food
• Dawes Act (see also Nelson Act), United States legislation of 1887 authorizing the President to survey Indian tribal land and divide the arable area into allotments for the individual Indian
• Pastoral lease, an agreement under the Commonwealth of Australia that allow for the use of Crown land by individuals
• Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, United States legislation of 1935 allowing the government to pay farmers to reduce production

Government

• Selection by lot or sortition by some form of lottery such as drawing coloured pebbles from a bag, used commonly in references to Ancient Greek Democracy. Allotment developed from the use of oracles to divine the will of the gods, but by the time of Ancient Greeks like Herodotus it was thought to be a key part of their political system. Their reasoning appears to be that Democracy (literally meaning rule by the people) required the people (the “demos”) to be chosen for government as equal citizens and not for any particular merit or popularity. In addition allotment prevented the corrupt practise of buying votes as no one could know who would be selected as a magistrate or to sit on the Jury. Athenian Democracy used allotment to select around 90% of the magistrates for their governing committees. Only in exceptional cases such as generals of the army (strategoi) did they vote for candidates (even Greeks saw the benefit of selecting their generals on merit rather than principle). Their huge juries (typically 501) were allotted using sophisticated machines to ensure jurors were fairly allocated. These juries not only tried cases, handed down sentences (see the trial of Socrates), but could also overturn laws passed by the citizen's assembly. Allotment is today restricted mainly to the selection of jurors in Anglo-Saxon legal systems like the UK and US.

See also

• Apportionment
• Sortition
• Election
• Appointment
• Lottocracy
• Clerotarchy

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