John Burnheim is a former professor of General Philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia.
In his book Is Democracy Possible? (1985) John Burnheim utilized the term "demarchy" (created by Friederich A.Von Hayek in his Law, Legislation and Liberty) to describe a political system without the state or bureaucracies, and based instead on randomly selected groups of decision makers. This has striking resemblances to classical democratic ideas, as reported by Thucydides. In 2006 Burnheim published a second edition with a new preface in which he directed the reader to an emphasis that "a polity organised by negotiation between specialised authorities would work much better than one based on centralised authority".[1]
Burnheim used to be a Roman Catholic priest[2] and, from 1958-1968, was rector of St John's, the Catholic college attached to the university. He was a major figure in the disturbances of the 1970s that split the university's Department of Philosophy.
J. Franklin, (2003), Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia, Macleay Press, ch. 11