What is deliberative democracy
From Driscollwiki
Opens with example of Iraq War (2)
- Imperfect deliberation before the war enabled
- Less imperfect deliberation after
What is deliberative democracy?
"Deliberative democracy [is] a form of government in which free and equal citizens (and their representatives), justify decisions in a process in which they give one another reasons that are mutually acceptable and generally accessible, with the aim of reaching conclusions that are binding in the present on all citizens but open to challenge in the future" (7)
Elaborating the four key characteristics
Deliberative democracy is a process of reciprocal reason-giving
- Reasons given should appeal to principles that individuals cannot reasonably reject
- Neither procedural nor purely substantive
- Reasons also express "mutual respect" among citizens and government (4)
- Falsified reasons reflect a lack of respect for citizens
Reasons should be accessible to all citizens to whom they are addressed
- Deliberation must be carried out in public, and
- Its substance must be publicly available and comprehendable (transparent)
- Experts may act as trusted mediators in highly technical matters
- Secrecy may be acceptable (in the case of national security for example) but it is a weakness and should be mitigated when possible
The outcome of deliberation should be binding
- Citizens argue in the expectation that this labor will effect substantive change in future decisions
The process of deliberation is dynamic and continuous
- Although deliberation about the question of whether to go to war ends when the command-in-chief orders troops into battle, the process of deliberation will change shape to accommodate new questions regarding the decision
- The maintenance of deliberation following a decision is critical for two reasons:
- First, human decision-making is fallible and likely to require reflection and revision
- Second, some number of citizens will be unhappy with the decision and are more likely to accept it if they know that they will continue to have a voice in shaping future decisions
Economy of moral disagreement
Justifications should minimize differences among opponents
- Agreement is not the expected outcome of deliberation
- This promotes the value of mutual respect
How democratic is deliberation?
Democracy and deliberation are not historically coextensive
- At times, they have seemed a sub-optimal pair, especially when the process is open to all citizens
- Even John Stuart Mill imagined "government by discussion" as limited to an educated elite
In contemporary theory, Habermas and Rawls advocate for the role of the citizenry in democratic deliberation
- Though they disagree on procedurality, they agree that the process must be "fully inclusive" (9)
- The pairing of deliberation with democracy involves not only the vocal participants but the audience that participants are expected to address
What purposes does deliberative democracy serve?
Four related purposes:
- To promote the legitimacy of collective decisions
- To encourage public spirited perspectives on public issues, encouraging generosity and "buy-in" to a common interest
- To promote mutually respectful processes of decision-making, helping participants see the moral value of an opponent's opinion even if they are likely to continue to disagree
- To help correct mistakes in the collective action of citizens and government officials
Why is deliberative democracy better than aggregative democracy?
Deliberative democracy asks stakeholders to justify the preferences they express (13)
Aggregative democracy takes preferences as given and seeks to combine them in ways that produce optimal systemic satisfaction. Two aggregative arrangements:
- Majoritarianism, in which political campaigns take the form of comparative advertisements rather than arguments and decisions are made by voting (14)
- Utilitarianism, in which government officials take stock of popular preferences and determine the optimal arrangement analytically (15)
Advantages of aggregative democracy:
- Produces definite outcomes, i.e. decisions get made
- Clearly delineated process for resolving disagreement
Disadvantages of aggregative democracy:
- Existing social arrangements are reinforced as there is little space for the introduction of new ideas
- No mechanism for citizens to challenge or alter the decision-making machinery itself
- Not all preferences are equally compatible, e.g. moral inclinations may not fit equally well alongside financial valuations
Comparative advantages of deliberative democracy
- A variety of preferences and preference types may be considered, including fundamental moral stances
- In the face of moral disagreement, deliberative democracy is more likely to yield one of two outcomes:
- A mutually satisfactory resolution, or
- A mutually respectful disagreement that may lead to agreement in the future
- Citizen participants enter the process with the expectation that their preferences may change
Comparative disadvantages of deliberative democracy:
- Consensus is the only means of arriving at a definite conclusion
- As consensus is often unwieldy, the final decision is made through some other apparatus (e.g. voting)
- The process depends on moral claims that may not be shared among all participants
Conflicts among different kinds of deliberative democracy
Instrumental v. Expressive
- Instrumental view: deliberation as a process has no value outside of its conclusions
- Expressive view: deliberation as a process expresses mutual respect that is of intrinsic value
Procedural v. Substantive
- Procedural view: deliberation is a decision-making process and need not be inscribed in the laws themselves, likewise the democratic method is independent of a specific set of moral values
- Substantive view: a successful democratic decision-making process should not produce morally unacceptable outcomes
- (These views are, in practice, interrelated and the priorities of both can be taken into account)
Consensual v. Pluralist
- This conflict concerns the outcomes of a deliberative process
- The two views disagree about the degree to which an acceptable outcome must be comprehensive
- The pluralist allows for the persistence of moral disagreements
- Both agree, however, that the overall aim of deliberation is to justify decisions and laws that citizens and their representatives impose on one another (27)
- The authors lean towards a pluralistic view in which participants in deliberative democracy define their moral convictions narrowly enough to allow for systemically satisfactory outcomes
The scope of deliberative democracy
The authors believe that deliberation should take an enlarged role in both civil society and international politics (30)
On the subject of representative versus direct participation in deliberation
- The authors believe that it is possible to implement hybrid mechanisms that will enable greater direct participation without sacrificing the advantages of representation, namely that citizens should not have to spend a ton of time on politics
Deliberative democracy clearly has many advantages but its proponents do not agree on which institutions should adopt it
- Habermas offered 2 reasons that deliberation should be limited to the core governing institutions
- Some governing activities may require a degree of privacy that confounds deliberation's demand for transparency
- If all of civil society is required to practice deliberation, its citizens are no longer fully free
- Joshua Cohen argues for the extension of delib. demo. to civil society
- Corporations whose business significantly impacts the liberties of its customers might also utilize deliberative democracy
- e.g. Google, Facebook
- Another reason to deliberate in civil society is to give citizens opportunities to practice, thus making d.d. less "alien" in politics
- Reason to use dd in schools
- Dismissive of DD + internet
- "Most of the activity on the internet is not political bus rather related to entertainment, shopping, travel, sex, and personal relationships" (36)
Can deliberative democracy be extended transnationally?
- The authors offer a vision of deliberative democracy in which "moral constituents" (as opposed to electoral constituents) are given voice in matters such as the decision to go to war
- Returning to example of Iraq war, what if Iraqis were involved in the deliberation?
Round-up of theoretical objections to d.d.
Priority of justice
Does d.d. sacrifice justice for the sake of democracy? (40)
- This criticism tends to target highly procedural forms of d.d. (rejected earlier by the authors)
- Justice is contestable, d.d. is the "least unsatisfactory" way to arrive at just decisions (41)
Procedural injustice
What if the conditions under which citizens deliberate about justice are themselves unjust? (42)
- Deliberative democracy is the best of the regularly available alternatives
- New alternatives should be justified by proponents through deliberation
Is deliberation redundant?
Joseph Raz argues that decisions and laws have authority by being right or just (43)
- If it is right, then it does not require justification. If it is wrong, it cannot be justified.
- This may be generalizing "personal morality" to "political morality" in which the stakes are higher and interests more diverse
- Public officials cannot act on an intrinsic sense of moral correctness
- They may be wrong
- Others cannot judge the rightness without access to their reasons
- They may seem less trustworthy
Civic freedom, the liberty to judge the decisions of one's representatives and public officials, is only possible given transparency of reasons
- Officials must justify their actions and respond to crit (45)
Role of power in deliberation and justice
D.d. can be used cynically as a cover-up for power politics (46)
- Stanley Fish argues that justification is non-sensical when there is no shared understanding of what counts as a good reason (46)
- The authors respond that this critique fails when d.d. is used to publicly expose unjustified use of political power
- The authors suggest that this critique also becomes illogical if it requires an end to reason-based argumentation
Round-up of practical objections to d.d.
Biases
Unequal access to the deliberative process may produce unjust outcomes (48)
- Though d.d. can also expose the injustices underlying this weakened process
- Describes current state of Congressional elections
Another bias assumes that more educated participants will enjoy advantages in deliberation
- The authors suggest MLK Jr. as a historical examples of a strong participant who can represent disadvantaged stakeholders
- Presumably the outcomes of d.d. will address the imbalances in education
- Also, this concern mistakenly emphasises deliberative skill when the real cause of marginalization is unequal access to power
Is there a dichotomy between passion and reason?
- That marginalized groups rely on passion and not reason is an unsupported stereotype
- Entrenched stakeholders are as often to use passionate appeals as disadvantaged groups
- Passionate appeals can provoke more deliberation than cool reason-giving (51)
Is there a bias against faith-based perspectives?
- Mutual acceptability may not always be possible in cases of morality
- But mutual respect and mutually accessible reasons may lead to mutually acceptable outcomes in the future
Undesirable consequences
Political instability
- Slavery was once protected by the Constitution, a reason that all of the laws must be open to deliberation and revision
- Stability may be ensured by processes that take into account "how justified particular laws are" (54)
- How would this be measured?
Extremism, polarization
- Cass Sunstein found that participants in some deliberative processes tended to move toward more extreme positions
- Procedures may be deployed to ameliorate undesirable polarization
- But some degree of controversy is expected and to be encouraged in issues of high moral stakes
Time suck
- Do the political effects of d.d. justify the significant time costs for participants?
- D.d. is not just another item on the to-do list, it is a means by which priorities can be draw up
- It can also inform the practices of these other activities, leading to greater "public-spiritedness" (56)
The future of d.d.?
Two challenges:
- 1. The theory of d.d. needs to be flexible and subject to change
- 2. The familiar institutions of democracy must be made more friendly to deliberation
Challenge 1: Theoretical
Provisionality
- The self-correcting nature of d.d.
- "A theory is morally provisional if its principles invite revision in response to new moral insights or empirical discoveries" (57)
- Self-correction is a necessary aspect of reciprocity
- Citizens owe each other mutually justifiable reasons for the laws they would impose on each other
Challenge 2: Practical
How can groups of citizens institutionalize change and reflection within deliberative processes?
- e.g., "Sunset laws" force policy review
In the meantime, delib democrats should support coalition-building and civility
- Especially cooperation among groups who may hold different moral positions in some areas
- They should also encourage deliberative practices in civil society and among private institutions
Some advocate the creation of new deliberative forums that cut across borders of nation-states
- The authors worry that multiplying decision-making authorities may be confusing and weaken existing democratic bodies (especially in nations that are undemocratic)
