Deliberative Democracy and a Vibrant Public Sphere (original) (raw)

A Path to the Next Form of (Deliberative) Democracy

Journal of Public Deliberation, 2014

Supporters of deliberative democracy must work through complex tradeoffs if we hope to realize the full potential of empowered civic engagement in which citizens employ multiple forms of action and change. In order to sustain citizens’ interest, time, and resources in creating a robust civic infrastructure, we need to engage them in more highly empowered forms of civic engagement than is now typical of many deliberative initiatives. Our field’s strong emphasis on temporary public consultations diverts a disproportionate amount of time, intellectual capital, and other resources from efforts to improve the ability of citizens and local communities to have stronger, more active, and direct roles in shaping their collective futures. One set of choices facing us centers on tensions between reformism and more fundamental, even revolutionary changes to democratic politics. Other key tensions are rooted in aspirations for deliberative democracy to serve as both an impartial resource and as a catalyst for action.

Survey Article: The Coming of Age of Deliberative Democracy

P roposed as a reformist and sometimes even as a radical political ideal, deliberative democracy begins with the critique of the standard practices of liberal democracy. Although the idea can be traced to Dewey and Arendt and then further back to Rousseau and even Aristotle, in its recent incarnation the term stems from Joseph Bessette, who explicitly coined it to oppose the elitist or`a ristocratic'' interpretation of the American Constitution. 1 These legitimate heirs to the tradition of``radical'' democracy have always tempered their vision of popular and inclusive participation with an emphasis on public discussion, reasoning and judgment. It is now also tempered by concerns for feasibility. In developments over the last decade, proponents of deliberative democracy have moved further away from participatory conceptions of citizenship and the common good and towards the very institutions they originally rejected as impossible locations for public reasoning. This new, practical emphasis on feasibility is perhaps the most striking feature of the recent boom in theories of deliberative democracy that I will survey here. Far from being merely à`r ealistic'' accommodation to existing arrangements, I show that this concern with feasibility leads to a richer normative theory and to a fuller conception of the problems and prospects for deliberation and democracy in the contemporary world.

The promise (s) of deliberative democracy

Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 2002

This essay explicates the promise that deliberative democracy, because deliberation generates more inclusive, just, and reasoned public policies, is a sufficient and superior account of democratic legitimacy. This essay also reviews the critiques engendered by social, cultural, and discursive plurality, critiques threatening to render deliberative democracy's promise(s) infelicitous, and suggests some avenues for reconfiguring public delieration in light of these challenges.

Introducing Deliberative Democracy: A Goal, a Tool, or Just a Context?1

Human Affairs, 2008

Introducing Deliberative Democracy: A Goal, a Tool, or Just a Context?The concept of deliberative democracy is presented within a wide spectrum of variety of its operationalizations. Since the applicability of the principle of deliberation to the functioning of human society is of the author's primary interest, dilemmas of deliberative democracy related to different problems associated with deliberation in practice are described in some detail. The key questions raised aiming at elucidating the "ontology" of deliberativeness are as follows: is it only a tool for solving the problems of society and politics? Is it a context within which other processes decide on the running of society? Or does it embody a goal of democracy?

Deliberative Democracy, Public Work, and Civic Agency

Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2014

This essay locates deliberation and deliberative theory as an important strand in a larger interdisciplinary and political movement, civic agency. The civic agency movement, and its related politics, a politics of civic empowerment, include a set of developing practices and concepts which enhance the capacities of diverse groups of people to work across differences to solve problems, create things of common value, and negotiate a shared democratic way of life. Stirrings of civic agency can be seen in many settings, including efforts to recover the civic purposes and revitalize the civic cultures of institutions such as schools and colleges.

Developing deliberative democracy: A research report and a research agenda

In the last few years, deliberative democracy has developed rapidly from a "theoretical statement" into a "working theory" . Scholars and practitioners have launched numerous initiatives designed to put deliberative democracy into practice, ranging from deliberative polling to citizen summits (see Fung 2003;. At the same time, deliberation has made inroads in empirical (or positive) political science as well. A small but growing body of literature has tried to tackle this question of the connection between the normative standards of deliberation, how well they are met, and the empirical consequences of meeting them. Empirical research has peered into a variety of real-world settings, such as international negotiations Risse 2000; Ulbert and Risse 2005; Panke 2006), national legislatures (Steiner et al. 2004; Mucciaroni and Quirk 2006), mediation processes (Holzinger 2001), ordinary citizens before elections and referenda (Kriesi 2005), social movements (Della Porta 2005), everyday talk (Searing et al. 2007), and formal settings such as deliberative opinion polls (Luskin et al. 2004). Efforts in this field have been accompanied by increasing methodological sophistication, not least involving several attempts to quantify the quality of deliberation (e.g., Holzinger 2001; Steenbergen et al. 2004).

Understanding Deliberative Democracy and Its Constructive Criticism

Srpska politička misao

With all its flaws, a deliberative democracy presents a very important democratic concept – a concept that needs to be improved, but also a concept that needs to be understood. This article aims to present basic concepts of both deliberative democracy and its critiques, providing an updated basic for further discussion, development, and evolution of the concept. Reviewing all relevant concepts, streams, and critics is a demanding and time-consuming task, but hopefully, this article will be able to help researchers as a starting point for the research of this impressive concept – a concept that certainly is not flawless but its importance is beyond doubt.