Between Agonistic and Deliberative Politics: Towards a Radical E-Democracy (original) (raw)
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The Ambiguities of 'Liberal-Democracy'
Polis, 2019
's Demopolis proposes we think about democracy both as a procedural world and as a political culture of self-government for which dissent and disagreement are not unfortunate accidents. A collective made of free and equal citizens is eo ipso an open forum that generates and actually values individual distinctiveness (of opinions, interests and life styles) as a better condition to solve problems and encourage human ingenuity.1 In effect, diversity is a component of the process of democratic deliberation, which translates into an ongoing dialectics of majority/opposition because it presumes that each citizen can change her mind and reconsider previously made decisions. One cannot fail to notice that the entire democratic system pivots around the acceptance of human fallibility, and consists in a public recognition of humility. Self-emendation and the public admission that a previously made decision might be in need of revision are qualities that belong to self-governing citizens, who are thus neither tyrants (who never err) nor oligarchs (who are locked 1 This essay refers to opinions rather than values because opinions are better suited for change through vote counting as naturally open to mutation and reconfiguration (they are verisimi-lar). Concerning 'values,' they are attached to the identity of a person in a more substantive way and although political dialectics and individual rights expose them to change, it makes sense to assume them to be less exposed to transformations or exposed in a length of time that is longer than an electoral cycle. In effect, political parties, when not simply electoral cartels, have a solidity and duration that makes them more than simply a conglomeration of opinions. But I am aware of the contradiction that characterizes representative democracy, wherein the theme of change of opinions has to be thought of within a political process (elections) that generates some persistence of ideas, beliefs and values. Electoral cycles generate a certain solidification of opinions or a narrative that links one election to another and makes citizens identify with or connect to a political group.
At least five billion people worldwide will own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, such as Information Theory and Cybernetics. We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. Academic research has consistently found that people who consume more news media have a greater probability of being engaged civically and politically. Many studies in this area take social media use as the starting point or independent variable, and therefore cannot rule out that some deeper cause — political interest. Further, social media use is a form of engagement in and of itself, helping to shape public narratives and understanding of public affairs. There is always an excess of potential possible in social media-led protest open transition processes. Ideologically fledgling, institutionally weak and economically distressed nations could not be expected to exhibit as wide a variety of elements and forms of articulation as does historically sedimented, robust democracies in highly developed nations. Nevertheless, there is still, within the limits imposed by history, potential for openness of political transition than any single participant’s strategy can actualise. Transition process openness can be analysed at two distinct but closely related levels: political agency and ideology. The lecture asks whether democracy enters protest nations as an external ideology, in sterile abstraction from the immediacies of indigenous traditions, beliefs and values, by parachuting democracy from the West. The West has ef-fectively disenfranchised Arab politics, tending to its vexation with oxygen that is fueling the inferno. It is ethically wrong, but ethics is an alien concept in these failed states and indeed, in any of the systems that claim the moral high ground to change it.
Editorial: Democratic Theory - Summer 2015
2015
This general issue of Democratic Theory begins with an important contribution by George Vasilev (La Trobe University) that refl ects on Chantal Mouff e's notion of democratic agonism. Mouff e has, primarily as part of her critique of deliberative democracy, asserted that consensus necessarily creates exclusion. What is important is that democratic dialogue remains open-ended. For her this means that democrats should view themselves as adversaries rather than antagonists who bring discussions to a close. Vasilev critiques Mouff e's assertion by arguing that she holds a one-sided understanding of consensus that creates a less credible form of adversarial politics. By crafting a "norm of consensus", Vasilev thus demonstrates that consensus formation can ensure the very condition of democratic freedom itself. In doing this, Vasilev's argument brings a fresh perspective to ongoing debates in deliberative and agonistic democracy. The second article in this issue is by Jose Marichal (California Lutheran University). He rightly argues that diversity in the United States, and we would add elsewhere, is misconceived in discussions about civic health and democratic life. Conventionally, diversity in such discussions is framed as an obstacle to be overcome. It is in the way of, for instance, conceptions of the good democratic life because diversity is by its nature divisive. Against this backdrop, Marichal crafts an alternative view of diversity that shows that it can be instrumental for building civic health and democratic life. Diversity is actually a strength for societies to draw on because diversity leads to self-refl ection (doubt), better decision making, and civic wisdom gained through communication with "others". This article is a compelling read and a starting point for a new discussion about pluralism, diversity, and race relations in democracies such as the United States. Amanda Machin's (Zeppelin University) article on the physical embodiment of deliberation is the third contribution in this issue. Machin's is an important and novel argument in democratic theory. She claims that the communication that hap pens between physical bodies in deliberation is commonly overlooked in deliberative democratic theory. Drawing principally on Merleau-Ponty's "habitual knowledge" concept, she demonstrates how body language is a part of the communicative action
, Reason, Justification, and Consensus Why Democracy Can't Have it All
Reprinted with the permission of the author and Columbia University Press. good that is acceptable to all citizens. According to some, the results of social choice theory led to a critique of populism. 6 These two developments, one sociological and the other economic, were the two main sources for liberal democratic theory up to 1970. The central motifs of these lines of research also had an impact on constitutional theory. In this context, the pluralist model of democracy proposed by Robert Dahl and others provided an inºuential framework for interpreting Madisonian democracy. Dahl was interested in the social conditions under which egalitarian democratic ideals could be approximately realized in complex industrialized societies. In line with James Madison's Federalist Paper no. 10, he identiªed competition among group interests as a crucial condition for democracy. Although Dahl's decentralized, "polyarchal" version of pluralism shed much of Schumpeter's elitism, it retained the emphasis on competition, interests, and voting. 7 This climate was a rather inhospitable one for conceptions of public deliberation about a common good. Although other theorists, such as John Dewey and Hannah Arendt, were prominent in postwar political theory, the competitive-pluralist trend only began to reverse itself in the late 1960s. This reversal can be traced, at least in part, to broad dissatisfaction with the debacles and anonymity of liberal government (e.g., the war in Vietnam and the increasing perception that decision making in government was bureaucratic and beyond the control of citizens). More speciªcally, leftist political activism, with its emphasis on participatory democracy, sparked renewed interest in the possibilities for consensual forms of self-government. 8 The theoretical critique of liberal democracy and revival of participatory politics gradually developed through the 1970s. 9 It was only in the 1980s, however, that a concept of deliberative democracy began to take deªnite shape. The term "deliberative democracy" seems to have been ªrst coined by Joseph Bessette, who argued against elitist (or "aristocratic") interpretations of the Constitution. 10 Bessette's challenge joined the chorus of voices calling for a participatory view of democratic politics. These theorists questioned the key assumptions underlying the earlier economic and pluralist models: that politics should be understood mainly in terms of a conºict of competing interests-and thus in terms more of bargaining than xii Introduction respond only to power? The key to his solution lies in the internal relation between the exercise of political power and the rule of law: in constitutional regimes, government ofªcials are at least constrained by the arguments and reasons that have held up in the public sphere. Insofar as a broadly dispersed, "subjectless communication" among citizens is allowed to develop in autonomous public spheres and enter into receptive representative bodies with formal decision-making power, the notion of popular sovereignty-a democratically self-organizing society-is not beyond the pale of feasibility. Models such as Habermas's differ from updated republicanism and rights-based liberalism by elaborating an idealized deliberative procedure as its point of departure. In the next two essays, Joshua Cohen and John Rawls try to work out the philosophical details of a conception of political justiªcation based on deliberation and public reason. The third essay in part 1, Joshua Cohen's "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," provides a good example of how such an ideal proceduralism could be elaborated. Like Habermas, Cohen deªnes political legitimacy in relation to an ideal consensus: "outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of a free and reasoned agreement among equals." 14 Similar to Elster in his discussion of the constraints of the forum, Cohen maintains that the orientation toward reasoned agreement should constrain citizens to focus their proposals on the common good. But Cohen takes a step beyond Elster by specifying procedural standards, such as freedom and lack of coercion and the formal and substantive equality of participants, designed to preserve autonomy and guard against objectionable deliberative outcomes. Cohen then goes on to argue that his ideal procedure provides a suitable model for democratic institutions, one that should be broadly acceptable, stable, just, and institutionally feasible, given the proper mediating structures (such as voting and party competition). As Cohen has argued elsewhere, an ideal procedural model provides the basis for an "epistemic" interpretation of democratic outcomes. 15 This interpretation presupposes that deliberation involves xv Introduction Reason, Politics, and Justiªcation: The Process, Conditions, and Goal of Deliberation The essays in part 2 continue the work of specifying the details of the ideal of deliberative democracy. They primarily address controversies that have emerged after the initial statements of Elster, xvii Introduction Deliberative Democracy as a Substantive Ideal: Equality, Pluralism, and Liberty The remaining essays by Knight and Johnson, Bohman, Richardson, Young, and Cohen concern more substantive issues about the process and conditions necessary for deliberative democracy: political equality, cultural difference, the formation of joint intentions, and the role of the substantive liberal and egalitarian values that inform deliberative procedures. Taken together, they show not only the variety of positions within deliberative theory, but also the robustness of the deliberative ideal in dealing with the problems facing contemporary democracy. Rather than focusing on the outcome of deliberation, Bohman and Knight and Johnson take up the most fundamental condition of deliberation for either epistemic or nonepistemic versions: political equality. Both essays develop substantive conceptions that attempt to go beyond merely building equality into procedures, ideal or otherwise. Certainly, procedural equality, understood as the equality of opportunity to participate in political decision making, is crucial for democratic legitimacy. But deliberative democracy also requires elaborating the substantive aspects of political equality appropriate to its particular ideal. Whereas for Knight and Johnson this is "equal opportunity of access to political inºuence," for Bohman it is "equally effective social freedom." In order to develop procedural aspects of equality, Knight and Johnson turn to analogies to the axioms of social choice theory; Bohman, by contrast, develops this aspect of political equality in terms of Habermas's ideal speech situation where all have equal opportunity to speak. But the main innovation in both essays is to develop the more substantive account in which the work of Amartya Sen on "capability equality" is the primary inspiration. 25 Knight and Johnson argue that this approach has considerable advantages over the Rawlsian approach and answer objections put forward by Cohen that the resource-based account is more practically useful. However, they see problems with Sen's xxiii Introduction of group-based identities in the decision-making process, deliberative democracy will be blind to sources of inequality and asymmetries of power. Adding to her previous work on "group differentiated citizenship," Young argues here that making groups (rather than individuals) the subjects of deliberation has distinct epistemic advantages. These advantages follow from her nonessentialist understanding of social groups as occupying different, relational positions, each with its own particular social perspective. Critical public discussion ought to be about the expression and exchange of different social perspectives, so that each can be transformed into a more reºective and objective social judgment. Deliberation is thus the mutual openness and accountability of different groups to each other's perspectives, each of which is committed to thinking from the standpoint of everyone else. Young makes communication across differences essential to the creation of a wider and potentially shared perspective that is infused with the comprehensive social knowledge derived from the situated knowledge of every particular social group. Difference is thus "a resource" (and not just a burden) for democratic communication among and across various groups, the outcome of which is the more comprehensive and effective form of social knowledge. Given the intense scrutiny to which Joshua Cohen's work has been submitted in this volume, it is only ªtting that it end with an essay by him. Here Cohen gives a revised general statement of the deliberative conception, showing how "the fact of reasonable pluralism" xxv Introduction provides a way to give concrete shape to the conception of citizens as free and equal. Deliberative democracy, he argues, is not merely based on a procedural conception of justiªcation. Rather, it establishes a substantive conception of politics, containing a very speciªc interpretation of egalitarian and liberal values of rights and liberties. Under reasonable pluralism, citizens are free to the extent that they do not have to share some particular religious or moral doctrine; they are equal to the extent that "each is recognized as having the capacities required for participating in discussion aimed at authorizing the exercise of power." Using Rawls's terminology, the idealized procedure is still a model characterization of free reasoning among equals, the features of which can be built into institutions. The added norm of reasonableness is the crucial addition to the model that he develops in "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy." This assumption is strongly challenged by Knight and Johnson, Gaus, Young, and Christiano as an inadequate normative basis for settling problems of difference. Its main use for Cohen is to...
Thesis work at the Università Degli Studi di Pavia, Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche, 2020
The aim of this work is to challenge the concept of radical, agonistic democracy brought forward by Chantal Mouffe and to show why her positions, while being of high original value, are for the most part not compatible with the demands that an egalitarian and liberal democracy places on its citizens. It is argued that, while Mouffe’s warnings about a potential depoliticisation of society in favour of neo-liberal policies and the rise of right-populism which she attributes to the political parties’ failing in generating meaningful political identities are justified, she does not pay sufficient attention to democracy’s need for responsible human individuality and some of the limitations to how democracy can and must be understood. By showing just how much Mouffe draws on the ideas of Carl Schmitt and Sigmund Freud, the incompatibility of her theory with a contemporary understanding of the individual as one whose value in society is recognised by his dignity and his ability to come to terms with his individual character in a democratic setting. The highly influential work of Carl Schmitt on the political, with a focus on its critique of liberalism, as well as Ulrich Beck’s theory of cosmopolitanism are explored in an attempt to fathom their attempts to explain conflict in society and to make sense of the anti-liberal mind set which dominates much of the political discourse today. Democracy, as it is shown, cannot function on grounds of hegemonic struggle since its fundamental ethos rests on the assumption that citizens can feel responsible for their actions and build towards establishing a common framework of values, norms and goals. Establishing contingency as the central democratic feature cannot substitute for the need for deliberative decision making processes. Collective choice theory has provided the insight that egalitarian liberal democracy, which relies on reason to arrive at collective decisions, can only work if citizens do not act as rational individuals pursuing their own interests but instead accept the validity of the notion of some common good. The key task for democracy is therefore that to guarantee for freely accessible institutions which provide the foundation for open debate and decision making processes which are based on giving reasons. Furthermore, the conceptual distinction between separability and separateness shows why society is still struggling to find the right balance between allowing enough space for character development and establishing firm collective identities. If one wants to challenge the populist rise in Western democracies one needs to foster once again the role of the individual in such way that he knows what democracy can and cannot be and will be able to deeply care about it. Populism, as we will see, thrives on discord, fear and appeals to an imaginary ‘will of the people’ which should be confronted with the insight that democracy is based on character formation, individual sacrifice and responsibility and the belief in something larger than decision by majority rule. Therefore, the question is raised how democracy shall be understood if it is to preserve its commitment to individual responsibility, personal development and a notion of the common good but nevertheless addresses the serious and highly topical problems that neo-liberalism, globalism, and post-structuralism pose for society on a socio-political level.
Radical or deliberative democracy?
Laclau and Mouffe's political vision of a radical democracy is an attempt to rethink the emancipatory tradition of the left in light of the recognition of the impossibility of a sutured society. The classic emancipatory projects, whether liberal, anarchic or socialist shared an (ultimately eschatological or universalist) belief in the possibility of a social order without (serious) contradictions. The 20. century is marked by an increasingly distrust towards the possibility of universality. Laclau and Mouffe share this distrust, but they claim that the way they restate the relationship between (impossible) universality and particularity opens up to an radicalisation of democracy. This paper presents Laclau and Mouffe's vision of radical democracy, and argues that it has clear advantages over deliberative democracy, even though the latter to a large extent has managed to 'hegemonise' the space of the radical alternative to mainstream liberal representative democra...