Deliberative Democracy. Ian O'Flynn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ arena? Even if it were possible for large numbers of people to gather together, the inevitable time constraints under which political decisions usually need to be made would surely make it impossible for everyone to speak.

      Empirical research is particularly good at pointing out problems of this sort – in this case, the practical difficulty of reconciling values of deliberation and mass participation. The point is not that there are no solutions to problems of this sort – research into online deliberation, for example, suggests some intriguing answers (see, e.g., Neblo et al. 2018). Rather, the point is that empirical research can compel us to think harder about our normative commitments. At the same time, however, Thompson insists that, while empirical research may ‘pose some challenging questions, and even offer some provocative answers … it does not have the last word’ (2008, 513). On the contrary, if democratic values stand in conflict, ‘we still have to decide under what conditions which value should have priority, and which combination of the values is optimal. That decision depends partly on considerations that are not primarily empirical’ (2008, 513; cf. Graham Smith 2011, 898). In other words, decisions about how to reconcile conflicting values such as deliberation and participation are never just practical or pragmatic, but inevitably bring larger normative questions and concerns into play.

This last point is nicely captured by Goodin’s observation that, while the ‘case for some sort of empirical theory informing policy [or institutional] choices is intuitively obvious’, we ‘need to know not only which results follow from which policies [or institutions] but also which results we should prefer and strive to achieve’ in the first place (1982, 4, 7). There is, therefore, an important sense in which normative theory has priority. On the other hand, this also implies that normative theories must inevitably stand at some remove from the actual circumstances to which they are intended to apply. In the first instance, deliberative democracy is a political ideal; it is meant to guide us in our efforts to improve the political world in which we live and, in particular, to bolster its legitimacy. But if an ideal is worked out wholly in the abstract, it may well turn out to have little relevance to the actual circumstances to which it is intended to apply (cf. Mason 2004, 254).

      Granted, abstraction plays a crucial role in (among other things) clarifying and differentiating concepts, which in turn is crucial to theory building. But on the whole, it is probably fair to say that deliberative democrats have eschewed highly abstract thinking. They typically assume that theories of deliberative democracy should take account of the normal circumstances of political life and they have sought to develop their accounts accordingly (see Rawls 2001, 4; cf. Mutz 2008). In fact, if anything, they may have been too attentive to those circumstances: in an effort to develop the concept in ways that demonstrate its practical relevance, some deliberative democrats may be guilty of concept stretching (Goodin 2018; Steiner 2008). Take, for instance, the goal of reaching an agreed judgement or consensus – people agreeing both on a course of action and on the reasons for it. For some, this notion sits uncomfortably with respect for social pluralism or diversity. Instead of consensus, we should instead aim for ‘workable agreements’ in which people agree on a course of action but for different reasons (Dryzek 2000, 170; Curato et al. 2017, 31). However, if workable agreement is made the goal, then ‘it is unclear what purpose is served by telling one another our reasons at all’ (Goodin 2018, 31; see also Neblo 2015, 106).

In Chapter 2, we will look at these and other related issues in more detail. Before we do so, there are two further introductory tasks to be completed. First, in terms of setting the scene for the rest of the book, it is important to get some sense of the intellectual origins of the ‘deliberative revival’ that began in the 1980s. Second, in order to pave the way for a closer examination of how the concept of deliberative democracy has changed since that time, it is important to see how it was originally defined. To this end, we will turn in just a moment to the extended definition presented by Joshua Cohen in his seminal essay, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’ (1989). But let us begin with origins and revival.

Origins and revival

      There are many reasons to trace the origins of contemporary ideas about deliberative democracy. Of those reasons, one of the more interesting is that it shows us how deliberation, political equality and accountability came to be so central to democratic theory.

      Theorists of deliberative democracy are wont to trace its origins back to ancient Athens (e.g., Fishkin 2018, 51–4). This tendency is perhaps understandable. As Josiah Ober explains, the ‘history of Athenian popular government shows that making good use of dispersed knowledge is the original source of democracy’s strength’ (2008, 2). The most famous institution in this respect was the Assembly (or ekklēsia) in which each citizen had the right to participate. However, because large public gatherings are not effective instruments of government, the Athenian system also relied on a 500-member governing Council (or boulē), chosen by lot from among those citizens who wished to volunteer to serve for a fixed term. Importantly, the council was charged not just with the day-to-day running of the state, but with setting the assembly’s agenda and evaluating proposals before resubmitting them to the assembly for decision (see also Schwartzberg 2015).

While deliberative theorists often celebrate the deliberative virtues of the Council and Assembly, recent scholarship shows that neither institution was organized as a deliberative institution: while deliberation was not precluded, in each case the aim was to facilitate decision-making by majority voting (Cammack 2021; cf. Ober 2008, 89–90). Granted, it also shows that, while the Assembly and Council were not particularly deliberative, the experience of participating in them is likely to have ‘prompted increased discussion of political issues outside those bodies’ (Cammack 2021, 137). Yet while ‘everyday talk’ may have affected how citizens voted, and while voting may in turn have prompted further deliberation, the point remains that, in ancient Athens, ‘there was significantly little organized political discussion’ (Cammack 2021, 137).

      Thus, as Daniela Cammack concludes, the ‘distinctive feature of Athenian democracy was that citizens gathered in large numbers to decide actions by the result of votes, not that they took part in discussions or debates on a grand scale’ (2021, 162–3). In other words, the principal means of organizing dispersed knowledge was aggregation, not deliberation (cf. Ober 2008, 27, 98). In response, one could argue that, while ancient Athens was not quite the deliberative epitome it is sometimes taken to be, what ultimately matters is not historical accuracy but the normative ideas it suggests. That would be fine were it not for the fact that Athenian institutions were far from inclusive. They were, in fact, highly exclusive. Women, foreign residents and slaves – on most estimates, well more than half of the adult population – were not permitted to participate in political life and certainly not in the Assembly (Weale 2018, 18–23). Upper-class women could not leave the house unless they were veiled and accompanied by a male relative, while there is a good case for arguing that slavery was the essential condition for civic liberty: without it, the freedom and (just as importantly) the time to participate in the Assembly and to volunteer for the Council may simply not have existed.

      The upshot is that, while Athenian institutions may have been designed for organizing the dispersed knowledge of citizens, the Assembly and Council were principally aggregative institutions and citizenship itself was narrowly circumscribed. There is, admittedly, a case for saying that since every democracy is a creature of its time, it should be evaluated on its own terms. But there is a stronger case for saying that the history of democracy is a history of inclusion. Today, we (rightly) tend to ask not just if there is political equality but also how far that equality extends (Dahl 1989, 88).

Much closer to our own era, John Stuart Mill ([1861] 1991) addressed this question directly. In his ‘Considerations on Representative Government’, he argued that while government should be responsible for making decisions, parliament should be responsible for holding government to account. More precisely, parliament should compel government to justify its decisions not just to its own supporters but to society at large. For this to happen, however, parliament СКАЧАТЬ