Participation and Trust: Conditions and Constraints on Democratic Deliberation

2016 ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
Susan Dodds
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Deliberation

Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Pincione ◽  
Fernando R. Teson
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Democratic Deliberation

Academic Freedom and the Politics of Truth

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Public Mind ◽  
Epistemic Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One ◽  
Rational Inquiry ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter argues that academic freedom is justified because it is an inherently epistemic practice that serves the ideals of democracy. With Dewey, it is argued that “The one thing that is inherent and essential [to the idea of a university] is the ideal of truth.” But far from being apolitical, the value of pursuing truth and knowledge—the value that justifies academic freedom, both within and without the public mind—is a fundamental democratic value, and for three reasons: the practices of academic inquiry exemplify rational inquiry of the kind needed for democratic deliberation; those practices serve to train students to pursue that kind of inquiry; and those practices are important engines of democratic dissent.

The Promise of Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and Business Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Sareh Pouryousefi ◽  
R. Edward Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Business Practice ◽  
Global Markets ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
Modern Slavery ◽  
Empirical Context

Pragmatists believe that philosophical inquiry must engage closely with practice to be useful and that practice serves as a source of social norms. As a growing alternative to the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, pragmatism is well suited for research in business ethics, but its role remains underappreciated. This article focuses on Richard Rorty, a key figure in the pragmatist tradition. We read Rorty as a source of insight about the ethical and political nature of business practice in contemporary global markets, focusing specifically on his views about moral sentiments, agency, and democratic deliberation. Importantly for business ethicists, Rorty’s approach sets in stark relief our moral responsibility as useful, practical thinkers in addressing the societal challenges of our time. We use “modern slavery” as an empirical context to highlight the relevance of Rorty’s approach to business ethics.

After the Backlash: Populism and the Politics and Ethics of Migration

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-180
Author(s):  
Stephen Macedo
Keyword(s):  
Social Democracy ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Political Coalitions ◽  
New Politics ◽  
The U.S

AbstractIn the U.S., and elsewhere, populism has been democracy’s way of shaking elites up. We can view populism in part as a revolt of the losers, or perceived losers, of globalization. Yet elites have often paid too little heed to the domestic distributive impact of high immigration and globalized trade. Immigration and globalization are also spurring forms of nativism and demagoguery that threaten both democratic deliberation and undermine progressive political coalitions. The challenge now is to find the most reasonable – or least unreasonable – responses to the new politics of resentment: ways that recognize that egalitarian liberalism and social democracy are national projects and preserve progressive political coalitions, while also acknowledging our interconnections, duties, and moral obligations to those beyond our borders.

Measuring Democratic Listening: A Listening Quality Index

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292198944
Author(s):  
Mary F. Scudder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Quality Index ◽  
Democratic Deliberation

Recent political theory in the area of deliberative democracy has placed listening at the normative core of meaningfully democratic deliberation. Empirical research in this area, however, has struggled to capture democratic listening in a normatively relevant way. This paper presents a new, theoretically informed instrument for measuring and assessing listening in deliberation. Here, I tackle the observational challenge of measuring the act of listening itself, as opposed to either the preconditions or outcomes of listening. Reviewing existing measures, I show that each, in isolation, fails to capture the most democratically meaningful aspects of listening. The paper argues, however, that existing and novel measures can be usefully combined to allow researchers to capture different degrees of democratic listening. Using Rawls’s concept of “lexical priority,” I aggregate relevant components of listening into a normatively significant lexical scale. The paper describes this novel measurement and highlights how it can be used in empirical research on democratic deliberation.

Paradoxes of democracy: Rousseau and Hegel on democratic deliberation

2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372199070
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Rustighi
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Deliberative Processes

In this article, I engage with what relevant literature addresses as the ‘paradox of democracy’ and trace it back to the dialectic between authorization and representation established by social contract theories. To make my argument, I take Rousseau’s Social Contract as a paradigmatic example of the paradox and analyse it in light of Hegel’s critical response. My aim is to show that, although Rousseau rejects the idea of representing the popular will, representation resurfaces in his Republic from top to bottom and engenders a structural opposition between citizens and rulers: drawing on the Hegelian scrutiny of contractarianism, I focus on three key moments in Rousseau’s theory, namely the Lawgiver, the majority rule and the executive power. After illustrating how the social contract undermines democratic participation in deliberative processes, I suggest that Hegel’s philosophy of right overcomes the paradox by positively assuming it as a dialectical contradiction that requires a specific constitutional approach to democracy. In this sense, I argue, the Hegelian perspective on democratic deliberation helps us to better frame Rousseau’s ambition to conceive the Republic as a free community of equals and urges us to elaborate a more coherent understanding of participation in a pluralistic society.

Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation? Four Arguments

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARASH ABIZADEH
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Shared Norms

This paper subjects to critical analysis four common arguments in the sociopolitical theory literature supporting the cultural nationalist thesis that liberal democracy is viable only against the background of a single national public culture: the arguments that (1) social integration in a liberal democracy requires shared norms and beliefs (Schnapper); (2) the levels of trust that democratic politics requires can be attained only among conationals (Miller); (3) democratic deliberation requires communicational transparency, possible in turn only within a shared national public culture (Miller, Barry); and (4) the economic viability of specifically industrialized liberal democracies requires a single national culture (Gellner). I argue that all four arguments fail: At best, a shared cultural nation may reduce some of the costs liberal democratic societies must incur; at worst, cultural nationalist policies ironically undermine social integration. The failure of these cultural nationalist arguments clears the way for a normative theory of liberal democracy in multinational and postnational contexts.

Constitutional Majoritarianism against Popular “Regulation” in the Federalist

2021 ◽  
pp. 009059172110437
Author(s):  
James Lindley Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Common Life ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New Form ◽  
Adequate Analysis

In this essay, I make the interpretive claim that we cannot properly understand the Federalist without appreciating the extent to which the papers mount a sustained rejection of extra-constitutional democracy—practices in which people aim to assert authority over the terms of common life in ways that are not sanctioned by existing laws. I survey such practices, which were common in America before and after the Revolution. I argue that there is continuity between Publius’s justification for rejecting extra-constitutional democracy and his justification for his preferred system against constitutional alternatives. Adequate analysis and evaluation of the Federalist’s arguments about faction, representation, and institutional design require attention to the double duty the arguments play against constitutional and extra-constitutional opposition. This interpretive argument supports several analytic and evaluative conclusions. First, we must distinguish a new form of “non-hierarchical dualist” constitutionalism, according to which irregular democratic activity need not be limited to extraordinary “constitutional moments” or revolutions. Second, the politically egalitarian character of procedures depends not on the procedures alone, but how the maintenance of such procedures limits other forms of democratic practice. Third, the argument suggests a novel defense of “uncivil” disobedient politics: one grounded not in contributions to democratic deliberation, but in the entitlements of citizens to direct assertions of authority over common life.

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