scholarly journals New Trouble For Deliberative Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Robert Talisse
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Practice

In the past two decades, democratic political practice has taken a deliberative turn. That is, contemporary democratic politics has become increasingly focused on facilitating citizen participation in the public exchange of reasons. Although the deliberative turn in democratic practice is in several respects welcome, the technological and communicative advances that have facilitated it also make possible new kinds of deliberative democratic pathology. This essay calls attention to and examines new epistemological troubles for public deliberation enacted under contemporary conditions. Drawing from a lesson offered by Lyn Sanders two decades ago, the paper raises the concern that the deliberative turn in democratic practice has counter-democratic effects.

More than Words: A Multidimensional Approach to Deliberative Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 003232172095056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça ◽  
Selen A Ercan ◽  
Hans Asenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Multidimensional Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

Since its inception, a core aspiration of deliberative democracy has been to enable more and better inclusion within democratic politics. In this article, we argue that deliberative democracy can achieve this aspiration only if it goes beyond verbal forms of communication and acknowledges the crucial role of non-verbal communication in expressing and exchanging arguments. The article develops a multidimensional approach to deliberative democracy by emphasizing the visual, sonic and physical dimensions of communication in public deliberation. We argue that non-verbal modes of communication can contribute to public deliberation when they (1) are used as part of reason-giving processes, (2) enable the inclusion of marginalized actors in public debates and (3) induce reflection and encourage new ways of thinking about the public controversies at hand.

Literature Analysis of the Theory of Liberative Democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-114
Author(s):  
Hari Zamharir ◽  
Sahruddin Lubis
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literature Analysis ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Reform Era ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Democracy Theory

During the political liberalization of the reform era (1998 – present), various groups have complained about the evil practices of democratic politics. One of the shooting targets is that we have made the wrong choice, namely adopting a majoritarian or liberal democracy model. In the literature on democracy theory, one of the theories relevant to improving democratic practice is TDD (Theory of Deliberative Democracy). Although still using the principle of representation, TDD, in general, makes corrections or improvements to the procedures and substance of democracy that have been poorly practised in Indonesia today. This research is based on qualitative research using the descriptive-analytical method to provide a clear picture of the object of the problem. The conclusion of this study shows evidence that there is a model of democracy—both in substance and in procedures. They are different from the mechanism of representation initially derived from the theory of representative democracy.

scholarly journals Public Engagement in Climate Communication on China’s Weibo: Network Structure and Information Flows

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yixi Yang ◽  
Mark C. J. Stoddart
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Climate Politics ◽  
The Public

This article provides an empirical study of public engagement with climate change discourse in China by analysing how Chinese publics participate in the public discussion around two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports and how individual users interact with state and elite actors on the pre-eminent Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. Using social network analysis methods and a temporal comparison, we examine the structure of climate communication networks, the direction of information flows among multiple types of Weibo users, and the changes in information diffusion patterns between the pre- and post-Paris periods. Our results show there is an increasing yet constrained form of public engagement in climate communication on Weibo alongside China’s pro-environmental transition in recent years. We find an expansion of public engagement as shown by individual users’ increasing influence in communication networks and the diversification of frames associated with climate change discourse. However, we also find three restrictive interaction tendencies that limit Weibo’s potential to facilitate multi-directional communication and open public deliberation of climate change, including the decline of mutually balanced dialogic interactions, the lack of bottom-up information flows, and the reinforcement of homophily tendencies amongst eco-insiders and governmental users. These findings highlight the coexistence of both opportunities and constraints of Weibo being a venue for public engagement with climate communication and as a forum for a new climate politics and citizen participation in China.

scholarly journals From public reason to deliberative democracy

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-256
Author(s):  
Ivan Mladenovic
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper I shall investigate the relationship between public reason and deliberative democracy, mainly as it is presented in Rawls?s later political theory. Against the critics who claim that Rawls has no deliberative democratic theory, I shall argue that he presented a complex view of public deliberation that contains a set of formal and substantive requirements derived from the idea of public reason. My main aim in this paper is to defend and further elaborate the thesis that Rawls?s later political theory is crucially important for deliberative democracy. Furthermore, in light of the recent literature on deliberative democracy, I examine the relevance of Rawls?s view for addressing some current problems, but also look at some limits of the public reason perspective.

scholarly journals Whistleblowing for Change

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Society ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control

The courageous acts of whistleblowing that inspired the world over the past few years have changed our perception of surveillance and control in today's information society. But what are the wider effects of whistleblowing as an act of dissent on politics, society, and the arts? How does it contribute to new courses of action, digital tools, and contents? This urgent intervention based on the work of Berlin's Disruption Network Lab examines this growing phenomenon, offering interdisciplinary pathways to empower the public by investigating whistleblowing as a developing political practice that has the ability to provoke change from within.

An Evaluation of Digital Deliberative Democracy in Local Governement

2007 ◽  
pp. 200-213
Author(s):  
Seung-Yong Rho
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Information Acquisition ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Good Practices ◽  
Site Evaluation

This chapter evaluates the current status of digital deliberation in the local governments of Seoul Metropolitan area in Korea. In order to do that, this study, first, reviews literatures on digital democracy and develops a Web site evaluation framework of digital deliberative democracy. The four stages of digital deliberative democracy consist of information acquisition, communication and consultation, citizen participation, and public deliberation. Then, after evaluating the current practices in digital deliberative democracy of 25 administrative districts in the City of Seoul based on the four stages of digital deliberative democracy, the results show that a few administrative districts have performed good practices in digital deliberative democracy. Though it could be said that many administrative districts have performed good practices of information acquisition (1st stage of digital deliberative democracy), communication and consultation (2nd stage), and citizen participation (3rd stage), public deliberation (4th stage) is not fully performed in the Web sites of the administrative districts. Based on the results, this research explores some policy recommendations to improve digital deliberative democracy.

Epistemic Justice and Democratic Legitimacy

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Dieleman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser

The deliberative turn in political philosophy sees theorists attempting to ground democratic legitimacy in free, rational, and public deliberation among citizens. However, feminist theorists have criticized prominent accounts of deliberative democracy, and of the public sphere that is its site, for being too exclusionary. Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and Seyla Benhabib show that deliberative democrats generally fail to attend to substantive inclusion in their conceptions of deliberative space, even though they endorse formal inclusion. If we take these criticisms seriously, we are tasked with articulating a substantively inclusive account of deliberation. I argue in this article that enriching existing theories of deliberative democracy with Fricker's conception of epistemic in/justice yields two specific benefits. First, it enables us to detect instances of epistemic injustice, and therefore failures of inclusion, within deliberative spaces. Second, it can act as a model for constructing deliberative spaces that are more inclusive and therefore better able to ground democratic legitimacy.

An Evaluation of Digital Deliberative Democracy in Local Governement

2011 ◽  
pp. 349-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Yong Rho
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Information Acquisition ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Evaluation Framework ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Good Practices ◽  
Site Evaluation

This chapter evaluates the current status of digital deliberation in the local governments of Seoul Metropolitan area in Korea. In order to do that, this study, first, reviews literatures on digital democracy and develops a Web site evaluation framework of digital deliberative democracy. The four stages of digital deliberative democracy consist of information acquisition, communication and consultation, citizen participation, and public deliberation. Then, after evaluating the current practices in digital deliberative democracy of 25 administrative districts in the City of Seoul based on the four stages of digital deliberative democracy, the results show that a few administrative districts have performed good practices in digital deliberative democracy. Though it could be said that many administrative districts have performed good practices of information acquisition (1st stage of digital deliberative democracy), communication and consultation (2nd stage), and citizen participation (3rd stage), public deliberation (4th stage) is not fully performed in the Web sites of the administrative districts. Based on the results, this research explores some policy recommendations to improve digital deliberative democracy.

Conceptualizing Connectivity in Deliberative Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-35
Author(s):  
Carolyn M. Hendriks ◽  
Selen A. Ercan ◽  
John Boswell
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Deliberative System ◽  
Close Study ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Representative Process

Chapter 2 offers a critical review of three systemic accounts of deliberative democracy, focusing on their assumptions about democratic connectivity. It draws attention to the ‘communicative miracles’ that lie at the heart of each deliberative system account—‘miracles’ that are out of step with contemporary disconnects experienced in the representative process, in the public sphere itself, and along the policy process. The chapter shows that these ‘communicative miracles’ are not only theoretical blind spots, but also practical obstacles hindering deliberative democracy from speaking more directly to, and serving as a richer resource for, democratic renewal. The chapter calls for a more empirically informed account of connectivity in contemporary public deliberation, one that is grounded in the work and agency of those involved in making or strengthening connectivity. It argues that an abductive research approach that employs interpretive methods is particularly well suited for developing such empirically informed accounts of connectivity. The chapter concludes by making the case for the close study of contemporary political practices, especially focused on how diverse actors are experiencing democratic disconnects, and what actions they are taking to mend them.

Democracy When the People Are Thinking

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Fishkin
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
The People ◽  
The Will

Democracy requires a connection to the “will of the people.” What does that mean in a world of “fake news,” relentless advocacy, dialogue mostly among the like-minded, and massive spending to manipulate public opinion? What kind of opinion can the public have under such conditions? What would democracy be like if the people were really thinking in depth about the policies they must live with? This book argues that “deliberative democracy” is not utopian. It is a practical solution to many of democracy’s ills. It can supplement existing institutions with practical reforms. It can apply at all levels of government and for many different kinds of policy choices. This book speaks to a recurring dilemma: listen to the people and get the angry voices of populism or rely on widely distrusted elites and get policies that seem out of touch with the public’s concerns. Instead, there are methods for getting a representative and thoughtful public voice that is really worth listening to. Democracy is under siege in most countries. Democratic institutions have low approval and face a resurgent threat from authoritarian regimes. Deliberative democracy can provide an antidote. It can reinvigorate our democratic politics. This book draws on the author’s research with many collaborators on “Deliberative Polling”—a process he has conducted in twenty-seven countries on six continents. It contributes both to political theory and to the empirical study of public opinion and participation, and should interest anyone concerned about the future of democracy and how it can be revitalized.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document