democracy DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY Matt Bennett mpb74@cam.ac.uk drmattbennett.weebly.com

(brief postscript to last week) A current example of (claims about) descriptive representation

Edmund Burke (again) Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocate, but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. (Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1774)

Transforming preferences Deliberative democracy: a political community has a common good; it is not an aggregation of conflicting individual preferences “political market place model” Relevant political actors are given and fixed Those actors confront a given set of options Preferences are given and fixed through the political process Preferences are ordinal (not expressed in terms of degree) Preferences are complete Deliberativism strongly opposes c, to a lesser extent a and b

Deliberation and the Common Good Why think political deliberation will generate preferences in line with the common good? Perhaps: public discussion should lead to better informed citizens and political preferences But this is valuable for both political deliberation and a democratic market place Not public discussion but public reasoning: giving reasons, argument, and justification for a preference, and listening to the reasons of others

Public Reasoning and the Common Good Why think public reasoning will generate preferences in line with the common good? To engage in reasoning (and not just preference statements) is to collectively deliberate about what is right 2 implicit requirements: Assess political opinions on merit of argument Give reasons that are in principle acceptable by all The goal of this must be: decisions that are justifiable to all i.e. that which is in the common interest

Deliberation and Accountability

The value of political accountability Independent media, free assembly in civil society, and parliamentary political opposition, are designed to hold democratic governments accountable Three goals of accountability mechanisms: Transparency – citizens know what government is doing Criticism – government policy is open to objection Justification – politicians justify themselves to citizens

Adversarial News Media

Adversarial Politics

“Punch and Judy Politics” The Guardian Wed 31 Oct 2018 BBC News Wed 21 Nov 2018

Republicanism and Public Reason Classical Republicanism: politics promotes a particular conception of the good life and the good society, by: Curtailing corruption in public office Active citizenship, guided by a range of civic virtues Good reason = reason that is grounded in a collectively shared conception of the good life

Reasonable Pluralism and Procedures Deliberativists assume (contra Republicanism) reasonable pluralism in value But what counts as a good reason without a shared conception of the good life? Deliberativists: good reasons are those that accord with good deliberative procedures. This implies: Formalism: the form that a reason takes (e.g. universal intelligibility) is more important than its content (e.g. grounded in the value of income equality) Proceduralism: not “what must a citizen think to be included in politics?”, but rather “what ought our deliberation processes look?”

Principles for good deliberation procedures A priori argument: the very idea of reason-giving contains moral principles: i – in giving you a reason, I am treating you as free to accept it or reject it ii - every rational person is equally entitled to accept or reject my reasons Legitimacy argument: requirement that citizens accept results of deliberation generates further conditions. E.g. Seyla Benhabib suggests: Equality of participation All have the right to question the assigned topics of conversation; All have the right to question the rules of the deliberation All affected by the results of the deliberation have a right to inclusion

Deliberation and Liberalism A problem: what about freedom of dissent? Two versions of this complaint: Consensus or unanimity could surely only be reached through silencing dissent No protections here against the “tyranny of the majority” 2 responses available from the deliberativist: Attention to the norms of political participation is how we protect liberal rights, not erode them Liberal and constitutional rights need deliberation to decide how they should be applied

Debates about constitutional rights The second amendment to the US constitution: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”

Deliberative Dilemma But the option to revise political fundamentals (constitutional rights, rules of deliberation) generates the following dilemma: Either (1) liberal rights can be changed through democratic deliberation, and are therefore not necessarily warranted, or (2) they cannot be affected, because they are implicit in the very idea of reason (a priori argument). But in this case, the notion of what counts as rational assumes a significant normative weight, and may itself be politically contested