Deliberative democracy harbors a recurrent tension between full inclusion and intelligible speech. People with profound cognitive disabilities often signify this tension. While liberal deliberative theorists sacrifice inclusion for intelligibility, this exclusion is unnecessary. Instead, by analyzing deliberative locations that already include people with disabilities, I offer two ways to revise deliberative norms. First, the physical presence of disabled bodies expands the value of publicity in deliberative democracy, demonstrating that the publicity of bodies provokes new conversations (...) similar to rational speech acts. Second, the inclusion of people with profound disabilities necessitates a form of collaborative speech in which individuals make claims collaboratively. Habermas offers an ideal site to pursue this analysis because he recognizes the theoretical tension between inclusion and intelligibility and because his personal testimony reveals important insight into the lived experience of disability. (shrink)

'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Until recently discussion of deliberative politics took place almost exclusively among political philosophers, but many questions raised in this philosophical discussion cry out for empirical investigation. This book provides the first extended empirical study of deliberative politics, addressing, in particular, questions of the preconditions and consequences of high level deliberation. Using parliamentary debates in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as an empirical (...) base, the authors measure the level of deliberation by constructing a 'Discourse Quality Index'. As deliberative politics moves to the forefront of political theory, this book makes an important contribution to deliberative democracy. (shrink)

This article defends deliberative democracy against the problem of tacit knowledge. It has been argued that deliberative democracy gives a privileged position to linguistic communication and therefore excludes tacit forms of knowledge which cannot be expressed propositionally. This article shows how the exclusion of such knowledge presents important challenges to both proceduralist and epistemic conceptions of deliberative democracy, and how it has been taken by some to favour markets over democratic institutions. After pointing to the limitations of (...) market alternatives, deliberative democracy is defended by arguing that tacit knowledge can be brought into deliberation through the mechanism of trust in testimony. By trusting the testimony of a speaker, deliberators are able to act on knowledge even without it being explicitly expressed. The article then goes on to discuss the implications of this defence for deliberative theory, and particularly, the forms of reason which deliberative democrats must see as legitimate. (shrink)

The Characters Deliberative Judgment of Activism Deliberative Procedures are Exclusive Formal Inclusion is not Enough Constrained Alternatives Hegemonic Discourse Notes.

Garrett W. Brown has argued that donor voting caucuses produce a deliberative deficit between donor and non-donor members in the Global Fund International Board. Although we agree with this assessment, in our research on low-transaction cost alternatives to cope with consistent deliberative conditions we have found that deliberation and interest-based preference maximisation are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as long as we manage to stop donor members from behaving like monopolists. To this end, we have to open up the (...) Board from its present state of non-transparency, so that new input can be obtained from new constituents. This will also soften the current principal-agent structure that links members to their donors, easing the transition to market-driven governance rules that provide for the replacement of Board members if they do not fulfil the new constituents' expectations. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore some links between deliberative democracy, natural testimony, and epistemic injustice. We hope to highlight the exclusionary effects of some cases of testimony-related epistemic injustice within the deliberative democratic framework and, in particular, two subtle ways of epistemic injustice that are not often highlighted in the political domain. In other words, we hope to highlight two specific mechanisms of epistemic exclusion within the democratic deliberative process that are not explicitly noticed in the relevant (...) literature. In section 1, we present the deliberative model of democracy and the deliberative process. We then introduce the notion of epistemic (dis)enfranchisement, which we distinguish from formal enfranchisement, and explain the role that natural testimony plays in establishing citizens‘ epistemic enfranchisement. In section 2, we introduce Fricker‘s notion of testimonial injustice and two further testimony-related forms of epistemic injustice which seem to have been largely neglected in the debate so far, namely, discursive injustice and testimonial void. We also point out negative epistemic consequences of positive identity-prejudicial stereotypes. In section 3, we argue that these testimony-related forms of epistemic injustice can lead to epistemic disenfranchisement, which, we note, is an obstacle to deliberative democracy that warrants serious consideration. (shrink)

This article takes up the question of how to facilitate substantive inclusion in deeply divided societies. Turning to deliberative democracy and consociationalism, we find that there is a surprising amount of overlap between the two potentially contradictory models of inclusion. We consider the deliberative potential of consociational institutions that not only address majority and minority relations, but that also find ways to include minorities within minorities. To this end, we examine the institutions that make up a consociation and (...) recommend a two-stage approach to deliberation that facilitates the articulation of public reasons in political decision-making. We argue that extending broad inclusion in an initial stage of deliberations where people do not have to adhere to the criterion of public reason avoids pre-emptive exclusions, while introducing this criterion in a second, decision-making stage of deliberations retains the benefits of deliberative democracy. This two-stage approach addresses the democratic concerns in consociational democracy vis-à-vis minority groups and in deliberative democracy vis-à-vis marginalized groups (that is, minorities within minorities). We argue that adopting this two-stage approach will deepen the level of inclusion found within consociational democracies and widen the applicable scope for deliberative democracy, which is often thought most amenable to small-scale decision-making. (shrink)

Deliberative democratic theorists typically use accounts of public reason— that is, constraints on the types of reasons one can invoke in public, political discourse—as a tool to resist political exclusion; at its most basic level, the aim of a theory of public reason is to prevent situations in which powerful majority groups are able to justify policy choices based on reasons that are not even assessable by minority groups. However, I demonstrate here that a type of exclusion I call (...) "conceptual exclusion" complicates this picture. I argue that the possibility of conceptual exclusion creates the potential for public reason constraints to further exclude already marginalized groups— contrary to the standard view—and thus that taking conceptual exclusion seriously requires both a revision of traditional accounts of public reason and a reconceptualization of our civic obligations. (shrink)

This article takes up the question of how to facilitate substantive inclusion in deeply divided societies. Turning to deliberative democracy and consociationalism, we find that there is a surprising amount of overlap between the two potentially contradictory models of inclusion. We consider the deliberative potential of consociational institutions that not only address majority and minority relations, but that also find ways to include minorities within minorities. To this end, we examine the institutions that make up a consociation and (...) recommend a two-stage approach to deliberation that facilitates the articulation of public reasons in political decision-making. We argue that extending broad inclusion in an initial stage of deliberations where people do not have to adhere to the criterion of public reason avoids pre-emptive exclusions, while introducing this criterion in a second, decision-making stage of deliberations retains the benefits of deliberative democracy. This two-stage approach addresses the democratic concerns in consociational democracy vis-à-vis minority groups and in deliberative democracy vis-à-vis marginalized groups (that is, minorities within minorities). We argue that adopting this two-stage approach will deepen the level of inclusion found within consociational democracies and widen the applicable scope for deliberative democracy, which is often thought most amenable to small-scale decision-making. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy has been castigated by those who regard it as exclusive and elitist because of its failure to take into account a range of structural inequalities existing within contemporary liberal democracies. As a result, it is suggested, deliberative arenas will merely reproduce these inequalities, advantaging the already powerful extolling mainstream worldviews excluding the interests of the less powerful and those expounding alternative worldviews. Moreover, the tactics employed by those excluded social movements seeking to right an injustice are (...) typically those – involving various forms of protest and direct action – which are incompatible with the key characteristics of deliberatively democracy. This paper seeks to examine the case against deliberative democracy through the prism of animal rights. It will be argued that the critique of deliberative democracy, at least in the case of animal rights, is largely misplaced because it underestimates the rationalistic basis of animal rights philosophy, misunderstands the aspirational character of deliberative theory and mistakenly attributes problems that are not restricted to deliberation but result from interest group politics in general. It is further argued that this debate about the apparent incompatibility between the ideals of deliberative democracy and non-deliberative activism disguises the potential that deliberative democracy has for advocates of animal rights and, by extension, other social movements too. (shrink)

Deliberative systems theorists have not explained what a deliberative system is. There are two problems here for deliberative systems theory: an empirical problem of boundaries (how to delineate the content of a deliberative system) and a normative problem of evaluation (how to evaluate the deliberation within a deliberative system). We argue that an adequate response to these problems requires a clear ontology. The existing literature suggests two coherent but mutually exclusive ontologies. A functionalist ontology postulates (...) self-sustaining deliberative systems with their own functional goals and logics independent of human intentionality. In contrast, an interpretive ontology conceives of deliberative systems as the products of the beliefs and actions of the actors in the relevant practices—deliberative systems derive from human intentionality. We conclude by showing how these conflicting ontologies lead to different empirical and normative agendas. (shrink)

Deliberative systems theorists have not explained what a deliberative system is. There are two problems here for deliberative systems theory: an empirical problem of boundaries (how to delineate the content of a deliberative system) and a normative problem of evaluation (how to evaluate the deliberation within a deliberative system). We argue that an adequate response to these problems requires a clear ontology. The existing literature suggests two coherent but mutually exclusive ontologies. A functionalist ontology postulates (...) self-sustaining deliberative systems with their own functional goals and logics independent of human intentionality. In contrast, an interpretive ontology conceives of deliberative systems as the products of the beliefs and actions of the actors in the relevant practices—deliberative systems derive from human intentionality. We conclude by showing how these conflicting ontologies lead to different empirical and normative agendas. (shrink)

The deliberative systems approach is a recent innovation within the tradition of deliberative democratic theory. It signals an important shift in focus from the political legitimacy produced within isolated and formal sites of deliberation (e.g., Parliament or deliberative mini-publics), to the legitimacy produced by a number of diverse interconnected sites. In this respect, the deliberative systems (DS) approach is better equipped to identify and address defects arising from the systemic influences of power and coercion. In this (...) article, I examine one of the least explored and least understood defects: the exclusion of non-speaking political actors generated by the uniform privileging of speech in all sites within a system. Using the examples of prefigurative protest, Indigenous refusal to deliberate, and the non-deliberative agency of disabled citizens, I argue that the DS approach allows theorists to better understand forms of domination related to the imposition of speech on those who are either unwilling or unable to speak. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy has been castigated by those who regard it as exclusive and elitist because of its failure to take into account a range of structural inequalities existing within contemporar...

If belief has an aim by being a intentional activity, then it ought to be the case that the aim of belief can be weighed against other aims one might have. However, this is not so with the putative truth aim of belief: from the first-person perspective, one can only be motivated by truth considerations in deliberation over what to believe. From this perspective then, the aim cannot be weighed. This problem is captured by David Owens's Exclusivity Objection to (...) belief having an aim. Conor McHugh has responded to this problem by denying the phenomenon of exclusivity and replacing it with something weaker: demandingness. If deliberation over what to believe is characterised by demandingness and not exclusivity, this allows for the requisite weighing of the truth aim. I argue against such a move by suggesting that where non-evidential considerations play a role in affecting what we believe, these considerations merely change the standards required for believing in a particular context, they do not provide non-evidential reasons for forming or withholding belief, which are considered as such from the deliberative perspective. Exclusivity thus remains, and so too does Owens's objection. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is often celebrated and endorsed because of its promise to include, empower, and emancipate otherwise oppressed and excluded social groups through securing their voice and granting them impact in reasoned public deliberation. This article explores the ability of Habermas’ theory of deliberative democracy to accommodate the demands of historically excluded social groups in democratic plural societies. It argues that the inclusive, transformative, and empowering potential of Habermas’ theory of deliberative democracy falters when confronted with particular (...) types of historical injustices. It falters because it pays little attention to the historical dimension of injustices and the demands to which it gives rise. The historical dimension of longstanding injustices, it is argued, gives rise to a set of distinctive demands, such as collective memory of exclusion, acknowledgement of historical injustices, taking responsibility, and offering apology and reparations for causing these injustices, which go beyond the type of democratic inclusion that is often offered by deliberative democracy. Yet, the solution is not to abandon the model of deliberative democracy. Quite the contrary, it remains a valuable basis for forward-looking political decision making. The article concludes that in order to achieve inclusive, empowering and transformative deliberation in consolidated democracies that have experienced historical injustices, the politics of reconciliation is indispensable. (shrink)

The following essay begins by outlining the pragmatist link between truth claims and democratic deliberations. To this end, special attention will be paid to Jeffrey Stout’s pragmatist enfranchisement of religious citizens. Stout defends a deliberative notion of democracy that fulfills stringent criteria of inclusion and security against domination. While mitigating secular exclusivity, Stout nonetheless acknowledges the new visibility of religion in populist attempts to dominate political life through mass rule and charismatic authorities. In response, I evaluate recent innovations (...) in deliberative democratic systems theory (DDST). By adding a pragmatist inflection to DDST, I aim to apprehend the complex religious interactions between partisan interest groups as well as the trust-building capacities of minipublics. (shrink)

We discuss significant challenges to assumptions of exclusivity and highlight methodological and conceptual pitfalls in inferring deliberative processes from reasoning responses. Causes of normative–deliberative gaps are considered (e.g., disputed or misunderstood normative standards, strategy preferences, task interpretations, cognitive ability, mindware and thinking dispositions) and a soft normativist approach is recommended for developing the dual-process 2.0 architecture.

This paper wishes to problematize the foundations of production governance and offer an analytical perspective on the interrelation between agents’ preferences, strategic choice, and the public sphere . The value is in the idea of preferences being social in nature and in the application both to the internal stakeholders of the organisation and its impacts on people outside. Using the concept of ‘strategic failure’ we suggest that social preferences reflected in deliberative social praxis can reduce false beliefs and increase (...) individual wellbeing. From this approach, the paper offers a taxonomy of production organisations, based on social preferences about two variables: the governance form other strategic decisions that characterize the management of a company at a more operational level, once its fundamental legal form has been chosen. Each dimension is then categorised alongside two basic preferences: towards inclusion or exclusion of ‘publics’ that have no substantial access to decision power about these variables. Our framework explains governance heterogeneity by contrasting exclusive and inclusive social preferences in cooperatives, social enterprises, as well as traditional corporations. A discussion of the evolution of social preferences and organizational forms is addressed through examples and regional experiences. (shrink)

The idea of inclusive collective decision-making is important in establishing democratic legitimacy, but it fails when citizens are excluded. Stated-preference methods of valuation, which are commonly used in economics, have been criticised because the principle of willingness to pay may exclude low-income earners who do not have the capacity to pay. Deliberative valuation has been advocated as a way to overcome this problem, but deliberation may also be exclusive. In this review, two deliberative valuation frameworks are compared. The (...) first is grounded on the idea of rational discourse that emphasises argument at the expense of other communicative strategies. It seeks to secure inclusion through procedural rules and prerequisites, but fails to address the underlying democratic limitation of argumentation. The second does not rely on the distinction between rational and rhetorical speech, and therefore admits alternative forms of communication. This approach recognises differences in the communicative capacities and practices of those who take part in deliberation, and so is better equipped to improve, though not to guarantee, inclusion. (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy have faced the charge of leading to the unjust exclusion of voices from public deliberation. The recent rhetorical turn in deliberative theory aims to respond to this charge. I distinguish between two variants of this response: the supplementing approach and the systemic approach. On the supplementing approach, rhetorical modes of political speech may legitimately supplement the deliberative process, for the sake of those excluded from the latter. On the systemic approach, rhetorical modes of (...) political speech are legitimate within public deliberation, just so long as they result in net benefits to the deliberative system. I argue that neither of these two approaches adequately meets the unjust exclusion charge. Whereas the supplementing approach does not go far enough to incorporate rhetorical speech into public deliberation, the systemic approach goes too far by legitimising forms of rhetoric that risk only exacerbating the problem of unjust exclusion. More constructively, I draw on Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric, as an art that is a counterpart to dialectic, to argue for a constitutive approach to rhetoric. I show how this approach provides a more expansive notion of deliberation that remains normatively orientated. (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy have faced the charge of leading to the unjust exclusion of voices from public deliberation. The recent rhetorical turn in deliberative theory aims to respond to this charge. I distinguish between two variants of this response: the supplementing approach and the systemic approach. On the supplementing approach, rhetorical modes of political speech may legitimately supplement the deliberative process, for the sake of those excluded from the latter. On the systemic approach, rhetorical modes of (...) political speech are legitimate within public deliberation, just so long as they result in net benefits to the deliberative system. I argue that neither of these two approaches adequately meets the unjust exclusion charge. Whereas the supplementing approach does not go far enough to incorporate rhetorical speech into public deliberation, the systemic approach goes too far by legitimizing forms of rhetoric that risk only exacerbating the problem of unjust exclusion. More constructively, I draw on Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric, as an art that is a counterpart to dialectic, to argue for a constitutive approach to rhetoric. I show how this approach provides a more expansive notion of deliberation that remains normatively orientated. (shrink)

Theories of deliberative democracy have faced the charge of leading to the unjust exclusion of voices from public deliberation. The recent rhetorical turn in deliberative theory aims to respond to this charge. I distinguish between two variants of this response: the supplementing approach and the systemic approach. On the supplementing approach, rhetorical modes of political speech may legitimately supplement the deliberative process, for the sake of those excluded from the latter. On the systemic approach, rhetorical modes of (...) political speech are legitimate within public deliberation, just so long as they result in net benefits to the deliberative system. I argue that neither of these two approaches adequately meets the unjust exclusion charge. Whereas the supplementing approach does not go far enough to incorporate rhetorical speech into public deliberation, the systemic approach goes too far by legitimizing forms of rhetoric that risk only exacerbating the problem of unjust exclusion. More constructively, I draw on Aristotle’s conception of rhetoric, as an art that is a counterpart to dialectic, to argue for a constitutive approach to rhetoric. I show how this approach provides a more expansive notion of deliberation that remains normatively orientated. (shrink)

Deliberative scholars have suggested that citizens should be able to exchange arguments in public forums. A key element in this exchange is the rational mode of communication, which means speaking through objective argumentation. However, some feminists argue that this mode of communication may create or intensify epistemic injustices. Furthermore, we should not assume that everyone is equally equipped to take part in deliberation. Certain groups, such as Indigenous peoples, for instance, who may not be versed in rational forms of (...) argumentation, may not be listened to or involved sufficiently in the deliberative process. Therefore, it seems we need an alternative mode of communication, such as storytelling, which is a first-person or collective narrative. Given this, how should we pursue this goal? This article aims to answer this question by analysing a local conflict involving an Indigenous tribe and a neighbouring community in Brazil and exploring the underlying testimonial and hermeneutical injustices. I argue that storytelling has an important normative and institutional role in public deliberation and show that its applied version could overcome epistemic injustices and lead to better public policies. (shrink)

David Owens objected to the truth-aim account of belief on the grounds that the putative aim of belief does not meet a necessary condition on aims, namely, that aims can be weighed against other aims. If the putative aim of belief cannot be weighed, then belief does not have an aim after all. Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen responded to this objection by appeal to other deliberative contexts in which the aim could be weighed, and we argued that this response to Owens (...) failed for two reasons. Steglich-Petersen has since responded to our defence of Owens’s objection. Here we reply to Steglich-Petersen and conclude, once again, that Owens’s challenge to the truth-aim approach remains to be answered. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that one of the ways in which problems of exclusion from deliberation and uptake within deliberation can be ameliorated is to develop a more robust account of the deliberative virtues that socially privileged speakers/hearers ought to cultivate. Specifically, privileged speakers/hearers ought to cultivate the virtue of actively facilitating equitable and inclusive deliberative exchanges and the deliberative virtue of training their ‘testimonial sensibility’ to correct for prejudicial judgments about other speakers.

Resumimos la información aportada por estudios científicos recientes sobre las opiniones, visiones y actitudes de los cazadores españoles sobre la caza y su gestión. En concreto, discutimos las distintas funciones que atribuyen los cazadores a la actividad cinegética, así como los juicios morales asociados a diversas motivaciones para cazar. Seguidamente, exploramos las valoraciones expresadas por cazadores y gestores respecto a ciertas herramientas de gestión cinegética, y discutimos sobre cómo éstas influyen en la toma de decisiones. Por último, exploramos las posibles (...) tendencias futuras de esta actividad, a partir de lo expresado por los propios cazadores. (shrink)

Rationalization in the sense of biased self-justification is very familiar. It's not cheating because everyone else is doing it too. I didn't report the abuse because it wasn't my place. I understated my income this year because I paid too much in tax last year. I'm only a social smoker, so I won't get cancer. The mental mechanisms subserving rationalization have been studied closely by psychologists. However, when viewed against the backdrop of philosophical accounts of the regulative role of truth (...) in doxastic deliberation , rationalization can look very puzzling. Almost all contemporary philosophers endorse a version of the thesis of deliberative exclusivity—a thinker cannot in full consciousness decide whether to believe that p in a way that issues directly in forming a belief by adducing anything other than considerations that he or she regards as relevant to the truth of p. But, as I argue, rationalization involves the weighing of considerations that the thinker kn.. (shrink)

Much of the appeal of deliberative democracy lies in its emancipatory promise to give otherwise disadvantaged groups a voice, and to grant them influence through reasoned argument. However, the precise mechanisms for delivery of this promise remain obscure. After reviewing Habermas's formulation of deliberation, the article draws on recent theories of argumentation to provide a more detailed account of such mechanisms. The article identifies the key emancipatory mechanism as explicitness in language. It outlines the primary modalities of this mechanism: (...) expressing differences of opinion, mobilising a shared standard of inference, and recognising and excluding fallacious appeals to irrelevant factors such as force or authority. It describes how these modalities are enhanced at a secondary, reflexive level that recognises the partiality and defeasibility of particular argumentative exchanges. Such qualifications, it is argued, support a model of deliberation across discourses that allows a clearer appreciation of its potential and limits. (shrink)

This article explores the extent to which our deliberative culture determines our capacity to recognize relevant knowledge, to select and value epistemic authority, or to recognize the importance of individual and/or collective epistemic achievements in a deliberative context. This investigation is especially relevant in a moment in which the formation of public opinion no longer depends exclusively on political parties. This leads to a paradoxical situation in which the diffuse energy issued by the electorate is not easily subjected (...) to the discipline of party-oriented proposals or by media disputes that, despite their projection, may be ignored by many people. Thus, it is unclear in which sense social networks act as an alternative to the traditional system of intermediation set up by trade unions and pressure groups. By combining the approaches of deliberative democracy and social cognition theories, this essay sustains the relevance of what is defined here as ‘cooperative cognition’ in order to face this challenge. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the change of relations among participants in nanotechnology governance through their participation in governance processes such as stakeholder dialogues. I show that policymaking in practice—that is, the practice of coming and working together in such stakeholder dialogues—has the potential for two-fold performative effects: it can contribute to the development of trust and mutual responsibility on the part of the involved actors, and it may bring about effects on the formation of boundaries of what is sayable and (...) thinkable in nanotechnology governance. Three vignettes about the work of the German NanoKommission indicate the development of new relations of trust, recognition and mutual responsibility among actors. It is concluded that governance in practice can assemble new collectives in which relations of trust are the glue holding the complex structure together. While such a consensus-based progress may be favourable for smooth technology development, it can be considered problematic if evaluated against the ideals of deliberative democracy, which often form the premises on which public engagement is based. Stakeholder forums were set in place with the intention of including various actors, but this is Janus-faced: if a dialogue becomes encapsulated in new governance networks, new exclusions can arise. For example, a policing of which information is released to a wider audience can occur. (shrink)

The theory of deliberative democracy is one of the most important philosophical-political proposals in the last years for the Normative reconstruction of the democratic State of Law, and, as the Discourse Ethics, constitutes a theoretical derivation of the perspective of discursive rationality. In this respect, is necessary to analyze what kind of relation there is between both theories. This one is a hanging task, because for some of its exponents the ethical theory seems to assume the role of driving (...) and guiding, in an exclusive way, the political decisions, which implies a reduction of the political Philosophy to the field of the ethics. But, even when presupposes ethics, politics has his own rules. The present article analyzes this political theory from an internal point of view, indicating the problems that might follow from one philosophical approaching to the issue of the democratic politics exclusively from the perspective of the Discourse Ethics.La teoría de la democracia deliberativa constituye una de las propuestas filosófico-políticas más importantes de los últimos años para la reconstrucción normativa del Estado democrático de derecho, y que, al igual que la ética del discurso, constituye una derivación teórica del enfoque de la racionalidad discursiva. Ahora bien, una cuestión que es necesario analizar es qué tipo de relación se plantea entre ambas teorías. Esta es una tarea pendiente, porque para algunos de los exponentes de tal teoría ética, ella parece asumir el rol de conducir y guiar de un modo exclusivo las decisiones políticas, lo cual implica una reducción de la Filosofía política al campo de la ética olvidando que dicha Filosofía, si bien presupone la ética, tiene sus propios principios. El presente artículo analiza entonces esta teoría política desde un punto de vista interno, señalando los problemas que podrían seguirse a partir de abordar filosóficamente el cuestión de la política democrática exclusivamente desde la perspectiva de la ética del discurso. (shrink)

Participatory processes are often intended to encourage inclusion of multiple perspectives in defining management means and goals. However, ideas about the legitimacy of certain uses and users of the resources can often lead to exclusion from participation. In this way, participation can be transformed from a process of inclusion of various resource users to one of exclusion. Using a case study from a marine protected area in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico, and drawing on work in deliberative democracy, I (...) present a typology of how individuals and groups can be excluded from participation. External exclusion includes non-invitation and other means for keeping participation from occurring. Internal exclusion refers to exclusionary events during participatory meetings. This analysis suggests that participation needs to be recognized as a valuable but easily manipulated tool in the design of projects like natural resource management. (shrink)

Most contemporary deliberative democrats contend that deliberation is the group activity that transforms individual preferences and behavior into mutual understanding, agreement and collective action. A critical mass of these deliberative theorists also claims that John Dewey’s writings contain a nascent theory of deliberative democracy. Unfortunately, very few of them have noted the similarities between Dewey and Robert Goodin’s theories of deliberation, as well as the surprising contrast between their modeling of deliberation as a mixed monological-dialogical process and (...) the prevalent view expressed in the deliberative democracy literature, viz., that deliberation is predominantly a dialogical process. Both Dewey and Goodin have advanced theories of deliberation which emphasize the value of internal, monological or individual deliberative procedures, though not to the exclusion of external, dialogical and group deliberation. In this paper I argue that deliberative theorists bent on appropriating Dewey’s theory of moral deliberation for political purposes should first consider Goodin’s account of ‘deliberation within’ as a satisfactory if not superior proxy, an account of deliberation which has the identical virtues of Dewey’s theory— imaginative rehearsal, weighing of alternatives and role-taking—with the addition of one more, namely, that it operates specifically within the domain of the political. (shrink)

Habermas’ ‘ethics of citizenship’ raises a number of relevant concerns about the dangers of a secularistic exclusion of religious contributions to public deliberation, on the one hand, and the dangers of religious conflict and sectarianism in politics, on the other. Agreeing largely with these concerns, the paper identities four problems with Habermas’ approach, and attempts to overcome them: the full exclusion of religious reasons from parliamentary debate; the full inclusion of religious reasons in the informal public sphere; the philosophical distinction (...) between secular and religious reasons; and the sociological distinction between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ religions. The result is a revised version of the ethics of citizenship, which I call moderate inclusivism. Most notably, moderate inclusivism implies a replacement of Habermas’ ‘institutional translation proviso’ with a more flexible ‘conversational translation proviso’. (shrink)

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. First, there (...) are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume — both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in — to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? Second, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections 1-3 of the present article, while sections 4-5 cover the second set of issues. (shrink)

This discussion paper continues the debate over risk‐related standards of mental competence which appears in Bioethics 5. Dan Brock there defends an approach to mental competence in patients which defines it as being relative to differing standards, more or less rigorous depending on the degree of risk involved in proposed treatments. But Mark Wicclair raises a problem for this approach: if significantly different levels of risk attach, respectively, to accepting and refusing the same treatment, then it is possible, on this (...) account, for a patient to be considered competent to accept, but not refuse, the treatment, or vice versa. I argue that this puzzle does not constitute a genuine problem for a risk‐related standard. To this end I focus on the situation where, of two mutually exclusive options, one is riskier, but offering more pronounced benefit, while the other is safer, but offering less benefit. I argue for this proposition: it can take far less insight to know that the safe option is good than to know that the risky option is better. Now say one is actually informed enough to know that the safe option is good, but not enough to know whether the risky option is better; in such a case one is competent to say yes to that first option (the safe one), but not to say yes to the other. (I argue in passing that Pascal's Wager can be interpreted as having precisely this deliberative structure.) I thus conclude that cases do indeed exist where one can be competent to say yes but not no, or vice versa; and that it is thus not an anomaly in the risk‐related standard that it entails the existence of such cases. (shrink)

Today’s exponential advancement of information and communication technologies is reconfiguring participatory urban development practices. The use of digital technology implies new forms of decentralised governance, collaborative knowledge production, and social activism. The digital transformation has the potential to overcome shortcomings in citizen participation, make participatory processes more deliberative, and enable collaborative approaches for making cities. While digital tools such as digital mapping, e‐participation platforms, location‐based games, and social media offer new opportunities for the various actors and may act as (...) a catalyst for renegotiating urban space and collective goods, digitalisation can also perpetuate or even attenuate existing inequalities and exclusion. This editorial introduces the thematic issue “Citizen Participation, Digital Agency, and Urban Development” which focuses on the trajectories and (dis)continuities of citizen participation through digitalisation and elaborates this with examples from Europe and Asia on how the digital transformation impacts, challenges, or reproduces hegemonic power relations in urban development. (shrink)

Background This paper describes the design, implementation, and process outcomes from three public deliberations held in three tribal communities. Although increasingly used around the globe to address collective challenges, our study is among the first to adapt public deliberation for use with exclusively Indigenous populations. In question was how to design deliberations for tribal communities and whether this adapted model would achieve key deliberative goals and be well received.Methods We adapted democratic deliberation, an approach to stakeholder engagement, for use (...) with three tribal communities to respect tribal values and customs. Public deliberation convenes people from diverse backgrounds in reasoned reflection and dialogue in search of collective solutions. The deliberation planning process and design were informed by frameworks of enclave deliberation and community-based participatory research, which share key egalitarian values. The deliberations were collaboratively designed with tribal leadership and extensive partner input and involvement in the deliberations. Each deliberation posed different, locally relevant questions about genomic research, but used the same deliberation structure and measures to gauge the quality and experience of deliberation.Results A total of 52 individuals participated in the deliberations across all three sites. Deliberants were balanced in gender, spanned decades in age, and were diverse in educational attainment and exposure to health research. Overall, the deliberations were positively evaluated. Participant perceptions and external observer datasets depict three deliberations that offered intensive conversation experiences in which participants learned from one another, reported feeling respected and connected to one another, and endorsed this intensive form of engagement.Conclusion The adapted deliberations achieved key deliberative goals and were generally well received. Limitations of the study are described. (shrink)

More than two decades after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act , people with disabilities continue to live at the margins of American democracy and capitalist society. This persistent exclusion poses a conundrum to political theorists committed to disability rights, multiculturalism, and social justice. Drawing from feminist insights, specifically the work of Nancy Fraser, among others, I examine the necessary conditions for meaningful inclusion to be realized within a deliberative democracy. Using Fraser's concept of “participatory parity” as (...) a proxy for inclusion, I strategize how to overcome informal barriers—economic inequality and misrecognition—that persist even after disabled people are granted the legal right to participate. The analysis concludes that a truly inclusionary and multicultural democracy requires the redistribution of wealth and a more expansive model of political deliberation, one that can recognize unconventional modes of communication through practices of translation. (shrink)

The redefinition of rights of equality and liberty by radical and deliberative democrats during the last decades of the 20th century resulted in the denial that a consideration of property is integral to political philosophy. Theorizing property as intrinsically political demands a return to Marx but on terms he may not have recognized. I outline a politics of property in this paper contending that there can be no universal justification for any regime of property. Property is by definition the (...) institution of a wrong. The articulation of something as property establishes a border, determining what can be owned, how far ownership extends, where it is limited, as well as terms of use and terms of abuse. It establishes a set of property relations, and defines a vocabulary of the proper. Here sovereign state power is enlisted to enforce relations of property beneficial to some, but not all. A challenge to any political regime must of necessity put in to question both the forms of proper behaviour, and the regime of property. These are intrinsically related to each other. I conclude by arguing that democracy is always improper. Property, in all of its forms entails enclosure. Enclosure requires the drawing and the maintenance of boundaries of exclusion and inclusion. The sovereign determination of the proper, as well as of the exception to the proper defines trespass. Trespass is a form of democratic enactment when, and if, it destabilises enclosure. (shrink)