When we imagine people taking power, what often comes to mind are images of activists locked in arms demanding the possibility of another world, citizens inside a voting booth, or massive political rallies powered by larger-than-life charismatic leaders. Rarely do we think of people sitting at a roundtable, poring over documents, exchanging their views, and coming up with decisions justifiable to all.
And yet, in the past 20 years, the image of a deliberating citizen has been at the centre of political theory. Deliberative democracy, a theory and practice of politics that places reasoned discussion at the heart of political life, has often been critiqued for failing to place power at the centre of its analysis. Deliberation can talk about power, but it does not take power. Deliberation is too naĂŻve, too detached from realpolitik. Deliberation is conservative. It has no radical vision for the future.
This book is motivated by these critiques. Our goal is to systematically map the criticisms against deliberationâs relationship with political power, offer conceptual clarifications that address misconceptions, and put forward proposals by which the concept of power can sharpen deliberative theory and practice.
The argument we offer in the book is this: deliberative democracy has an ambivalent relationship with power. While deliberative democracy can be a corrective to coercive power, it also generates new forms of power. The challenge, we argue, is to understand the precise conditions that allow deliberative practice to confront oppressive social structures and agential practices and promote emancipatory goals. To do this, we situate deliberative democracyâs foundations and futures in critical theoryâan intellectual approach and a political project that lays bare structures of domination that shape our political life.
The book is organised around three aspects of deliberative democracyânorms, forums, and systemsâwith each of these facets examining the debates and developments in the field. These chapters map how deliberative democracy surprisingly fosters both domination and emancipation. We argue that deliberative practice in an âimperfect speech situationâ straddles these two poles. The practical challenge is to design institutions and promote cultures that can manage the tensions of deliberative practice.
Why Deliberation and Power?
Why, one may ask, must we revive discussions on deliberation and power?
First, we think it is timely to take stock of the implications of democratic theoryâs âdeliberative turnâ (Dryzek 2000). Deliberative democracy has, for decades, been celebrated as the main game in democratic theory and practice. The field has achieved a lot in making sense of deeply divided societies and bureaucratic states, post-industrial democracies and highly unequal polities, local governance and international negotiations. Its legacy is to create a broad churchâan inclusive epistemic communityâthat brings together many theoretical traditions, empirical methods, and practical applications (Curato et al. 2017).
In 1997, deliberation was described as the âstandard for the accomplishment of democracyâ (Sanders 1997: 347). Twenty years later, deliberative democracy has become the âpredominant framework in normative democratic theoryâ such that one would be hard-pressed to find a democratic theorist who does not subscribe to the virtues of open exchange of reasons (Talisse 2017: 108). There has been, as Mark Pennington puts it, a âquasi-consensus in favour of deliberative democracyâ in Anglo-American political theory (Pennington 2010: 159).
These observations, however, are articulated as critiques of deliberative democracyâs far-reaching influence. For Lynn M. Sanders, the power of deliberation is inseparable from the power of âroutines of hierarchy and deferenceâ that has marked American society (Sanders 1997: 362). For Robert Talisse, deliberative democracy takes place in a context where our aspirations âare systematically turned against themselvesâ because of political polarisation and inequalities of information (Talisse 2017: 117). Finally, Pennington worries that pluralism of opinions takes a back seat once a collective decision reached by deliberation is imposed on all (Pennington 2010: 182). Deliberative democracy may draw our attention to possibilities to overcome certain pathologies of political life, but it is also possible that it obscures relations of power.
These critiques prompt us to reflect on what we miss when we examine politics primarily from a deliberative lens. What forms of power have become peripheral to our attention? In what ways can contemporary accounts of deliberation take them into serious consideration? A field that has gained mainstream, if not dominant, status shapes our intellectual priorities and political projects. In the same manner that deliberative democracy started as a critique of liberal democracy for its emphasis on individual rights and competitive elections (see Bohman 1998), it is worth taking a closer look at the implications of deliberative democracyâs influential vision of democracy as one that centres on inclusive reasoned discussion.
Second, emphasising the relationship between power and deliberation revisits key issues on the purpose of deliberative democracy. Some say deliberative democracy aims to give voice to ordinary citizens. Others find it useful for social learning. A growing number of scholars are making a case for its epistemic value.
We find merit in these claims, but we also argue that what brings these purposes together is deliberative democracyâs capacity to curb power. Deliberative democracy can confront state power, big media, and corporate propaganda by creating discursive environments that expose lies, spin, and manipulation. Deliberative democracy can redistribute political power by moving the centre of politics away from authorities to ordinary citizens. In the subsequent chapters of this book, we demonstrate how deliberative democracyâs capacity to humble power is not a lofty aspiration but an empirical reality, albeit one that faces limitations.
Finally, we consider it important for deliberative democracy to examine its relationship with contemporary articulations of power. The age of communicative abundance has reshaped the ways in which discourses are produced and exchanged. Politics has become more stylised. Attention has become todayâs scarcest resource. The digital public sphere presents a complex environment by which discursive power is simultaneously democratised and stratified. We have also witnessed the commercialisation of deliberative democracy, where âpublic engagementâ has become an expertise bought and sold in a burgeoning consultancy market (Lee 2015; Hendriks and Carson 2008). By emphasising deliberative democracyâs foundations in critical theory, we hope to examine new âdistortionsâ in the public sphere and what can be done about them.
Defining Deliberation
We recognise that we are bringing two controversial themes together in this bookâdeliberative democracy and powerâand so it is important to discuss what we mean when we refer to these concepts.
We view deliberative democracy as an aspiration that places reasoned discussion at the centre of political life.1
Political Aspiration
As a political a...