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22.
Deliberative democracy and the climate crisis Willis, Rebecca; Curato, Nicole; Smith, Graham
Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Climate change,
March/April 2022, 2022-03-00, 20220301, Volume:
13, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT
No democratic state has yet implemented a climate plan strong enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This has led some to argue that democracy cannot cope with a challenge of this ...magnitude. In this article, we take stock of the claim that a more deliberative democratic system can strengthen our ability to respond effectively to the climate crisis. The most visible development in this direction is the recent citizens’ assemblies on climate change in Ireland, France, and the UK. We begin our analysis of the promise of deliberative democracy with a recognition of the difficulties that democracies face in tackling climate change, including short‐termism; the ways in which scientific and expert evidence are used; the influence of powerful political interests; and the relationship between people and the politicians that represent them. We then introduce the theoretical tradition of deliberative democracy and examine how it might ameliorate the challenges democracies face in responding to the climate crisis. We evaluate the contribution of deliberative mini‐publics, such as citizens’ assemblies and juries, and look beyond these formal processes to examine how deliberation can be embedded in political and social systems around the world. We conclude that deliberation‐based reforms to democratic systems, including but not limited to deliberative mini‐publics, are a necessary and potentially transformative ingredient in climate action.
This article is categorized under:
Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication
Policy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions
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There is now a growing consensus among democratic theorists that we should incorporate both “democratic deliberation” and “aggregative voting” into our democratic processes. But how should the two ...democratic mechanisms of deliberation and voting interact? In this article, we introduce a new axiom, which we call “Nonnegative Response toward Successful Deliberation” (NNRD). The basic idea is that if some individuals change their preferences toward other individuals’ preferences through democratic deliberation, then the social choice rule should not make everybody who has successfully persuaded others through reasoned deliberation worse off than what they would have achieved without deliberation. We prove an impossibility theorem that shows that there exists no aggregation rule that can simultaneously satisfy NNRD along with other mild axioms that reflect deliberative democracy's core commitment to unanimous consensus and political equality. We offer potential escape routes; however, each escape route can succeed only by compromising some core value of deliberative democracy.
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Our political climate is increasingly characterised by hostility towards constructed others. Gormley answers the question: what does it mean to do justice to others? In developing this account, he ...places deliberative theory and deconstruction into critical conversation with the work of Mouffe, Aristotle, Rorty, Laclau and critical theory.
El siguiente artículo se inscribe dentro de los problemas de la deliberación y constituye un análisis de la razón pública rawlsiana. Apoyados en una concepción ralwsiana de razón pública entendemos ...que se pueden dar respuesta a las principales objeciones que se han planteado contra este modelo, particularmente, desde el modelo habermasiano. De allí que buscamos dar cuenta de lo propicio que es el umbral de apertura que propone el modelo.
Graciela Vidiella ha dedicado parte de su producción académica a indagar sobre la idea de una democracia deliberativa. En el marco de dicha indagación, Vidiella sostuvo que existe una ...incompatibilidad entre la idea de razón publica defendida por John Rawls y la concepción deliberativa de la democracia. Dicha critica deliberacionista contra la propuesta rawlsiana puede desagregarse en tres tesis: tesis del autogobierno procedimental, tesis sobre el uso crítico de la razón y tesis sobre el trato desigualitario. El presente artículo argumenta en contra de dichas tesis y en defensa de la compatibilidad de la idea de razón publica rawlsiana y la democracia deliberativa.
This essay reflects on the development of the field of deliberative democracy by discussing twelve key findings that capture a number of resolved issues in normative theory, conceptual clarification, ...and associated empirical results. We argue that these findings deserve to be more widely recognized and viewed as a foundation for future practice and research. We draw on our own research and that of others in the field.
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A healthy democracy needs citizens to make reflective political judgements. Sceptics argue that reflective opinions are either nonexistent or rare. Proponents of deliberative democracy suggest that ...democratic deliberation is capable of prompting reflective political reasoning among people. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. This article offers a bridge between psychology and political theory and proposes a theory of perspective-taking in deliberation. It argues that under the right conditions, deliberation induces more reflective judgements by eliciting the process of perspective-taking – actively imagining others’ experiences, perspectives and feelings – in citizen deliberators. Two institutional features of deliberative forums are emphasized: the presence of a diversity of viewpoints and the interplay of fact-based rational argumentation and storytelling. I test the plausibility of this theory using a case study – the Irish Citizens’ Assembly – thereby, relying on qualitative in-depth interview data and quantitative survey data. I further substantiate my findings with a laboratory experiment.
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Although empirical studies of deliberative democracy have proliferated in the past decade, too few have addressed the questions that are most significant in the normative theories. At the same time, ...many theorists have tended too easily to dismiss the empirical findings. More recently, some theorists and empiricists have been paying more attention to each other's work. Nevertheless, neither is likely to produce the more comprehensive understanding of deliberative democracy we need unless both develop a clearer conception of the elements of deliberation, the conflicts among those elements, and the structural relationships in deliberative systems.
While millions feel politically marginalized, there is evidence that democracy is evolving into a conversation-based, public-centered practice called deliberative democracy. In this new form of ...democracy, public discussion, conscious reflection, and collective choice drive democratic governance and have the power to override democratic dysfunction. Illustrating this emerging possibility with examples from 28 years of US public engagement on LGBT equality, this book offers a practical model for the growth of deliberative democracy in which everyone can take part. It identifies the necessary social catalysts, the role of social networks and technology, and key pathways to addressing unconscious bias, hidden fears, and identity based polarization as they were overcome in the LGBT case. It demonstrates how each person can gain voice and influence in a deliberative democracy in which people once again become the true source of political power. This book will interest anyone who cares about the future of democracy.
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