The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they ...enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement.
This paper provides an empirically-grounded critique of what we refer to as «participatory-deliberative governance» (PDG) theory, and, drawing on Habermas' social theory, articulates an alternative ...to it. The critique of PDG is based on an in-depth study of three participatory fora in South Africa: the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), the Child Labour Intersectoral Group (CLIG), and the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC). The paper argues that coordination through deliberation is unlikely to occur in formal settings (where discourses are mostly about the accommodation of existing interests) and is more likely to be found in the informal public sphere, where the preferences of citizens are still malleable, and it is possible for civil society groups to build communicative power by articulating moral arguments that motivate and mobilize the public. This form of power can then be expended by civil society groups to counterbalance other forms of (non-communicative) power impinging on the formal decision-making sphere.
In this article, we present the results of a deliberative polling experiment conducted in March 2007 with a sample of inhabitants of the province of Turin on two issues: the high-speed train ...connecting France to Italy (TAV) and the right to vote for legal non-EU immigrants in local elections. Following the standard design of deliberative poll, we report several aggregate and individual changes in attitudes. Changes in level of information and policy preferences were significant, but more limited than in comparable local deliberative polls. However, the experiment revealed another, different, set of changes in the normative and cognitive beliefs related to the legitimacy and technical merit of the arguments held by those whose ideas the respondents do not share. In particular, the views that were contrary to the prevalent climate of opinion were perceived, after the experiment, as more legitimate and more grounded in significant empirical or normative arguments than before. These results point to the importance of a deliberative environment that allows for a balanced and egalitarian discussion in which opposing arguments can be assessed and the implications of different alternatives explored in greater detail. Such an environment encourages dialogue between majority and minority over controversial issues and it fosters mutual respect among opposing parties and greater understanding of opposing views and arguments.
