Balancing epistemic quality and equal participation in a system approach to deliberative democracy

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the asymmetrical mediated communication of the broad democratic public sphere can profitably be understood through the lens of deliberative democracy only if we adopt a system approach to deliberation. A system approach, however, often introduces a division of labor between ordinary citizens and experts (knowledgeable elites). Although this division of labor is unavoidable and I believe compatible with a deliberative principle of legitimacy, it flirts with elitist theories of democracy: epistemic elites come up with the agendas, ideas, and policy positions and democratic publics ratify or repudiate the agendas but do not generate or really engage with them. This I argue would violate an essential defining feature of deliberative democracy, namely that epistemic quality and equal participation are tightly linked. I turn to Habermas and his idea of a feedback loop as a possible solution to this dilemma.

Keyword:

• Deliberative democracy
• public sphere
• epistemic elite
• Jürgen Habermas

Notes

1. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels make precisely this point in dismissing deliberative democracy as “less relevant for understanding democratic politics on a national scale” than aggregative and elite models (Achen and Bartels 2016, p. 2, note 2).

2. http://www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca/.

3. “Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a non-profit, non-partisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change.” https://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-ccl/.

4. Habermas also acknowledges this fact: “As soon as specialized knowledge is brought to politically relevant problems, its unavoidably normative character becomes apparent, setting off controversies that polarize the experts themselves’” (1996, 351).

5. Although there is a large amount of data documenting the shift in public opinion, there appears to be no consensus on what accounts for this historic and unprecedented shift. Often the vague determinant of “cultural shift” is invoked as the underlying causal factor (Baunach 2012).

6. “That both elected government and voters can take an affirmative, a negative, or an indifferent attitude toward public opinion highlights the most important trait of the public sphere, namely its reflective character. All participants can revisit perceived public opinions and respond to them after reconsideration” (Habermas 2006, 418).

7. In the BC Citizens’ Assembly, a number of issues were off the table, for example, the size of the legislature. This did not stop participants from taking note and being reflexive about this fact and about what the conversation might have looked like if this had been on the table (Warren and Pearse 2008).

8. As Lisa Disch notes “(V)oters prefer to imagine they are treated as principled decision makers, rather than as pawns in a bid to affect partisan realignment” (2011, note 6).

9. A profile in the New York Times Magazine quoted an Obama advisor boasting that he sold the American people a “narrative” regarding the Iran nuclear deal that was not entirely factual but very effective. He claimed he created an “echo chamber” in Washington that forestalled any hard questions. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html?_r=0.

What is interesting about this story is not the revelation that advisors “spin” policy for the public. It is the outcry from all quarters when the spinning was made public. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/05/16/ben-rhodes-wont-testify-to-congress-on-iran-deal-narratives/.