Diversity in the Online Deliberations of NGOs in the Caribbean

ABSTRACT

Deliberative democracy has been promoted as a way of improving legitimacy and political equality. This article seeks to understand how deliberation takes place within the intersection of two unique spaces: regional civil society groups in the Caribbean and communication in online forums. Specifically, I explore how various forms of participant diversity influence deliberation. Using both content analysis and interview data, I argue that occupational and country diversity contribute to the use of reasoned arguments. The results suggest that online deliberative spaces could be useful in international public policy arenas.

Keywords:

• Caribbean
• civil society
• deliberative democracy
• online deliberation

Acknowledgments

The coded data set and content analysis codebook developed for this research will be uploaded on the Journal of Information Technology & Politics' Dataverse site (http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/jitp) upon publication.

Notes

1. Note that I use the terms civil-society group and nongovernmental organization (NGO) interchangeably.

2. There are of course different strands of deliberative democratic thought (Bächtiger, Niemeyer, Neblo, Steenbergen, & Steiner, 2010; Enslin, Pendlebury, & Tjiattas, 2001). Mansbridge (2007) makes a distinction between the “pluralistic,” which could be linked with the work of Dewey, and the “philosophical,” which is closely linked to that of Habermas. Theorists who adhere to the latter view focus on deliberation as an exclusive path for reaching legitimate decisions, emphasize the need for an independent civil society, and narrow the scope of what can be considered relevant discourse to reasoned arguments. Others such as Dewey (1927) accept that there is some legitimacy in the voting process, while recognizing the critical role of deliberation in decision-making. This article is based on the “pluralistic” version of deliberative democracy, and so I take an expanded view of relevant discourse and the role of civil society groups.

3. Both tests were significant at the 0.05 level.