Tensions in deliberative practice: a view from civil society

Abstract

Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a ‘view from civil society’. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its ‘dual strategy’ through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outside them. Analysis of this strategy reveals two tensions in deliberative practice that the Network had to manage in order to transmit its ideas: (1) doing policy advocacy in collaboration with policy elites while staying ‘bottom-up’, and (2) developing policy ideas ‘relevant’ to decision-makers while maintaining the autonomy to be critical. These findings suggest that transmission is a complex process with four dimensions – relational, linguistic, spatial and temporal – that interact to shift power dynamics and create new meanings about policy.

Keywords:

• environmental justice
• deliberative democracy
• civil society
• deliberative practice
• tensions

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the contribution of staff, affiliates, and colleagues of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice for their contribution to this research. They brought to interviews a deep knowledge of the environmental justice movement and its history in New Mexico. This research was supported by the Research and Documentation component of Leadership for a Changing World (LCW), a program sponsored by the Ford Foundation; I recognize the contributions of my colleagues at the Research Center for Leadership in Action, and our co-researchers and partners in LCW who shaped my understanding of social change work. An earlier version of this article was presented at the ‘Deliberative Democracy and Civil Society: Interpretive Approaches’ Panel of the American Political Science Association Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 2009. My thanks to Archon Fung, Aletta Norval, Celina Su and Doug Torgerson for their comments.

Notes

1. Forums are settings in which ‘stakeholders consider differing interpretations of public problems and evaluate potential solutions’ (Crosby and Bryson 2007). For variations on this definition see Hendriks (2006b).

2. Forester (1993) calls this deliberative practice, but deliberation connotes a particular form of communication where deliberators offer reasons, while remaining open to persuasion, to arrive at a decision. Discursive implies talk more generally (Fischer 2006).

3. This article focuses on tensions that the Network faces in its external environmental. Social change organizations also face internal tensions. For example, Ospina and Saz-Carranza (2010) have documented the paradoxical relationship between fostering unity while preserving diversity in networks of immigrant-based organizations. They also discuss an external tension between engaging in dialogue with policymakers and challenging them more confrontationally. The two tensions I describe in this article are related to this paradox; they can be thought of as two dimensions of a more general tension between collaboration and confrontation.

4. My overall approach draws on narrative inquiry (Ospina and Dodge 2005) and case study methodologies (Stake 1995). My analytical focus is practice narratives, not policy narratives (Forester 1999).

5. One industry representative who participated in deliberative forums continually put off my efforts to schedule an appointment for an interview.

6. This overview draws on Ledesma (n.d.) and interviews with Network staff and affiliates, unless otherwise noted.

7. Due to the scope of this article, I provide only a brief sketch of the Network's discourse on environmental justice. For an overview of environmental justice discourse and its history, see Bryant (2003). In forthcoming work, I provide an in-depth analysis of the development of the Network's perspective on environmental justice and give more attention to its efforts to draw on them to articulate specific policy problems (see also Córdova et al. 2000).

8. The purpose of this paper is not to evaluate these forums against deliberative principles (Gutman and Thompson 1996). However, it is worth noting that the EJ Planning Committee and the EJ Policy Committee functioned consistently with them (Dodge 2009).

9. This technical ally is a lawyer from a local environmental non-profit organization that often advises members of the EJ Working Group on environmental law as it pertains to their campaigns and policy goals. As I describe in the section ‘toward bottom-up participation’, the Network has developed mechanisms to ensure ‘bottom-up’ participation in its collaborations with technical experts.

10. This restriction could be interpreted as an effort to shut down deliberation (Dodge 2009). But a broad view of the deliberative system shows a balance of perspectives. The EJ Planning Committee set the rules of engagement for the Listening Sessions, and the EJ Policy Committees made policy recommendations based on the testimony. Both were inclusive of diverse interests. In addition, the sessions brought what deliberators recognized as a missing perspective.

11. NEPA is one of the first environmental laws in the United States. It requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of proposed federal projects and document them in environmental impact statements. NEPA analysis must include provisions for public input and for assessing environmental justice impacts.

12. A memorial is ‘A formal expression of legislative desire, usually addressed to another governmental body, in the form of a petition or declaration of intent. A memorial does not have the force of law’ (New Mexico Legislature, ‘Glossary of legislative terms’, http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/glossary.aspx, accessed 20 June 2010).