Public Deliberation Consortium
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Deliberation and Consociation: Joint Pathways to Peace in Divided Societies
No full textIn this short commentary, Arend Lijphart continues the conversation on the role of deliberation in promoting the “spirit of accommodation” in deeply divided societies. Jürg Steiner and Maria Clara Jaramillo started this discussion in their article “How to Arrive at Peace in Deeply Divided Societies? Using Deliberation to Refine Consociational Theory” published in this same issue
Psychological Mechanisms of Deliberative Transformation: The Role of Group Identity
No full textDemocratic deliberation has been shown to lead to shifts in people’s preferences for particular issues. The psychological mechanisms that underpin such shifts are not well understood. Against the backdrop of a deliberative forum we examined participants’ preferences for various types of political systems, how these preferences changed as deliberations proceeded and how the final preferences were associated with different levels of inclusiveness of a social identity. The results showed that at the end of the deliberations people’s preferences moved in the direction of satisfaction with the political system, and that this preference was positively associated with identification with the superordinate identification but negatively associated with the subgroup identification. We discuss the implication of these results for the design of deliberative forums as well as the role of social identity in deliberative democracy
Public Spheres for Deliberation on Nature? Democratic Qualities of Visitor Centres in Sweden
No full textIn this paper we explore in which ways and to what extent Swedish visitor centres in protected sites work as forums for public deliberation on environmental issues, such as nature conservation and natural resource management. By hosting deliberations on nature in nature the deliberation process is connected to its materiality. Nature interpretation sessions at three such centres, called naturum, were analysed to achieve a picture that displays the range of content and formats of these guided tours. To explore their deliberative democratic potential, we also examine how these nature interpretation sessions relate to societal and democratic issues in different ways. The conclusions are that naturum has an underdeveloped capacity to serve as a communicative forum for public deliberation on the environment and that the new national guidelines for naturum may contribute to renewed roles of the guide and the visitor in interpretive sessions, in which the citizen will be in focus
Deliberation after Consensus: Introduction to the Symposium
No full textThis editorial introduction presents an overview of the themes explored in the symposium on Deliberation after Consensus. For all the talk of its obsolescence and irrelevance, the concept of consensus still remains centrally contested through generations of deliberative democracy scholarship. In face of criticism for being neither empirically feasible nor normatively desirable, some deliberative theorists have moved away from consensus-oriented teleology and argued in favor of other legitimate outcomes of deliberations. Other theorists have resisted this move, claiming that the aim of deliberation implies that consensus should remain as a regulative ideal for deliberative outcomes. Engaging with these debates about the role of consensus in theories of deliberative democracy, this symposium brings together a selection of innovative, original research articles that raise novel questions about the role consensus could and should play in democratic deliberation and in a deliberative democracy. This introduction offers an overview of the debate over consensus drawing on the notion of successive generations of deliberative democracy research. Our aim is to demonstrate that the view of consensus has changed during generations of deliberative scholarships, but also that some scholars still defend the normative importance of the meaning of consensus once developed by the first generation. Consequently, there are tendencies of both change and continuity in the debate over consensus in deliberative theory. We conclude this introduction by providing a brief synopsis of each paper
Integrative Democracy: Mary Parker Follett’s Integration and Deliberative Democracy
No full textIn recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Mary Parker Follett by scholars of management and public administration, but the acute relevance of Follett’s work to deliberative democracy has yet to be fully appreciated. In her 1918 work The New State Follett articulates a normative political theory that I refer to as Integrative democracy, which can be seen as an alternative formulation of deliberative democracy that is based on an activity that Follett refers to as integration rather than deliberation. In this paper I first present two contemporary challenges faced by deliberative democrats: how deliberation itself ought to be defined, and whether or not deliberation produces epistemic benefits in comparison to non-deliberative voting. I then show how Follett’s theory is able to respond to both of these criticisms. Finally, I discuss how Follett’s theory may need to be extended or modified to deal with challenges highlighted by the recent systemic turn in deliberative theory
Review of Deliberation in the Classroom: Fostering Critical Thinking, Community, and Citizenship in Schools by Stacie Molnar-Main (Kettering Foundation Press, 2017)
No full textReview of Deliberation in the Classroom: Fostering Critical Thinking, Community, and Citizenship in Schools by Stacie Molnar-Main (Kettering Foundation Press, 2017)
Collective Interview on the History of Town Meetings
No full textAs illustrated in the introduction, the special issue ends with a ‘collective interview’ to some distinguished scholars that have given an important contribution to the study of New England Town Meetings. The collective interview has been realized by submitting three questions to our interviewees, who responded individually in written. The text of the answers has not been edited, if not minimally. However, the editors have broken up longer individual answers in shorter parts. These have been subsequently rearranged in an effort to provide, as much as possible, a fluid structure and a degree of interaction among the different perspectives provided by our interviewees on similar issues. The final version of this interview has been edited and approved by all interviewees
Venue Coupling and Actor Circulation in Deliberative Systems: Health Care Governance in Ontario
No full textThe “systemic turn” has been one of the most important developments in deliberative democracy in the past decade. Through a deliberative systems approach, scholars and practitioners are challenged to think about ways in which various venues and institutions interact together to produce a healthy democratic subsystem. One major challenge to this approach, however, is its methodological weakness. How exactly are various venues and institutions connected? How do they interact with each other? What conceptual tools are available in making sense of the deliberative system?
This article proposes the use of “venue coupling” and “actor circulation” to operationalize some of the key concepts of the deliberative system. Through the case of the Local Health Integration Networks in Ontario, Canada, this article maps the governance system, its institutional and interpersonal components, and their interconnections (or lack thereof). By drawing together key concepts in deliberative democracy and network governance, this article sketches out a framework that can be used to analyze governance contexts in which deliberative practices are fused with traditional political institutions like legislative bodies and bureaucracies
Participatory Deliberative Democracy for Peace in El Salvador
No full textPostconflict societies such as El Salvador, surpassing 25 years of relative peace since signing the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords, have employed many mechanisms to rebuild and establish lasting peace. This study explores the impacts of four types of deliberative democracy mechanisms employed in this postconflict context to build grassroots participation in public policy-making: cabildos abiertos (open town hall meetings), asociaciones de desarrollo comunitario (community development associations), presupuestos participativos (participatory budgeting), and planes estratégicos participativos (participatory strategic plans). Findings suggest that individual participation in these forms of deliberative democracy implemented in postconflict El Salvador is associated with increased trust in local government. However, participation is also associated with higher levels of direct experience with personal violence and decreased satisfaction with one’s community. Findings suggest that implementing participatory deliberative democracy mechanisms in postconflict contexts is not alone enough to address the critiques of top-down liberal peacebuilding. Participatory forums for policy-making in postwar contexts should be designed and employed with conflict dynamics in mind to foster possible positive effects of deliberative democracy while mitigating potential negative effects on peacebuilding
Indigenous People and the New England Town Meeting: Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 1730-1775
No full textIn the 1730s, Mahicans along the Housatonic River settled the mission town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. They participated in town meetings and elected traditional leaders to typical New England offices. Even after a growing population of English settlers began dominating town offices, the Indians remained a strong presence in meetings, which was conducted in the Mahican as well as English language, and all voting done viva voce. In 1763, a major battle when an English faction tried to take control by introducing secret balloting; the Indians complained and mostly won their case. Stockbridge thus provides a case study comparing Indian and colonial New England decision-making, and highlighting the evolution of the town meeting during the 18th century