In order to serve their citizens well, democracies must secure a number of epistemic goods. Take the truth, for example. If a democratic government wants to help its impoverished citizens improve their financial position, then elected officials will need to know what policies truly help those living in poverty. Because truth has such an important role in political decision-making, many defenders of democracy have highlighted the ways in which democratic procedures can lead to the truth. But there are also a (...) number of other epistemic goods – goods like evidence, intellectual virtue, epistemic justice, and empathetic understanding – that democracies can benefit from producing as well. In this teaching and learning guide, I chart a course through the literature that considers the importance of truth, along with these other political goods, for the healthy functioning of democracies. (shrink)

According to the deliberative view of democracy, the legitimacy of democratic politics is closely tied to whether the use of political power is accompanied by a process of rational deliberation among the citizenry and their representatives. Critics have questioned whether this level of deliberative capacity is even possible among modern citizenries--due to limitations of time, energy, and differential backgrounds--which therefore calls into question the very possibility of this type of democracy. In my dissertation, I counter this line of criticism, arguing (...) that deliberative democrats and their critics have both idealized the wrong kind of citizen deliberation. Citizen deliberation should not be concerned with the indeterminate project of "translating" abstract democratic principles and values into everyday cases of political problem-solving. Instead, deliberation should take the form of analogy, just as we already find it in everyday politics and affairs. When ordinary citizens use analogies, they do not derive decisions from general principles or values, but they still reason nonetheless. Seen from this analogical perspective, deliberative democracy is already a practical reality to a large degree. When an election is on the horizon, a campaign season arises in which debates, forums, and "barstool" dialogues exponentially increase the amount of citizen deliberation. In these settings, citizens can readily be seen to be mapping analogous past candidates, elections, issues, and problems onto those currently on the ballot so as to reason about them. Consequently, analogical reasoning allows citizens to treat the majority rule mechanisms that proliferate in real politics as "deliberative outlets," which is to say, as catalysts of deliberation akin to the "creative outlets" that catalyze self-expression in the arts. While citizens may recognize majority rule mechanisms as catalysts of deliberation, many democratic theorists will hesitate to embrace this vision of the practical reality of deliberative politics. Isn't analogical reasoning too low in rigor to be placed at the heart of the deliberative ideal? I develop two arguments to explain the foundational role analogy plays in deliberation and to counter such critics. First, I draw on the explosion of research on analogical reasoning over the past two decades to show that it is far more rigorous and systematic than many suppose. Second, I argue that to the extent that citizen deliberation is concerned with rational planning, rather than just reasoning in general, analogical reasoning is logically superior. When we reason about what to do, we make plans that incorporate predictions about what is likely to ensue when a given course of action is selected. However, as soon as predictions enter into deliberation, its underlying logic changes as well. The reason for this change in logic is that as our probabilistic reasoning expands, the probability of its conclusions degenerates. Therefore, when assessing probabilities, we no longer should seek decisions derived from long, elegant chains of reasoning that connect our various options to generalities like values and principles. Instead, what we need is "short and sweet," or terse, humble lines of reasoning, which are more congruent with this form of deliberation. Thus, to the extent that democratic deliberation is involved in rational planning, it calls not for the elegant, deductive kind of reasoning idealized by proponents and critics of deliberative democracy alike. Instead, democratic deliberation calls for the "short and sweet," analogical kind of decision-making we associate with ordinary citizens already. After all, as research has shown, analogies are a much preferred and rigorous way by which even experts engage in probabilistic reasoning. By focusing on analogical reasoning, I therefore conclude that the practical reality of deliberative democracy should be recognized in ways that might ordinarily be dismissed. (shrink)

If deliberative democracy is to be more than a critique of current practice and achieve the normative goals ascribed to it, its norms must be approximated in practice and combine its two elements, popular deliberation with democratic decision-making. In combining these, we come across a Weberian dilemma between legitimacy and effectiveness. One of the most popular methods for institutionalizing deliberative democracy, which has been suggested, is citizen associations in civil society. However, there has been a lack of precise and detailed (...) discussion about how such a system could link macro deliberations in public spheres with micro and formal decision-making arenas. This paper aims to amend this and offers a dualist model, which ensures that deliberation and decision-making are linked, and an effective balance between the Weberian dilemma is achieved, through the same secondary associations fulfilling both roles. The first part of this strategy focuses on the informal public sphere and its networks and their potential to foster deliberative communication between secondary associations and between these associations and the state that helps transform preferences and set the agenda for decision-making. The second part is mediating forums, organized by quangos, with devolved powers, where representatives from secondary associations assemble to make decisions based upon the norms of deliberative democracy. If deliberative democracy can be approximated in practice then it becomes a more persuasive theory as it means the normative goals attributed to it could actually be achieved, which is why the dualist method is significant. (shrink)

Discourse between pupils represents a core element of citizenship education in England. However, as it is currently presented within the curriculum, discourse adopts the form of the rather broad terms of 'discussion' and 'debate'. These terms are diffuse, and in themselves offer little pedagogical guidance for teachers implementing the curriculum in schools. Moreover, there has been little academic reflection in England as to how theoretical ideas on civic dialogue may usefully inform approaches to pupil discourse. For this reason, how pupils (...) experience discursive learning activities is likely to depend on how individual schools and teachers understand the terms 'discussion' and 'debate' and the way in which this understanding is translated into pupil learning activities. This article explores how recourse to deliberative democratic theory, and in particular to the principle of contestatory deliberative democracy found within recent republican writing, may be useful in helping educators to consider critically the capacities needed for effective civic discourse as a well as the outcomes of pupils' dialogical engagement. (shrink)

Representational democracy has been the main form of government in the West since the English, American, and French revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, there are indications that its ability to frame the relationship between citizen and state has begun to weaken. This weakening can be traced to many factors. One of these is the emergence of new collective actors, such as social movements, and the (re)recognition of the arena of "civil society" just as the articulating power of (...) political parties began to erode. Although these emerged initially under the umbrella of the nation state, toward the end of the 20th century a qualitatively new dynamic of networked social activism illustrated that the nation-state was no longer the only location for political action and the exercise of citizenship. These trends point to a new participatory dynamic, which could not yet be said to offer a serious challenge to representative forms of politics, but that arguably marks the beginning of the decline of that form. However, we are far from understanding how a participatory democracy might replace representational government. This article argues that we should begin now to discuss the uncomfortable gaps in our understanding of what "qualifies" participation, in order to develop a new theory of new practice and strengthen the content and potential of this new political imaginary. (shrink)