This article examines the debate about the normative relevance of social constructivism, arguing that the criticisms of Winner, Radder, and others are fundamentally accurate. The article argues that a combination of Radder's notion of nonlocal values and Martin's concern for deliberative interventions may offer a theoretical exit from the normative irrelevance that marks constructivism. The article goes on to suggest that theoretical and praxeological developments in two other literatures, participatory public policy analysis and deliberative democracy, may provide fruitful initiatives for (...) constructivist scholars eager to address normative concerns. The article next reviews a range of problems facing deliberative and participatory practices and suggests ways in which constructivist insights might help to advance deliberative theory. (shrink)

Any workable ideal of deliberative democracy that includes elections will need modern democracy's ever-present ally, parties. Since the primary function of parties is to win office rather than to reflect on public questions, parties are potential problems for the deliberative enterprise. They are more at home in aggregative models of democracy than in deliberative models. While deliberative democracy will need its moments of aggregation—and therefore, must have parties—partisans as they actually arise in the political world possess traits that undermine the (...) deliberative ideal. If partisans of partisanship are to be unembarrassed by (or are to correct) these defects, even workable ideals of deliberative democracy need to stand at some distance from the partisan imperative. (shrink)

The volume number is a lagging indicator, 1 but Critical Review was founded 20 years ago. As we enter our third decade, I am pleased to report that Routledge, storied publisher of the two most impo...

Taber and Lodge's 2006 paper provides powerful evidence that one's prior beliefs shape one's reception of new evidence in a manner that can best be described as “inadvertently dogmatic.” This is especially true for people who are well informed, which dovetails with findings going back to Converse (1964) showing political beliefs to be ideologically constrained (rigid) among the relatively well informed. What may explain the coincidence of dogmatism and knowledgeability is the very process of learning about politics, which must use (...) theories, schemas, ideologies, or Lippmannesque “stereotypes” to target certain political information as germane by putting it into an interpretive framework. This interpretive process is likely to create for each of us a growing database of information that is congruent with our extant convictions but that excludes incongruent information: in light of the data we have already processed, incongruent information seems increasingly implausible (if not incomprehensible), and is therefore rationally ignored or dismissed. But this does not necessarily mean, as Taber and Lodge follow Robert Abelson in suggesting, that people are “motivated” to be dogmatic rather than being unintentionally closed minded as a result of the plausibility they involuntarily accord to their priors. Recognizing the inadvertent (unmotivated) nature of dogmatism is essential if political science is to take seriously political actors' beliefs—and to assess the gravity of the problem posed by dogmatism. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is unrealistic, but so are rational-choice models of democracy. The elements of reality that rationalistic theories of democracy leave out are the very elements that deliberative democrats would need to subtract if their theory were to be applied to reality. The key problem is not, however, the altruistic orientation that deliberative democrats require; opinion researchers know that voters are already sociotropic, not self-interested. Rather, as Schumpeter saw, the problems lie in understanding politics, government, and economics under modern—and postmodern—conditions. (...) Modernity entails levels of complexity that stymie voters' attempts to be well informed about which political promises will actually solve social problems. Postmodernity adds to complexity an overabundance of fragmented information experienced impatiently and fleetingly by citizens who confuse entertainment with knowledge, and whose political demands are as unrealistic as their personal desire for a unique identity. These factors can be added, one by one, to the minimalist rational-choice model of politics, with each step leading us farther away from deliberative democracy. (shrink)

. References. Critical Review: Vol. 18, Democratic Competence, pp. 331-360.

Palmer's defense of libertarianism as consequentialist runs afoul of his own failure to provide any consequentialist reasons for libertarian conclusions, and of his own defense of nonconsequentialist arguments for the intrinsic value of capitalism‐cum‐negative freedom. As suck, Palmer's article exemplifies the parasitic codependency of consequentialist and nonconsequentialist reasoning in libertarian thought. Sciabarra's defense of Ayn Rand's libertarianism is even more problematic, because in addition to the usual defects of libertarianism, Rand adds a commitment to ethical egoism that contradicts both her (...) concern for the consequences of capitalism and her commitment to the rights of everyone, not just herself. (shrink)

Abstract Sam Peltzman has brought discipline and common sense to economic analyses of voting and representation. Yet his approach suffers, like that of other economists, from disciplinary provincialism and a singular devotion to econometrics as a research methodology. Political science offers alternative models and research methods that can enliven and deepen the political analyses of Peltzman and other economists.