Recent democratic theorists have drawn on the work of the late Pierre Bourdieu to make the case that patterned inequalities in the social capacity to engage in deliberation can undermine deliberative theory’s democratic promise. They have proposed a range of deliberative democratic responses to the problem of cultural inequality, from enabling the marginalised to adopt the communicative dispositions of the dominant, to broadening the standards that define legitimate deliberation, to strengthening deliberative counter‐publics. The author interprets Bourdieu’s theory of the linguistic (...) habitus to prompt an even more radical critique of deliberative democracy than these theorists acknowledge, one to which the proposed solutions fail adequately to respond. Her argument suggests that empirical work on deliberative democracy should expand to address specifically the problems of cultural inequality that Bourdieu’s work highlights. (shrink)

When we participate in political debate or protests, we are judged by how we look, which clothes we wear, by our skin colour, gender and body language. This results in exclusions and limits our freedom of expression. The Politics of Becoming explores radical democratic acts of disidentification to counter this problem. Anonymity in masked protest, graffiti, and online de-bate interrupts our everyday identities. This allows us to live our multiple selves. In the digital age, anonymity becomes an inherent part of (...) everyday communication. Through our smart devices we express our selves differently. As cyborgs, our identities are disrupted and reassembled. We curate self-representations on social media, create avatars, share selfies and choose the skin colour of our emojis. The Politics of Becoming encourages us to engage in a revolution of the self. Democratic pluralism is not only a matter of institutional design but also about how we express our identities. Inner revolutions change our personal realities and plant a seed for democratic futures. (shrink)

Although often cast by realists as an exemplar of moralist or rationalist thinking, Jürgen Habermas and certain commentators on his work reject this characterisation, highlighting elements of his thought that conflict with it. This article will examine dimensions of Habermas’s work that relate to many realist concerns in political theory. I argue that while he escapes the commonplace caricature of an abstract thinker who is inattentive to real world affairs, Habermas’s claims in relation to communication, historical and empirical context, and (...) the development of rights in history, reveal a narrow consideration of what defines context and a progressivist narrative of history that fails to address seemingly outdated beliefs and political forces. An analysis of these issues can serve to inform understandings of these topics in realist thought and in political theory more broadly. (shrink)

Deliberation is widely viewed as being intrinsic to republican citizenship. Neo-Roman republicans such as Philip Pettit value deliberation primarily for its role in rendering coercive political authority non-arbitrary and thus non-dominating. Accordingly, a deliberative public sphere is seen as necessary to foil domination in politics. In this article, I consider a countervailing view shared by two otherwise very different theorists – Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Bourdieu’s account of social practice, deliberation can harbour subtle forms of symbolic violence (and (...) thus of domination) in ways which neo-republican theory struggles to account for. Rousseau’s ‘communitarian’ politics of austerity is, I argue, undergirded by a similar concern that complex political discourse will represent a mystifying ‘sophistry’, encoded in differentiating signifiers, and thus become an insidious site of domination. Both perspectives, I argue, help to illuminate important blind spots in the neo-republican account of political deliberation in its relationship to domination. (shrink)

Rousseau's understanding of legislation as the expression of the general will implies a constitutional principle of legislative supremacy. In turn, this should translate to a narrow, mechanical account of adjudication, lest creative judicial interpretation subvert the primacy of legislative power. Yet in his constitutional writings, Rousseau recommends open-textured and vague legislative codes, which he openly admits will require judicial development. Thus he apparently trusts a great deal in judicial discretion. Ostensibly, then, he overlooks the problem of how legislative indeterminacy—and correspondingly, (...) judicial discretion—may undermine the authority of the general will. However, I argue that Rousseau aims to check judicial subversion of legislative supremacy simply by extending his broader social politics—and specifically, his peculiar concept of republican virtue—to the domain of law. His main concern is that the law should not develop as a mystifying expert practice; therefore, he necessarily rejects any understanding of judicial virtue as lying in principled discourse. Instead, he envisages that judicial power will be checked by a more generic sense of republican virtue. In turn this echoes his apprehension of social differentiation and social complexity as sources of domination and hierarchy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Deliberative democratic theory, commonly used to explore questions of “political” corporate social responsibility, has become prominent in the literature. This theory has been challenged previously for being overly sanguine about firm profit imperatives, but left unexamined is whether corporate contexts are appropriate contexts for deliberative theory in the first place. We explore this question using the case of Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign to show that significant challenges exist to corporate deliberation, even in cases featuring genuinely committed firms. We return to (...) the underlying social theory to show that this is not an isolated case: for-profit firms are predictably hostile contexts for deliberation, and significant normative and strategic problems can be expected should deliberative theory be imported uncritically to corporate contexts. We close with recent advances in deliberative democratic theory that might help update the PCSR project, and accommodate the application of deliberation to the corporate context, albeit with significant alterations. (shrink)

This article explores the interface between public deliberation and interest politics. It empirically examines how and when actors with vested interests support and oppose processes of direct citizen deliberation, such as citizens’ juries. An analysis of four cases finds that interest groups and activists respond to citizen deliberation in a variety of ways from cooperative engagement to disruptive disengagement. The research suggests that partisan actors are most likely to support citizens’ forums when the ideational and political context offers instrumental reasons (...) to go public. The article explores what this strategic approach to public deliberation implies for the practice and theory of deliberative democracy. (shrink)

The press and scholars alike often bemoan the failure of civil public deliberation. Yet this insistence on civility excludes people who engage in adversarial tactics, limiting the ideas that are heard within deliberation. Drawing on a deliberative dialogue that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the aftermath of the deadly White Supremacist rally of 2017, this article reveals how the capacity of deliberation to be inclusive of diverse voices depends upon deliberators’ orientation to learn from people who do not participate in (...) deliberation. While much scholarship attends to learning for democracy, as in the preparation of young citizens, this article shows the significance of learning in democracy, as in the capacity of adults to learn in the midst of political strife. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo pretendemos refletir acerca da constituição do sujeito político a partir de dois conceitos específicos: rosto e cena de dissenso. Nosso argumento pretende evidenciar como, ao “aparecerem”, os indivíduos produzem uma cena polêmica de enunciação na qual se desencadeia um processo de subjetivação política e de criação de formas dissensuais de comunicação e performance que inventam modos de ser, ver e dizer, configurando outras interfaces entre experiência estética e política. Tal processo potencializa a invenção de novas visualidades e (...) interlocuções nas quais se inscreve o rosto, definido aqui como o vestígio de um lugar do outro que se transforma na promessa do meu próprio lugar, assumindo caráter político e comunicacional, num processo incessante de subjetivação política em que ética e estética se tangenciam. ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to ponder on the constitution of the political subject from two specific concepts: the face and the scene of dissensus, in order to show how the “appearance” of the individuals can produce a controversial scene of dissensus, trigger a process of political subjectivation and the creation of dissensual forms of expression and communication that invent new ways of being, seeing and saying, configuring new ways of collective enunciation and interconnections between aesthetic experience and politics. This is related to the invention of new visualities and interlocutions in which the face is inscribed. Face is defined here as the vestige of a place of the other that is transformed into the promise of my own place, assuming a political and communicational character, in an incessant process of political subjectivation where ethics and aesthetics are related. (shrink)

Political theories in general and deliberative democracy in particular have become quite popular in business ethics over the past few years. However, the model of deliberative democracy as generally referred to in business ethics is only appropriate for conceptualizing interaction between business and society which occurs within a context which is more or less institutionalized. The model cannot account for “unregulated” interaction between business and civil society. The authors argue that scholars need to resort to the so called “critical strand” (...) of deliberative democracy if we want to conceptualize interaction that happens without the involvement of decision-making institutions as political action in a deliberative sense. Adopting this approach allows us to identify cases in which unregulated interaction between business and civil society is preferable over institutionalization. (shrink)

In this thesis I outline a view of primary legislation from a systems perspective. I suggest that systems theory and, in particular, autopoietic theory, as modified by field theory, is a mechanism for understanding how society operates. The description of primary legislation that I outline differs markedly from any conventional definition in that I argue that primary legislation is not, and indeed cannot be, either a law or any of the euphemisms that are usually accorded to an enactment by a (...) parliament. I cite two reasons for such a conclusion. The primary reason for my conclusion is that I see primary legislation as being an output of a particular subsystem of society, while the law is the output of another subsystem of society. I argue that these outputs are the discrete products of separate subsystems of society. I argue that primary legislation should be viewed as a trinity. The first state of this trinity is that, upon enactment, primary legislation is a brute fact in that it is but a thing and the only property of this thing is that of being a text. The second state of this trinity is that following the act of enactment, the thing enacted will be reproduced and this reproduction is a separate thing that will sit in some repository until used. The third state of this trinity is that, upon use, this thing that is primary legislation will be transformed into an object and the user will attribute such functions and attributes to that object as are appropriate to the context within which the object is used. The thing has therefore become an object and an institutional fact. The second reason for my conclusion that primary legislation is not a law relates to the fact that the thing that is primary legislation is a text and the only function of a text is that it is available to be read. That is to say, of itself, a text is incapable of doing anything: it is the reader who defines the status of the text and attributes functions and attributes. Upon use, primary legislation thus becomes a censored input for future action and one of these actions may be some statement by a court of law. I assert that the view of primary legislation that has been accepted within the body politic is the product of the discourse of a particular subsystem of society that I have designated 'the legal practice', and I outline why and how this has occurred. Outlining a view about primary legislation also necessitates outlining a view as to the nature of the law. I assert that the law is a myth and I see this myth as a product of the discourse of the legal practice. I have asserted that although it is the judges that state the law, such statements flow from the discourse of those who practise the law. (shrink)

Political theories in general and deliberative democracy in particular have become quite popular in business ethics over the past few years. However, the model of deliberative democracy as generally referred to in business ethics is only appropriate for conceptualizing interaction between business and society which occurs within a context which is more or less institutionalized. The model cannot account for “unregulated” interaction between business and civil society. The authors argue that scholars need to resort to the so called “critical strand” (...) of deliberative democracy if we want to conceptualize interaction that happens without the involvement of decision-making institutions as political action in a deliberative sense. Adopting this approach allows us to identify cases in which unregulated interaction between business and civil society is preferable over institutionalization. (shrink)