Category Archives: Deliberative Democracy

Good political deliberation involves listening and empathy, a rare beast it seems

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There is a good commentary piece in the Age today about the perils of political communication and the tendency for people (and I mean all of us) to interpret what we are reading or listening to from our own particular perspective, rather than trying to understand what it is that the other person is actually trying to communicate. This happens all the time, particularly it seems, when it comes to online interactions, which, according to the American scholar Cass Sunstein, is particularly prone to ‘enclave thinking’. This involves people not only looking at information using a very narrow lens, but also a tendency to seek out information that supports our pre-existing view.

Even more problematic is the tendency for people to harden their positions, particularly as the evidence stacks up against it, particularly where views are relatively extreme. (This particularly seems to be the case for climate change.)

Apart from a few exceptions, our experience with small group deliberation is that these tendencies seem to disspate as the process moves on. But not always. The key seems to be  taking the time to establish relationships within the group so that they see their task as finding a solution to a common problem together, rather than arguing their particular view (this is not to say that they should end up agreeing, but that’s for another post). The American scholar Shaun Rosenberg refers to something similar to this phenomenon in identifying the importance of emotion and empathy in deliberation. Deliberation doesn’t just involve dealing with facts, it also involves dealing with emotions. The ends we should be striving to meet, the impact of our decisions on affected others etc are all important considerations that come to play. And unless there is identification with the needs of others, then there is effectively no deliberation, there is merely a market of ideas.

When this kind of group identity occurs participants usually express considerable satisfaction, if not genuine joy, in respect to their experience. And this is despite the enormous effort that they have put into working through the issue over the space of a number of days. Those who do not engage in this mode tend not express satisfaction — to say the least, in some cases.

Just why, when and how the formation of group identity and willingness to properly engage with other perspectives in deliberation occurs is something we are currently researching. An important question concerns whether it is possible to achieve this kind of outcome in the wider public. That’s something we will be working on over the new few years.

Simon Niemeyer is a research fellow with the Political Science Program, RSSS, with research interests spanning deliberative democracy (preference transformation, institutionalisation), environmental governance, and adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. He was one of the first in the field of deliberative democracy to systematically examine the processes of preference transformation of individuals participating in democratic discourse. His research findings challenge a number of assumptions regarding how deliberation works in practice, which have significantly contributed to deliberative theory.

“Decisions, Decisions: Why Deliberate if Leaders hold all the Power?” by Jonathan Kuyper

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Politics is fundamentally about power. Determining who we are as political animals and how power shapes societal interactions are perhaps the most basic questions in the study of politics. This, at least, is my intuition. For a long time, I will admit that reading the deliberative democracy literature left me wanting. I couldn’t understand how a programme of political theory could ground its ideal in the absence of power.

The more I read, the more problematic this disjuncture appeared. For Habermas, discourse ethics is a case of ideal speech in which deliberators come to an uncoerced understanding of each other’s arguments and position. The only permissible force is that of the ‘better argument’. The ability of actors to hash out reasons and reach decisions without coercion became the touchstone of deliberative theory.

My concern is obvious. The political sphere is characterised by power differences, with actors running amok trying to get their lot in life. So, why establish a deliberative conception of political legitimacy which is not only unattainable, but seemingly contrary to reality?

Over time, I came to realise that the gap between ideal deliberation and political power is ineliminable. Power asymmetries will always exist, some people won’t be included in deliberation, and decisions always require leadership.

It is this last element which has most occupied my recent thought. Leadership is not simply a buzzword used to sell self-help manuals. It is a real phenomenon which exists in all societies at all times. Military units, African tribes, religious congregations, and the workplace all require leadership to make decisions and implement action. So, how can meaningful deliberation occur if, at the end of the day, leaders are required to make the tough decisions?

I am reminded, as so many political scientists seem to be at tough moments, of Alice in Wonderland. On one of her travel, when she comes to a fork in the road, Alice asks the Cheshire cat which road to take. The Cheshire cat asks where Alice wants to go. When Alice replies that she doesn’t know, the Cheshire cat replies that the direction is therefore irrelevant.

In the same way, deliberation requires a purpose. We all require a sense of direction to ground our thought and establish parameters for decisions. If 100 people came together with 100 different agendas, even given eternity, no decision would be reached and we would have no metric to determine whether good or reasonable deliberation had occurred.

It is my feeling that persuasion and deliberation are essential elements of what makes us political animals. However, if discussion is going to bring about democratic outcomes, the role of leaders requires a more detailed treatment. How can leaders be constrained to allow good deliberation between citizens at one moment, but enabled to make deliberative outcomes a reality? If leaders always get the final say, then what good is a reasoned consensus?

The counter-intuitive solution to this problem of leadership might be more leadership. If in deliberative events several leaders play key roles, these leaders can check-and-balance each other, deliberate with each other over issues, and dilute their own coercive power by spreading the load. This minimizes the possibility that any one individual can co-opt a deliberative event and simultaneously reduces the likelihood of leaders coercively framing discussion. Whilst this might not be a perfect solution, it is a step in the right direction.

Deliberative democrats, for the most part, have done a poor job of explaining whether deliberation can be legitimate or meaningful when combined with leadership in the real-world. I am hopeful that a system-wide analysis of deliberation will bring into sharp relief the importance and necessity of leaders. How leaders can form a legitimate part of deliberative democracy is thus up for future discussion…

For a more comprehensive treatment of leadership and deliberative democracy, see http://services.bepress.com/jpd/vol8/iss1/art4/.

Jonathan Kuyper is a PhD student in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance interested in developing a working theory of global deliberative democracy that accounts for, and sythesises, ideal theory, non-ideal theory and applied thinking. Jonathan is specifically interested in institutional design and how this limits and creates opportunies for transational deliberative experiments. His PhD project is entitled ‘Institutionalising Deliberative Democracy into Global Institutions: From Theory to Practice’, under the supervision of Professor John Dryzek and Professor Lorraine Elliott as the Chairs, and Dr Terry Macdonald and Dr Chris Reus-Smit as external supervisors.