Democratic Deliberation In Deeply Divided Societies

Through case-analysis and cross-sectional assessment of eleven countries this collection explores the most deeply divided societies in the world in order to highlight what deliberative democracy looks like in a deeply divided society and to understand the conditions that deliberative democracies could realistically emerge in difficult circumstances

This analysis of deliberative transformative moments gives deliberative research a dynamic aspect, opening practical applications in deeply divided societies.

In a world where the impact of internal conflicts is spreading ever wider, there is a real need to rethink how democratic ideals and institutions can best be implemented. This book responds to this challenge by showing that deliberative democracy has crucial, but largely untapped, normative implications for societies deeply divided along ethnic lines. Its central claim is that deliberative norms and procedures can enable the citizens of such societies to build and sustain a stronger sense of common national identity. More specifically, it argues that the deliberative requirements of reciprocity and publicity can enable citizens and representatives to strike an appropriate balance between the need to recognise competing ethnic identities and the need to develop a common civic identity centred on the institutions of the state.Although the book is primarily normative, it supports its claims with a broad range of empirical examples, drawn from cases such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Macedonia, Northern Ireland and South Africa. It also considers the normative implications of deliberative democracy for questions of institutional design. It argues that power-sharing institutions should be conceived in a way that allows citizens as much freedom as possible to shape their own relation to the polity. Crucially, this freedom can enable them to reconstruct their relationship to each other and to the state in ways that ultimately strengthen and sustain the transition from ethnic conflict to democracy.

This book has won the Jean Blondel PhD award of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), and was nominated for the Annual PhD Prize of the Dutch and Flemish Political Science Associations. Theories on ethnic conflict tend to work on the premise that a deeply divided public opinion undermines democratic stability, and that conflict-ridden polities are not fertile ground for the development of a strong democracy. Democratic stability in divided societies is seen to be endangered whenever the demos plays too prominent a role, so the commonly formulated solution is that citizens should remain passive. This book addresses the role of citizens in such divided societies while they are facing political conflict. It offers interesting new perspectives on the potential of deliberative democracy as a viable alternative in the case of deeply divided polities. The author uses cutting-edge data from a deliberative experiment in Belgium, where he gathered Flemings and Walloons to discuss the future of the country at a moment when the tensions between the linguistic groups were at an historic high. His findings are insightful and interesting for deliberative theorists and practitioners, as well as for scholars of ethnic conflict.

Contending discourses underlie many of the worlds most intractable conflicts, producing misery and violence. This is especially true in the post-9/11 world. However, contending discourses can also open the way to greater dialogue in global civil society and across states and international organizations. This possibility holds even for the most murderous sorts of conflicts in deeply divided societies. In this timely and original book, John Dryzek examines major contemporary conflicts in terms of clashing discourses. Topics covered include the alleged clash of civilizations; societies divided by ethnicity, nationality, or religion; economic globalization versus resistance; plus an in-depth discussion of the 'war on terror'. Dryzek concludes by highlighting the limitations of current neoconservative and cosmopolitan approaches, arguing that only deliberative global politics offers unprecedented new possibilities for democratic engagement in the international system. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, politics, philosophy, and sociology.

Deliberative democracy has been one of the main games in contemporary political theory for two decades, growing enormously in size and importance in political science and many other disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy takes stock of deliberative democracy as a research field, in philosophy, in various research programmes in the social sciences and law, and in political practice around the globe. It provides a concise history of deliberative ideals in political thought and discusses their philosophical origins. The Handbook locates deliberation in political systems with different spaces, publics, and venues, including parliaments, courts, governance networks, protests, mini-publics, old and new media, and everyday talk. It engages with practical applications, mapping deliberation as a reform movement and as a device for conflict resolution, documenting the practice and study of deliberative democracy around the world and in global governance.

Beyond Empathy and Inclusion examines how to achieve democratic rule in large pluralistic societies where citizens are deeply divided. Scudder argues that listening is key; in a democracy, citizens do not have to agree with their political opponents, but they do have to listen to them. Being heard is what ensures we have a say in the laws to which we are held. While listening is admittedly difficult, this book investigates how to motivate citizens to listenseriously, attentively, and humbly, even to those with whom they disagree.

Democracy is an issue of major importance in theory and practice in politics throughout the world. However, democracy’s study and advancement has been significantly compromised by a dichotomy between theorising about democracy, and empirical studies of democracy in practice. In addition to highlighting the need for this gap to be overcome, this book contributes to overcoming this divide, by demonstrating a number of ways that democracy in theory and practice can be synthesised; deepening our understanding of the relationship between democracy in theory and practice in the process. Different, but related, democratic principles and concepts are considered such as legitimacy, political equality, deliberation, and participation. A range of practical contexts are also investigated including multi-level polities, deeply divided societies, whole polities, local rural and urban areas, and a range of democratic processes, innovations and spectacular events. Moreover, the book sets the agenda for future work to combine democracy in theory and practice. This book was originally published as a special issue of Representation.