From Participation To Deliberation

Political participation is falling and citizen alienation and cynicism is increasing. This volume brings together the first work of this kind by leading scholars in the US and Europe to consider the issue. Four of the leading philosophers of deliberative democracy contribute their commentaries on the groundbreaking empirical research.

Starting from the 1980s, this book provides the first, complete history of the idea of deliberative democracy, analysing its relationship with the earlier idea, and practices, of participatory democracy in the 1960s and 1970s.

Jane Mansbridge’s intellectual career is marked by field-shifting contributions to democratic theory, feminist scholarship, political science methodology, and the empirical study of social movements and direct democracy. Her work has fundamentally challenged existing paradigms in both normative political theory and empirical political science and launched new lines of scholarly inquiry on the most basic questions of the discipline: the sort of equality democracy needs, the goods of political participation, the nature of power, the purposes of deliberation, the forms of political representation, the obstacles to collective action, and the inescapable need for coercion. The editor has focused on work in three key areas: Participation and power Mansbridge’s early work on participatory democracy generated a key insight that has informed all of her subsequent work: the kind of equality we need to legitimate decisions under circumstances of common interests (equal respect) differs from the kind of equality we need when interests conflict (equal power). Deliberation and representation In the chapters in this section, Mansbridge adds nuance to democratic theory by disaggregating different modes of political representation and explicating the ways in which each can contribute to the deliberative, aggregative and expressive functions of democratic institutions. Legitimate coercion Mansbridge exemplifies a collaborative spirit through the practice of deliberative co-authorship, through which she and colleagues construct a taxonomy of procedures that can legitimize enforceable collective decisions. Essential reading for anyone interested in liberal conceptions of equality, participation, representation, deliberation, power and coercion.

Financial crisis, economic globalization and the strengthening of neoliberal policies present stark challenges to traditional conceptions of representative democracy. Yet, at the same time, new opportunities are emerging that propose alternative visions for the future of democracy. In this highly articulate book, Donatella della Porta analyses diverse conceptions and practices of participatory and deliberative democracy, building upon recent reflections in normative theory as well as original empirical research. As well as drawing on key historical examples, the book pays close attention to the current revitalization of social movements: the Arab Spring uprisings in processes of democratic transition; the potential of new technologies to develop so-called e-democracy in the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street protests; and proposals for cosmopolitan democracy found in recent campaigns for democratization of the European Union and United Nations. Alongside such social movements, the book also assesses institutional reactions, from the policing of protest to efforts at reform. This contribution to a critical contemporary debate, by a leading political sociologist and scholar of social movements, will be of great value to students and scholars of political sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as anyone interested in the shape and development of democracy.

The contributions in this anthology address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens.

What can we learn about the development of public interaction in e-democracy from a drama delivered by mobile headphones to an audience standing around a shopping center in a Stockholm suburb? In democratic societies there is widespread acknowledgment of the need to incorporate citizens' input in decision-making processes in more or less structured ways. But participatory decision making is balancing on the borders of inclusion, structure, precision and accuracy. To simply enable more participation will not yield enhanced democracy, and there is a clear need for more elaborated elicitation and decision analytical tools. This rigorous and thought-provoking volume draws on a stimulating variety of international case studies, from flood risk management in the Red River Delta of Vietnam, to the consideration of alternatives to gold mining in Roșia Montană in Transylvania, to the application of multi-criteria decision analysis in evaluating the impact of e-learning opportunities at Uganda's Makerere University. Editors Love Ekenberg (senior research scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [IIASA], Laxenburg, professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Karin Hansson (artist and research fellow, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University), Mats Danielson (vice president and professor of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, affiliate researcher, IIASA) and GOran Cars (professor of Societal Planning and Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm) draw innovative collaborations between mathematics, social science, and the arts. They develop new problem formulations and solutions, with the aim of carrying decisions from agenda setting and problem awareness through to feasible courses of action by setting objectives, alternative generation, consequence assessments, and trade-off clarifications. As a result, this book is important new reading for decision makers in government, public administration and urban planning, as well as students and researchers in the fields of participatory democracy, urban planning, social policy, communication design, participatory art, decision theory, risk analysis and computer and systems sciences.

Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions. They convene groups of people representing a wide cross-section of society for at least one full day – and often much longer – to learn, deliberate, and develop collective recommendations that consider the complexities and compromises required for solving multifaceted public issues.

This book gathers a series of studies by scholars who have dedicated these last few years to research in the field of participatory democracy. Their purpose is precisely to engage in a theoretical discussion about the value of participatory democracy in the 21st century. Part I deals with the challenge of antipolitics. This is one of the greatest challenges faced by contemporary democratic theory: How can it be possible to take into account in political decision-making processes those whose voices issue disagreement with the available alternatives in the exact same political decision-making processes, without simply excluding them provisionally from democratic participation? Part II focuses on challenges to deliberative systems. Deliberative democracy is probably the most important alternative conception of democracy in today’s available literature on the topic, insofar as it responds to a sort of general uneasiness with mere preference aggregation by majoritarian voting, and instead seeks to incorporate the vast spectrum of heterogeneous interests in modern societies in the search for mutually acceptable policies. However, it is also subject to specific theoretical challenges that must be overcome if it is to be taken seriously as a viable alternative for providing better conditions of political participation. Part II deals with some of those challenges, even if in a sympathetic attitude towards deliberative decision-making. Finally, Part III approaches pluralism and cultural diversity in a shared public space. Its main challenge consists in promoting an idea of active citizenship that can meet the demands of a world increasingly defined by the processes of globalization. Ultimately, that is what will end up combining a valid notion of active citizenship with effective decision-making procedures in pluralistic democracies. More than a simple summary of research, Challenges to Democratic Participation is designed to be accessible and useful to a wide variety of audiences, from scholars and practitioners working in numerous disciplines and fields, to activists and average citizens who are interested in seeking a theoretical groundwork for democratic practices; it also intends to enhance current scholarship, serving as a guide to existing research and identifying useful future research.