Deliberation and Constitution Making

Elster, Jon

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139175005.006

Cited by 431 publications

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“…No two pacts are the same, and there is reason to think that some pacts are more deliberative than others. Elster (1998), for example, suggests that pacts which have been negotiated in public will come closer to the deliberative ideal (or to the deliberative end of the 'arguing-bargaining continuum') than those that have been negotiated in secret. The operative assumption here is that there are powerful social norms against naked appeals to private interests.…”

Section: Why Take a Deliberative Approach?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deliberative democratization: a framework for systemic analysis

O'Flynn

Curato

2015

Policy Studies

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In the transition literature, 'free and fair elections' is often treated as the most important indicator of democratic quality. In this paper, however, we argue that 'free deliberation among equals' is in many respects a more telling measure. On the face of it, this argument might strike one as implausible. After all, the decisive moment in many transitions is the signing of a pact between elements in the government and opposition who are more concerned to protect their own interests than to explain themselves to others. Yet while pacts may not be particularly deliberative, they still occasion a great deal of deliberation across society as a whole. We argue that the different sites where deliberation occurs can be understood as forming a deliberative system. To give substance to this idea, we then outline a systemic framework that may be used to describe and evaluate the deliberative capacity of transitional regimes. Finally, we turn to the cases of Venezuela and Poland to illustrate the empirical application of this approach. Both transitions were founded on a pact. Yet differences in the nature of those pacts and the broader deliberative systems in which they were located tell us a lot about where those countries are today. The comparative study of democratic transitions is one of the most vibrant areas of academic study in politics. The reasons why are obvious enough. The huge social and political upheavals that lead to the collapse of authoritarian regimes need to be explained. We need to know more about the conditions under which transitions to democracy are likely to occur and about the conditions under which democratic deepening is likely to take hold. These questions are not merely academic but have crucial policy implications. The international community spends billions of dollars every year on democracy promotion across the globe.Yet while lives are put at risk in both wars and popular demonstrations waged in the name of democracy, the fact remains that many transition countries fail to make the democratic grade.Despite the best efforts of the democracy promotion community to devise more effective policies, many countries seem to be stuck in what Thomas Carothers terms a 'grey zone'.They display some of the attributes of democratic political life, including opposition parties, civil associations and periodic elections, but they are also marked by persistent abuses of the rule of law, widespread corruption, low levels of public participation between elections, poor institutional performance by the state, and low levels of trust in government (Carothers 2002, 9-10; see also Rose and Chin 2001).Granted, assessing a transition's democratic quality is notoriously difficult. In no small part, what makes it so difficult is the fact that 'transition' and 'democracy' can be defined in different ways. Consequently, scholars can have very different, and sometimes competing, ideas about which factors are important in assessing how far a country has or has not come (Diamond et al. 2014, 87-98). In this ar...

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Section: Why Take a Deliberative Approach?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Deliberative democratization: a framework for systemic analysis

O'Flynn

Curato

2015

Policy Studies

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“…La referencia a la calidad de la confiabilidad es destacada por Florini 1999, quien aporta que la transparencia permite la divulgación de información sobre las instituciones que son relevantes para la evaluación de los organismos en donde es urgente transparentar la gestión pública, lo que implica favorecer la rendición de cuentas a la ciudadanía (Ontiveros 2004), ejerciendo su derecho ciudadano a demandar información precisa, confiable y comprobable de su gobierno. La siguiente gráfica reseñan los elementos necesarios del modelo de GA: En ese sentido, un desarrollo importante en los procesos democráticos en las últimas dos décadas ha sido el renacimiento de la democracia deliberativa en la que la publicidad es un concepto central y en donde se considera que la apertura del debate público tiene un efecto civilizador sobre la política-comportamiento (Elster 1998). La auditoría permanente de la gestión pública de los gobernantes se plasma mediante el libre acceso que debe tener la ciudadanía a la información sobre la gestión pública del Estado, en la que cada ciudadano y ciudadana puede observarse como propietario de una cuota del patrimonio público (Fuenmayor 2004).…”

Section: La Transparencia De Los Actos De Gobiernounclassified

El modelo de gobierno abierto en América latina. Paralelismo de las políticas públicas de transparencia y la corrupción

Martínez¹,

Romero²,

Rodríguez

2015

Íconos

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Fecha de recepción: enero de 2015 Fecha de aceptación: agosto de 2015 d o s s i e rResumen En el siguiente artículo se analizan de las políticas públicas de reforma administrativa y de institucionalización del acceso a la información pública en México, Guatemala y Honduras, como factores clave para la evaluación de su vinculación con la modernización y mejora de la administración pública y el combate a la corrupción.Descriptores: transparencia gubernamental; corrupción pública; acceso a la información pública; leyes de transparencia; América Latina; políticas públicas. AbstractThe following article analyzes public policies of administrative reform and related to the institutionalization of access to public information in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. It analyzes these policies in relation with the modernization and improvement of public administration and the fight against corruption.Keywords: government transparency; public corruption; access to public information; transparency laws; Latin America; public policies. d o s s i e r ResumoNo seguinte artigo analisam-se as polítcas públicas de reforma administrativa e de institucionaliazação do acesso à informação pública no México, Guatemala e Honduras, como fatores-chave para a avaliação do seu vínculo com a modernização e melhora da administração pública e o combate à corrupção.Descritores: transparência governamental; corrupção pública; acesso à informação pública; leis de transparência; América Latina; políticas públicas.

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“…There are also clear difficulties involved in moving from hypothetical tests to real-life events, and from political maxims to action itself (e.g., the obscurity of Kant's examples (Elster, 1998)). Finally, it must also be acknowledged that the philosophical scope of the Kantian conception of publicity means that it cannot adequately speak to neoliberal strategies for accumulating class power or to the role of key social forces in neoliberalism's development into a new mode of regulation and action (Hall, 2011;Klein, 2007;Overbeek, 1993;Overbeek and Pijl, 1993;Teubal, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Far from being irreducibly opposed, secrecy and publicity are mixed (Bentham, 1843(Bentham, (1999; Elster, 1998), symbiotic (Birchall, 2011), and complementary (Horn, 2011). Moreover, political secrecy is not always illegitimate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is true that there is an unclear relationship between self-frustration and injustice in Kant's political concept of publicity (Gosseries, 2005). It is also true that the Kantian examples are sometimes obscure (Elster, 1998). However, just as under a despotic power an unjust public maxim need not be self-frustrating, so under a fair and accountable power, based on the will of the people, secrecy need not be unjust and impermissible (e.g., covert police interventions, or the classification of military documents).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From the exclusion of the people in neoliberalism to publicity without a public

Queiroz

2017

Palgrave Commun

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This paper argues that the neoliberal political order relies on a particular concept of publicity-the concept of openness or transparency without a public (a populus or demos), the main content of which is the unconditional maxim "There Is No Alternative" (TINA for short). Its central claim is that the neoliberal conception of publicity without a public, connected as it is to secrecy and unconditional adherence to TINA, precludes the possibility of the "people" as an ultimate intentional sovereign legislator. Although research has revealed the strategic importance of publicity for communicative capitalism, this aspect of neoliberalism has yet to be addressed. As a means of clarifying the neoliberal concept of publicity, this paper will show that neoliberal theory cannot consistently accept the existence of the people as sovereign while maintaining its adherence to TINA. Second, it invokes the Kantian conception of publicity, which involves not merely openness and visibility but also the will of the populus. One of Kant's central insights is that publicity is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for fairness at the level of political decision-making. When public (openly accessible) statements are not based on the will of the people, publicity can become a means of illegitimate political domination against sovereign peoples. Building on Kant's insights, this paper will show that publicity without a public, along with its central mantra, TINA, is also, at the practical level, neoliberalism's main means of destroying the legislative sovereignty of the people. Since TINA precludes the possibility of the people as sovereign, analysis of the neoliberal conception of publicity that underlies TINA provides new arguments for the view that neoliberalism is essentially despotic in nature. It also points to the importance of the political category of "the sovereign people", which is all the greater where illiberal and undemocratic political alternatives jockey to fill the vacuum left by a system that, at its ideological core, cannot acknowledge the common good.

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Deliberation and Constitution Making

Cited by 431 publications

References 0 publications

Deliberative democratization: a framework for systemic analysis

Deliberative democratization: a framework for systemic analysis

El modelo de gobierno abierto en América latina. Paralelismo de las políticas públicas de transparencia y la corrupción

From the exclusion of the people in neoliberalism to publicity without a public

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