Deliberative Democracy and the Rhetorical Production of Political Culture

Abstract

Conceptualizing public deliberation as dialogue does not direct political challengers to speak in politically effective ways. Thus, theories of deliberative democracy calling for cooperative dialogue in pursuit of mutual understanding impede rather than foster more thoroughly democratic deliberation. Only a view of public deliberation that foregrounds strategic cultural engagement amidst conflict can adequately prepare political actors for the challenge of effective political participation.

Bending opinion: essays on persuasion in the public domain

“…But, whereas this discussion is inspired by what Gaonkar (1997) labelled the "ideology of agency" and focuses on what Gunn and Lundberg (2005) might call the vain ("ontotheological") notion that rhetors can both will and do things with their words, this chapter deals more with the ideological underpinnings of the general, public expectations vis-à-vis rhetorical agency in a particular context. Several significant contributions to current theory on rhetorical agency have given special attention to the opportunities and means that marginalized or otherwise underrepresented groups have to enter and influence public political debate (Asen and Brouwer 2001;Welsh 2002;Asen 2004). This scholarly work is highly important and promises to yield new and constructive perspectives on nurturing a more inclusive and constructive political culture.…”

Styles of Rejection in Local Public Argument on Iraq

“…While some accounts of deliberation would require a disinterested approach to the issue (see Gastil 1992;Welsh 2002), others invite a more probable and robust form of participation (Ivie 2002). The dissoi logoi fostered by dissent style can be understood both as a form of conversation and as persuasion.…”

“…It was persuasive in the sense that it strongly argued a particular stance. The persuasive nature of two-sided, deliberative argument has been considered in terms of inventing a common ground (Heidlebaugh 2001) or strategically crafting unifying cultural texts (Welsh 2002), but it can also be interpreted in terms of stasis.…”

“…As discourse theorists have long held (Dimock 2009;Kline 1979), points of agreement between two interlocutors are essential for any discourse to proceed, and a common language between the two parties is requisite for further discourse (Mouffe 1999;Welsh 2002). Not just any stasis, though, can provide a tenable ground for an opponent.…”

“The Means to Match Their Hatred”: Nuclear Weapons, Rhetorical Democracy, and Presidential Discourse

“…They raise questions about how these practices hail citizens to participate in the democratic process as particular kinds of acting subjects, endow them with a sense of entitlement and agency, mediate their understanding of others' interests and the effects of their actions upon those interests, and develop their ability to not only competently reason together within existing structures but to critique and transform those structures to ensure that their limitations as means do not subvert democratic ends (Cloud 2004, 79). Of particular concern here is the hegemony in democracy of “reason” as a framing standard (i.e., of rationality) and a conventional practice of accountability that constrains deliberation through normalized assumptions concerning the source and range of legitimate support for expression and the ontological status of political interests in relation to language (Welsh 2002). In challenging those assumptions, rhetorical scholars rigorously critique the ethics and politics of self‐described democratic discourse.…”