Does Deliberative Democracy Work?

Abstract

The growing literature on deliberative democratic practice finds that deliberation is a difficult and relatively rare form of communication. Each moment of a deliberative encounter raises significant obstacles in the path to stimulating greater intentional reflection on public issues. I explore these obstacles in the context of other empirical work in political and social psychology, small group communication, and public opinion. Taken together, these literatures explain why deliberation is difficult to achieve and sustain over time. They also suggest several rules that might assist practitioners in making deliberative democracy work better. Many of the obstacles to deliberative democracy raise questions about key theoretical constructs closely associated with deliberative democratic theory, including equality, legitimacy, autonomy, and reason. I conclude by suggesting that deliberative practitioners, empirical scholars, and theorists might gain from greater interaction.

Bringing values and deliberation to science communication

“…13, p. 11). A line of theory stretching from Dewey to Habermas, among others, argues that public deliberation is the essence of democracy and that public participation processes can improve the ability of democracies to deal with serious challenges (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22). Is public participation up to that challenge?…”

Barriers to Effective Deliberation in Clinical Research Oversight

“…Both the size and diversity of deliberating groups have been shown to impact the extent of pathological effects such as polarization and sequence effects, in that participation in larger groups has a tendency to amplify these effects while increases in diversity have a tendency to dampen them. For example, individual deliberators are more inclined to participate responsibly in group deliberations for which they feel accountable (Ryfe 2005), and individuals tend to feel less responsible for the outcomes of larger group deliberations (Latané and Wolf 1981).…”

“…Specific tasks or roles might be assigned to different reviewers, with special attention to the role of non-affiliated and non-scientist members in discussion (Lidz et al 2012b). Assigning non-affiliated members leadership roles could significantly buttress their deliberative influence, both by raising their perceived status and by increasing the likelihood that they will speak earlier during discussions (Ryfe 2005). A less conservative approach might give non-scientist and non-affiliated members an opportunity to deliberate together about protocols outside of the presence of the rest of the board (Saver 2005).…”

Community Engagement: Leadership Tool for Catastrophic Health Events

“…55(p253) Interested disciplines include policy analysis, city planning, environmental health, risk communication, community health, political science, and communication theory. [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70] Adequate discussion of this nuanced analytic field is beyond this article's scope, as is a full overview of the practical techniques to achieve public involvement. 55,56,71,72 The working group's goal, instead, is to make the context-driven case for why community engagement has potential value in policies related to catastrophic health events.…”

“…Conversations that are characteristically civil, fair-minded, and oriented to problem solving are rarely spontaneous. 70 "Fully public democratic conversation takes place," one communication theorist contends, "in settings where talk is bound to be uncomfortable. .…”