Minimally Deliberative Deliberative Systems? Problematisation and the Deliberative Democratic Effects of Poorly Deliberative Communication

Abstract

This article deals with the role of public communication in democratic decision-making, with a view to identifying communicative practices that can be expected to meet deliberative democratic standards. On the basis of two case studies, a mechanism is reconstructed through which public communication, although being poorly deliberative, can influence decision-making and achieve some of deliberative democracy’s most fundamental goals, namely, to attain mutually justified decisions, to secure the free and reasoned consent of citizens and to promote substantively correct decisions. This mechanism consists in the recurrent problematisation of a situation and the concomitant generation of political demands and proposals. This argument can at least be formulated if one adopts an institutional system perspective coupled with a concept of mutual justification understood along the lines of the ‘reasonable rejection test’.

Multi-Agent Systems for Resource Allocation and Scheduling in a Smart Grid

“…Agents of this type of anatomy develop plans to achieve their goals and therefore are more appropriate to address ambiguities and respond to unforeseen circumstances. Several models have been proposed with many BDI (Belief, desire, and intention) models to create commercial agents [ 84 ]. In this paradigm, what an agent feels towards himself and his world are his beliefs.…”

Deliberative Systems Theory and Citizens’ Use of Online Media: Testing a Critical Theory of Democracy on a High Achiever

“…Case studies have scrutinized how public discourse on specific policy issues link together with formal parts of the system through processes of meaning or information transmittance from the citizens to the core (e.g. Boswell et al, 2016; Engelken-Jorge, 2018). Further attention has also been given to the role of ‘mini publics’ as intermediaries between the general citizenry and formalized policy-making (e.g.…”

“…Studies that work comparatively, and that interestingly rely on institutional and contextual variables when accounting for participatory patterns online, have so far engaged less with implications of such comparisons for policy recommendations (e.g. Engelken-Jorge, 2018). Arguably, this state of affairs can be connected to a more long-standing lack of attention to the role of feasibility constraints in discussions of viable policies.…”