Violations of basic deliberative norms: The systemic turn and problems of inclusion

Abstract

What is the appropriate way to respond to actions that break basic norms of respectfulness, sincerity, and public-mindedness? At the same time as this question has become a central concern for democratic societies, a ‘systemic’ turn has unsettled established solutions for democratic theorists. From the systemic perspective, it is more important how actions contribute to public discourse than whether they meet standards of deliberation individually. This article challenges theorists to consider three additional propositions: (1) to be inclusive and deliberative, the system and its parts must be mutually supportive; (2) well-performing systems have sufficient reflective capacity to examine their own deficiencies when violations of basic norms occur; and (3) the performance of a deliberative system needs to take into account both the frequency of violations and the reflective qualities of the system’s response. For a well-performing system, violations of basic norms are opportunities to learn and strengthen the support for spaces of deliberation.

Reflective Inclusion: Learning from Activists What Taking a Deliberative Stance Means

“…We take this to require that they act in ways that are respectful of others' views, are "public-minded" (interested in what ideas and solutions work for others as well as oneself and support interests that are shared) and are sincere in the sense that the actors say what they mean and mean what they say. These are "basic deliberative norms" (Holdo, 2020b), but do not require any particular form of communication. Thus, as we will elaborate later on in this article, this view allows us to embrace a radical openness as to what forms of actions may count as deliberation as long as they somehow embody a deliberative stance.…”

“…This argument does not suggest that movements must always act in ways that embody a deliberative stance. Rather, it means that doing so is desirable, even if in practice there may be many conditions that make it reasonable and justifiable to act in ways that violate even basic deliberative norms (see Holdo, 2020b). We agree with Habermas (1985) and several more recent contributions (Fung, 2005; Holdo, 2020b; Rostbøll, 2009) that the principle should be that violations are justified if (1) the conditions were such that taking a deliberative stance would have made it impossible, or at least very hard, to make oneself heard and (2) the action contributes to an improvement in such conditions so that violations will be less necessary (and less justified) in the future.…”

Progressive constitutional deliberation: Political equality, social inequalities and democracy’s legitimacy challenge

“…Processes of communication, reflection, and learning increase democracy’s capacity: to initiate discussions on how a system currently fails to provide adequate opportunities for all citizens to participate in public discourse and can improve in this regard. (Holdo, 2020b: 349)…”

“…Reflexivity is about achieving ‘a degree of scrutiny by participants of their own positions as well as the positions held by others’ (Dryzek and Pickering, 2017: 357). The reflexive capacity of those participating in a meta-deliberative process is stimulated by the effort to ponder on the way the democratic system is organised, and rethink about why and how its structure must be amended (Dryzek and Stevenson, 2011: 1867; also Holdo, 2020b: 2). Discursiveness, coordination, uptake and reflexivity can be mutually reinforcing qualities of deliberation.…”

Interruptive protests in dysfunctional deliberative systems

“…Protests may expose taken-for-granted realities in deliberative systems, particularly how their component parts construct, stabilise and sustain insidious inequalities (Mendonça and Ercan, 2015). They could also prompt reflection for the deliberative system to identify their shortcomings and reform the terms of deliberation (Holdo, 2020). They can challenge emerging consensus built on exclusions and create space for new perspectives to flourish.…”