Deliberation and Democracy: A (surprisingly) contestable relationship

Keywords: deliberation, measuring deliberation, crisis of democracy

Description: Many researchers and practitioners have understood (and understand) deliberation as a practice that quasi-automatically supports and strengthens democracy. Yet, empirical research shows that classic deliberative ideals (such as respect) can collide with democratic goods (such as accountability and responsiveness). Moreover, deliberative scholars have long focused on “ideal” institutions, such as deliberative mini-publics or institutional settings in politics that promote classic deliberative ideals. But “ideal” institutions in politics reduce deliberation to a rare event; and a focus on deliberative mini-publics means focusing on events that rarely lead to consequential outcomes in the polity and may even undermine democratic legitimacy (Lafont 2020).

In this panel, students will be familiarized with a problem-based approach to deliberation (Warren 2017; Bächtiger and Parkinson 2019). Such an approach asks what “added value” deliberative innovations and the practice of deliberation more generally can bring to a democratic system, especially with an eye on the current crisis of democracy (Dryzek et al. 2019). Moreover, students will be familiarized with novel empirical approaches to measuring deliberation (including computer-linguistic techniques) as well as assessing its individual and collective effects.