Deliberating Downstream: Countering Democratic Distortions in the Policy Process

Abstract

Key theorists and scholars of democracy have focused on understanding and enhancing the institutions and practices that shape decision-making. Indeed, the most influential contemporary normative account—the deliberative version—though increasingly adapted to the complex realities of contemporary politics, retains a tight focus on the conditions of legitimate will formation. This remains the core underpinning of the normative impetus for innovation and reform in contemporary democratic politics. Yet missing from even the adapted deliberative account is detailed consideration of what happens after will formation. I turn here to the policy and administration literature to show how the inescapably attritional and opaque policy process can magnify asymmetries that theorists and scholars of contemporary democracy, chief among them deliberative democrats, ought to be much better attuned to. I argue that in failing to consider these problems adequately, contemporary democratic thinkers, scholars, and reformers risk lending legitimacy to institutions and practices that might sustain the very biases they are mobilized against. As such, I identify institutional innovations and governing practices that can embed aspects of democratic deliberation “downstream” in the policy process in order to counter distortions and rebalance asymmetries. I conclude by calling for theorists, researchers, and reformers to explore the value of these institutions and practices, and to expand the repertoire of governing mechanisms available to counter the distortions that occur through the policy process.

Finding common ground

“…The aim of persuasion in deliberative discourses is thus shifted from a form that aims to disabuse one's opponent of what they believe, to a form that aims to convince one's opponent to accept some statement for the purpose of a conversation. It is clear that this provides a more realistic goal for highly polarized debates, and is thus a better fit with the 'realist' impulse underpinning the systemic turn in deliberative democratic theory (see Mansbridge et al, 2012;Boswell 2016). But, unlike the other alternatives to the old consensus model, common ground is also a recognizably and measurably deliberative standard which can be applied to and across multiple settings of political debate.…”

Why Inequalities Persist in Public Deliberation: Five Mechanisms of Marginalization

“…Riots become part of a pattern in which events are dramatically reported, stir debates, and become part of the deliberation of political leaders, only to then fade out when influential actors in the media and politics look for newer events that serve their purposes. Those marginalized in public discourse do not have the resources to maintain others’ interests and affect agendas of political debate and decision-making (Boswell, 2016; De los Reyes and Hörnqvist, 2016).…”

What Is Democratic Theory?

“…Whilst parliaments, political parties, and elections are an important object for democratic theory, they are not the only object, nor is it certain that they should be the main object. There are those who have argued that in advanced democracies it is public administration rather than politics that is at the vanguard of democratization (Boswell 2016;Dean 2017;Warren 2009). In addition, there are increasing attempts to democratize the provision of community and public services, as documented by scholars of coproduction (Durose and Richardson 2016;Nabatchi, Sancino, and Sicilia 2017).…”