Power in Deliberative Democracy

Democratic deliberation for sustainability transformations: between constructiveness and disruption

“…Based on its critical theoretical origins, however, deliberation too comprises a disruptive component wherever this is needed to counteract dominationand more. Although it has become associated with the specific institutional innovations known as minipublics (such as citizens' assemblies) deliberation also encompasses wider discursive practices in the public sphere, through which the otherwise oppressed or marginalized empower themselves against unjustified power relations (Curato et al 2018). In the critical theory tradition outlined above, the essence of deliberation is communication that induces reflection in a non-coercive fashion, which "rules out domination via the exercise of power, manipulation, indoctrination, propaganda, deception, expressions of mere self-interest, threats (of the sort that characterize bargaining), and attempts to impose ideological conformity" (Dryzek 2000, 2).…”

“…Based on this definition, deliberation as a practice must be characterized not as the tightly defined, rational, and dispassionate ideal it has become portrayed as (and which mini-publics typically aspire to), but rather as whatever communicative engagement that maximizes inclusive, non-coercive reflexivity, for this in turn best curbs domination. It further implies the maximum degree of critical contestation still compatible with not tipping the balance toward exercising its own illegitimate, coercive power (Curato et al 2018). Where agonists place their emphasis on the disruption of hegemony, deliberation in this original, critical conception likewise seeks to disrupt domination, but with the overarching aim not of winning an ideological fight, but of thereby inducing reflection as a good in itself.…”

Mapping Deliberative Systems with Big Data: The Case of the Scottish Independence Referendum

“…Systemic perspectives emphasise the distributed nature of deliberative values; they therefore do not focus exclusively on 'deliberation' but on all sorts of communication and practices that advance deliberative democratic values, including the importance of everyday political talk in informal settings (Mansbridge, 1999;Neblo, 2015); organised, coordinated confrontation, contestation and performance (e.g. Curato et al, 2019); as well as the formal deliberation of legislatures and the institutions of 'middle democracy' (Gutmann and Thompson, 1996). But researching such complexity at the scale of mass democracy always entails a classic empirical trade-off: we can either focus on the microdynamics of everyday communication in particular sites but then lose sight of overall patterns, or we can stand back and examine patterns of communication at the large, national and transnational scale, but lose sight of detail we think important.…”

Democracy without Shortcuts: Introduction to the Special Issue

“…She reminds us that the expansion of forums for deliberative participation does not always lead to 'the democratisation and the creation of participatory society' (Pateman 2012: 15, 9, 8). This is a worthy reminder especially today that deliberative forums can serve as smokescreens for more insidious forms of power and control (Curato, Hammond & Min 2019).…”