Theorizing Dialogic Deliberation: Everyday Political Talk as Communicative Action and Dialogue

Abstract

The paradox of deliberative democracy is that the prerequisites of deliberation must be produced through deliberation itself. This essay, thus, proposes that deliberative democracy requires two levels of deliberation: One is instrumental deliberation, a procedural tool, through which people negotiate and make decisions; the other is dialogic deliberation, or dialogue, through which people construct the concept of the self and other, the sense of community, and public reason. Relying on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, Buber’s concept of dialogue, and Giddens’s theory of structuration, we propose that informal and nonpurposive everyday political talk, the practical form of dialogic deliberation, is the fundamental underpinning of deliberative democracy. Through everyday political talk, citizens construct their identities, achieve mutual understanding, produce public reason, form considered opinions, and produce rules and resources for deliberative democracy.

Youth participation through distributed discussion

“…To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. into political decision making is partly inspired by Dalhgren [3], Bohman [1], Kim and Kim [7] suggesting the sphere of everyday talk as important for maintaining the larger sphere of common citizenship. This model assumes that people talk policy-relevant ideas in informal settings, online and offline.…”

“…Dahlgren [3] sees online technologies as especially relevant: they can add access and widen availability, plus enable filtering of everyday talk into political action. "Everyday talk" is where many people make most of their contribution to the public sphere [7]. Due to their extensive Internet use, young people are important stakeholders in policies affecting the Internet, so HUWY aimed to involve young people in discussions on this theme, while piloting a distributed discussion.…”

Conversação e deliberação sobre questões sensíveis: um estudo sobre o uso das razões que circulam nos media

“…Contudo, ainda são raros os estudos que examinam o modo pelo qual os argumentos que circulam nos media incidem sobre processos concretos de debate. Esta investigação é relevante porque a comunicação que ocorre através dos media é uma parte intrínseca à conversação política (GAMSON 1992;MAIA 2012;MOY;GASTIL, 2006;KIM;KIM, 2008).…”

Improving deliberative participation: connecting mini-publics to deliberative systems

“…However, we do insist that authentic deliberation involves certain features that are not necessarily part of dialogue (see e.g. Kim and Kim, 2008). 6 The criteria for analytical rigor include (Gastil, 2008: 20-21): create a solid information base; prioritize the key values at stake; identify a broad range of solutions; weigh the pros, cons, and trade-offs among solutions; and make the best decision possible.…”