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Deliberative Democracy - Science topic
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The concept of the Deep State is the very essence of the conspiracy theory. A shadowy organisation operating deep with our society to undermine our freedoms and economic welfare for the benefit of elites.
Is this based on any real evidence to is it more likely that the Deep State is actually simply the manifestation of the state itself? Has there ever been a society that was not founded by and effectively controlled by elites?
More to the point why do those who so fervently rail against the concept of elites believe that an uneducated proletariat, driven by a largely mythological idea of what democracy is, could function without a deep infrastructure?
I
Since 2016 Brexit, the world needed to change the thinking behind traditional democracy as the democratic landscape changed, yet traditional democratic thinkers and actors have been acting as if the competition for power is STILL BETWEEN NORMAL DEMOCRATIC OUTCOMES that are happy to live within an independent rule of law system, when it is no longer the case as now a new variable came into play, legal targeted chaos, that when effective it is a game changer as it leads to extreme democratic outcomes that should be expected to be unhappy living under an independent rule of law system. To be able to answer general questions as the one here, we need to rethink democracy thinking.
And this raises the question: In terms of chaos, what is the necessary and sufficient condition for authoritarianism, permanent or temporary, to come to exist and persist?
What do you think is the answer to this question is from the point of view of just CHAOS?
The argument of this short piece is that freedom of speech is a normatively governed institution which like roads and bridges needs to be maintained by government. The argument draws on writings of the conservative columnist George Will.
Freedom of speech and
the Consent of the Governed
H.G. Callaway
“Free speech,” wrote conservative political columnist George Will (an ex-Republican and “never-Trumper”) “is not free in the sense that it is free of prerequisites, it is not free of a complicated institutional frame”;
Free speech, as much as a highway system, is something government must establish and maintain. The government of a country without the rare and fragile traditions of civility, without education and communications capabilities, could proclaim freedom of speech and resolutely stand back. But the result would not be free speech. It would be mayhem, and the triumph of incivility.1
The chief idea here is that “free speech” is properly understood as a normative, political institution and a social-political aim established by constitutional government—and not a natural result of human activities lacking a needed “institutional frame.” On the contrary, lacking an appropriate institutional frame, according to Will’s view, the result is “mayhem” and “the triumph of incivility.” What, then, is the appropriate “institutional frame” of free speech? How are we to avoid a breakdown or degeneration of free speech into incivility and social-political mayhem? Free speech, among much else, is intended to register the presence and/or lack of public support for government: “the consent of the governed.” The people may, for instance, in the words of the First Amendment, “peaceably assemble” and “petition the government for
redress of grievances.” But free speech does not include the encouragement of or sympathy for violence and street mobs. “Mostly peaceful” demonstrations cannot excuse associated violence and disorder arising from demonstrations; and the leftward slogan, “No Justice, No Peace,” must be resolutely rejected. The establishment of justice comes through the law and in the courts of law. As Fukuyama has put a related point, the state “is an instrument for controlling violence, and one of the ways you do that is by shifting the locus of conflict from the streets into a parliament where you can argue and deliberate rather than fighting things out.”2 I
It is not that American history contains no periods and episodes illustrating related dangers, possible solutions and resolutions. The dangers have recurred—starting with the factionalism of the 1790’s and erupting again in the most severe form in the pre-Civil War period of the 1850’s. Though contemporary polarization has frequently been compared to that of the 1850’s,3 the Present situation present more plausibly invites comparison to the factionalism of the late Gilded Age and , the Progressive Era,4 or the divisions between right and left during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Contemporary commonalities with the period from the Gilded Age through the Progressive Era and with the 1930’s include not only intensive political divisiveness and discord, but also very significant levels of social-economic distress—conditioned by prior periods of
large-scale economic expansion and dislocations: the Gilded Age of mass industrialization and the “roaring 1920’s” respectively.
As a country, the U.S. is held together in significant degree by its promise of economic opportunity for ordinary people. This promise has drawn immigrants from around the world over centuries; and the state of the economy has long been a chief indicator of up-coming election results. Situations perceived as a threat to broad economic opportunity evoke public discontent and in the extreme tend to set one demographic group against another. We depend on a free press to keep the public informed, to avoid rationalization of evils or sensationalizing reports. By that standard, large segments of the partisan media are not serving the public interest. There is a lack of needed balance between the commercial interests of the media and their duties to the public.
Looking for the institutional frame of free speech, we naturally first think of the Supreme Court and its decisions under the First Amendment. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press.” It might seem initially that this amounts to a purely lassez-faire, renunciation of lawful control or regulation of speech. But it is not.
First of all, the courts have had to decide what counts as constitutionally protected speech. A good deal of this is familiar in terms of what is prohibited by law. You can’t legally stand up before an angry crowd, for instance, and urge the crowd to violence. Inciting riot is illegal. Speech is not protected where it evokes a “clear and present danger” of unlawful action. In consequence, you cannot legally incite a mob to violence or falsely shout “Fire!” in a crowed theater risking the immediate dangers of a crowd in panic. In certain contexts, speech is regulated in the public interest, chiefly where speech itself becomes a dangerous form of action. But that is not the end of the matter.
Though publicly financed colleges and universities are obligated by the First Amendment to protect freedom of speech on campus, these institutions may and do prohibit disruptive speech in the classroom as a condition of student attendance and educational participation. It is doubtful that higher education would be possible without provisions for the instructor’s control of classroom participation. Institutional prohibition of explicitly racist agitation also makes good sense in this context, since there is little or no reason to think that such speech in the classroom would contribute to improvement of the students or improvement of the (factually multiracial) polity. This makes at least as much sense as the instructor refraining from racial agitation. But
examining arguments for and against racism is something else again. Provocation in teaching has its just limits. Still provocation in private exchanges is limited only by the criterion of its presenting a “clear and present danger.”
There is no sense of constitutionally protected freedom of speech which removes the possibility of someone being offended by what is said in classroom discussion. In consequence, the expanding notion of speech as “micro-aggression,” amounts to a rejection of free speech. Since free speech and the freedom of the press are suited to aid the public in defending itself against the abuse of political power, the power to offend cannot be removed without gutting the democratic ideal of government by the consent of the governed. Constitutionally protected freedom of speech is not designed to make everyone feel comfortable, it is instead designed to keep a country and its inhabitants free.
What are the just limits of free speech on campus? Beyond saying in formal terms that one political or controversial opinion cannot be forbidden if its denial or opposite is allowed, it seems clear that there is a place in these decisions for appeal to existing moral and cultural authority, conceived as guiding good judgment. But this is quite distinct from simply catering or encouraging student hypersensitivities or treating students as “customers” to be pleased and who, like commercial customers are to be viewed as “always right.” Good judgment in the classroom, is definitely much called for, not administrative censorship!
The First Amendment closely links freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and freedom of the press is now broadly understood to include freedom of expression in radio, television and the newer electronic media. Regulation of the public media is a long established fact of federal law and court decisions. The laws regulating public media may easily be viewed as contributing to the “institutional frame” (or lack thereof) of press freedom; and they are consistent with the principle of the consent of the governed, insofar as they have been enacted by duly elected representatives of the people in accordance with the constitution. But it may be doubted that the current U.S. regulatory law has kept pace with rapid technological developments and their commercial exploitation. The “consent of the governed” as a principle of liberal, constitutional
democracy surely does not require the commercial imperative of mass participation (and mass commercial surveillance) via advertisement supported “free” internet subscriptions.5
NOTES:
1. George Will 1983, Statecraft as Soulcraft, What Government Does (New York: Simon and Schuster), pp. 123-124. Will’s book derives from the Godkin Lectures delivered at Harvard University in October 1981.
2. Quoted in Mathilde Fasting, ed. 2021, After the End of History, Conversations with Francis Fukuyama (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press), p. 82.
3. For an empirically based analysis of the factors tending to evoke civil wars around the world, see, Barbara F. Walters 2022, How Civil Wars Start (New York: Viking).
present situation more plausibly invites comparison to the factionalism of the late Gilded Age and the Progressive Era,4 or the divisions between right and left during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Contemporary commonalities with the period from the Gilded Age through the Progressive Era and with the 1930’s include not only intensive political divisiveness and discord, but also very significant levels of social-economic distress—conditioned by prior periods of large-scale economic expansion and dislocations: the Gilded Age of mass industrialization and the “roaring 1920’s” respectively.
4. Cf. the Preface of Michael McGerr 2003, A Fierce Discontent (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press) on the domestic failure of President Wilson’s “Progressivism,” p. xvi: “World War I. marked the high point of the progressive movement. ... Winning the war abroad, the Wilsonians lost their war at home. The administration’s war policies produced disorder instead of order, chaos instead of control. Amid race riots, strikes, high inflation, [and pandemic!] and a frenzied Red scare, Americans turned
against the progressive blueprint for the nation.”
5. According to Walters 2022, Civil Wars, “the most important driver” or “accelerant” of recent civil wars has been social media, as employed by radical “ethnic entrepreneurs” who foment resentment; and the factions most disposed to political violence are people with long histories in the country who are chiefly rural, and who resent displacement by immigrants and urban elites.
In my work (lates article: Democracy needs Rebellion) I argue that those who protest peacefully are the real democrats, that protest and rebellion are the indispensable incredients of a democracy. Social movements like #fridays for future or #blacklivesmatter are today's democratic rebellions that can further improve and democratise representative democracy. My work is mainly based on Albert Camus' thinking. What about other theories?
Democracy has come under pressure in many countries in recent years. Authoritarian tendencies, populism and the cult of leadership threaten pluralistic societies in Europe USA and other parts of the world. But democracy is more than just a method of finding a majority; it is inextricably linked to the fight againstoppression, discrimination and #injustice in all contexts of life. Especially in times of democratic crisis, it is necessary to focus on its core aspects. The political thinking of French philosopher and writer Albert Camus, who died in 1960, offers the basis for a redefinition of democracy that is linked to and dependent on rebellion. From his reflections, a radical theory of democracy can be derived that is based on revolt and resistance to authoritarianism, on doubt, dialogue and foreignness.
The Covid-19 crisis has indicated how relatively easy it is for otherwise democratic institutions to impose autocratic methods to deal with a crisis. Just about every country affected by the virus instituted lockdowns on the population with potentially catastrophic economic consequences.
Now the debate has started about whether the lockdowns need to be lifted and some of the debate is turning ugly.
Is it time for the people to be consulted about this major infringement of long established rights of freedom of association and rights to the family?
Deliberative democracy is a theory whereby more decisions are put directly to the people other than made exclusively by elected governments. Since it is the people who are most affected by crisis management is it not time they had some say it its design?
Education is a serious concern everywhere. What is, and should it be, about? Should neoliberalism dictate the mercantile, business-focused orientation increasingly taking hold of educational programs, policies and thinking? What is the place, role and function of social justice, citizenship and social solidarity? Of course, these are not binary propositions but we can see trend-lines pointing to less of the latter and more of the former infused in educational reforms. Critical scholarship, experimentation and programming is being squeezed out of the equation at the policy, curricular, pedagogical, institutional cultural and leadership levels. Many "high-level" debates point blindly to the "Finnish" model as if a broad-based, society-wide approach, one that seriously values teachers (monetarily and in other ways), can simply be replicated in vastly diverse contexts. I have been struck how this model has been upheld as the one that can be integrated into societies where there isn't even universal access to education, where teachers are often fighting to make ends meet, where basic structures are lacking, where political will/commitment seems vacuous, etc.. I'm not suggesting that Finland has not got some things right; I'm, rather, interested in knowing why the socio-political dimension is not more centrally infused into educational debates so as to be able to address serious, systemic, institutional, deeply-entrenched inequities. As I end my sabbatical, travelling in five countries over the past several months, I have observed this polemical debate, and reading La Nación this morning in Buenos Aires I was struck as to how the argument was made that teacher education needed to be enhanced, following the "Finnish" model, so as to, somehow, bridge the poverty gap. This was not the first article I have seen that suggests that better teacher ed will lead to miraculous societal change, especially when there is a context of vast private education, social inequalities and an increasing focus on education as a private good. I welcome any comments about how public debate might become more constructive, engaging, critical and beneficial (especially for the many who are not benefiting from the status quo). I would like to add that there is a mountain of very engaging research in this area but the critical components underpinning it seem to be marginalized in public debate, decision-making circles and mainstream education milieus. As election-season is once again upon us (in Canada, and, in reality, everywhere as the cycle is never-ending), it would appear that serious education discussions are reduced to get-rich-quick schemes, an attack on teachers, and little about how education needs to be tethered to meaningful, critically-engaged democracy and social/societal change.
There's no denying we've seen a massive proliferation of online petitions, but are they actually effective in influencing policy? What forms of participatory democracy are actually effective as a citizen engagement mechanism that can influence policy.
I am looking for further reading, in particular studies on how citizens' legislative initiative, petition or public hearing (as Participatory Democracy institutions) are used in European countries. I am specifically looking for case studies, but I will be happy to look at more general analysis.
In my next paper titled: “Upside Down Democratic Outcomes: Stating the Complacency Conditions Under Which Extreme Democratic Outcomes Such as BREXIT and USEXIT Should Be Expected to Take Place Using Qualitative Comparative Means”, I shared among the operational concepts the ones listed below:
26) BREXIT, the extreme democratic outcome supporting the UK withdrawing from the European Union.
27) BREXISM, the extreme democratic movements supporting the breakup of economic or territorial or state based unions.
28) USEXIT, the extreme democratic outcome supporting the USA withdrawing from the international and local order.
29) USEXISM, the extreme democratic movements supporting the breakup of the international and local order.
30) EXISM, the extreme democratic movements aiming at destroying majority rule based institutions and majority rule granted minority rights, locally and globally.
All these extreme democratic outcomes and extreme movements flourish under chaos, especially under fake internal and fake external driven chaos. In my opinion, majority rule based democratic systems were not designed for a battle between fake reality and real reality, they were designed for a battle between different views of real reality.....
Which raises the question I made above: Is there a need to protect majority rule based voting systems or democracies from fake internal and fake external driven chaos before it is too late?. I think yes, what do you think?.
Please if you agree with me state clearly so and share why or if you disagree with me say so and share why so we can have a productive interaction.
Does anyone know of a government (local, regional or national) that has developed a whole-of-government approach to policy making and/or engagement that uses deliberative democracy as a guiding principle?
The question might be confusing, but actually the question is related to concept of deliberation in political CSR. I think Scherer and Palazzo done a great work to explain the concept of political CSR based on Habermas's work on deliberative democracy. And the work have been expanded into understanding the right communication tools to practice it. Which is one of it is dialogue. It is might be a less disputed argument that dialogue might be successful in developed countries due to high awareness of its citizen.Which then translated into high participation.
But in some developing countries issues such as culture, social system, unawareness become a huge hindrance for a dialogue to be successful. I am interested to understand what factors cause it and what are the relation between it.
Therefore, come the question, is there any specific measurement that being used to measure level of willingness to participate? In dialogue or anything else
Meaning that, some people might fully committed to participate, some might have mild interest or even some community members who does not have interest or willingness at all.
Thanks on your attention as response.
Dzur (2010) shows by textual analysis that Tocqueville regarded the jury as a “free school”, a place of significant interaction between professionals and lay people, thanks to which the competence of the average citizen could be increased. In the jury, the average citizen learns about the law, engages with the legal profession, and comes away with greater respect for political institutions (Dzur, “Democracy's free school : Tocqueville and Lieber on the value of the jury”, Political Theory, 2010).
Do you know any author who develops the same idea about democracy? Namely, the idea that deliberative democracy has the advantage to increase the competence of the average citizen. The idea that, thanks to deliberative democracy, society is made more transparent, the average citizen reaches a better understanding of the society in which he/she lives, and, thanks to this better understanding, he/she improves his/her welfare.
Habermas develops this idea in his philosophical work. Do you any other author, in economic or political theory, developing this same idea?
Many thanks for your comments.
Régis Servant.
