Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Deliberative democracy: Deliberative democracy is a form of democracy that emphasizes the importance of public deliberation in decision-making. It is based on the idea that citizens should have the opportunity to discuss and debate issues before decisions are made, and that these discussions should be informed by reason and evidence._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Social Choice Theory on Deliberative Democracy - Dictionary of Arguments
Gaus I 146 Deliberative democracy/social choice theory/Dryzek: Deliberative democracy has three prominent sets of critics, who otherwise have absolutely nothing in common: social choice theorists, ifference democrats, and sceptical egalitarians. Cf. >Democracy/Riker, >Democracy/Social choice theory. Gaus I 147 Dryzek: [social chice theory] (...) provides a set of warnings about what democratic politics could be like if political actors behaved in Homo economicus fashion, and ifno mechanisms existed to curb these behavioural proclivities and their consequences. Deliberative democracy provides both a communicative paradigm of personhood and mechanisms to bring Homo economicus and his interactions under control (a non-deliberative alternative can be found in Shepsle's 1979(1) idea of structure-induced equilibrium). Now, social choice theorists can still try to pour cold water over deliberation because it is easy to demonstrate that the very conditions of free access, equality, and unrestricted communication conducive to authentic deliberation are exactly the conditions conducive to instability, arbitrariness, and so strategic manipulation (van Mill, 1996(2); see also Grofman, 1993(3): 1578; Knight and Johnson, 1994)(4). VsVs: Deliberative democrats can reply that there are mechanisms intrinsic to deliberation that act to structure preferences in ways that solve social choice problems (Dryzek and List, 2003(5)). For example, deliberation can disaggregate a dimension on which preferences are non-single-peaked (one major cause of cycles across three or more alternatives that are at the root of the kind of instability Riker identifies) into several dimensions on each of which single-peakedness prevails (Miller, 1992)(6). VsDemocracy: To the extent this deliberative reply succeeds, then the social choice critique undermines only an aggregative account of democracy in which all actors behave strategically, and can actually be deployed to show why deliberation is necessary. 1. Shepsle, Kenneth (1979) 'Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models'. American Journal of Political Science, 23:27—60. 2. Van Mill, David (1996) 'The possibility of rational outcomes from democratic discourse and procedures'. Journal of Politics, 58:734-52. 3. Grofman, Bernard (1993) 'Public choice, civic republicanism, and American politics: perspectives of a "reasonable choice" modeler'. Texas Law Review, 71: 1541-87. 4. Knight, Jack and James Johnson (1994) 'Aggregation and Deliberation: On the possibility of democratic legitimacy'. Political Theory, 22: 277-96. 5. Dryzek, John S. and Christian List (2003) 'Social choice theory and deliberative democracy: a reconciliation'. British Journal of Politica1 Science, 33: 1-28. 6. Miller, David (1992) 'Deliberative democracy and social choice'. Political Studies, 40 (special issue): 54—67. Dryzek, John S. 2004. „Democratic Political Theory“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications_____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Social Choice Theory Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |