The Other School of Economics

Democratic dilemma: “competitive representation” vs “participation and deliberation”

@DrSophie73 posted a link to a very interesting paper in the context of a conversation started by Ben Eltham’s New Matilda piece on what Australian Labor actually stands for. The question being whether, in the end, we should not put such high expectations on parties, and whether deliberative democracy supplants party platforms.

The paper co-authored in 2004 by MIT-Harvard academics looks at what a Radical Democracy based on participation and deliberation would look like; by opposition to the “conventional democracies” organised around competitive representation, by which people compete to get elected. Here are some notes and thoughts quickly written down as I read it.

It is a topical piece because it resonates with complaints increasingly voiced  here and there on the perceived impasse of confrontational politics.

- In Australia and France for instance,  election campaigns of the past decade have been increasingly frustrating in exhibiting  the worse of what parties can offer: no real focus on policies nor noble vision, pork-barreling boutique mentality to distribute cheap tokens to interest groups, etc.

- The reporting of politics mirrors this pattern. Instead of being enlightened by the media improving our political culture, we too often get a modern version of the Roman games. Because we don’t kill people anymore these days (it’s against OH&S policy), we get the treatment of politics as a sport instead. Journalists shy away from critically examining policies and prefer to focus on the juicier political strategies, personalities and machinations. See trevorcook’s post on this ( @tcookAU ) or even read Lindsay Tanner’s Sideshow.

we’ll take that as a comment.

As a consequence, there is a growing perception that we would benefit from a more “consensual”, “engaging”, “participative” form of democracy.

The paper articulates aspects of such a system built on a broader participation in public decision-making. It shows how participation and deliberation might address the limitations of competitive representation. It also analyses why participation and deliberation are two distinct strands of the democratic project. Compared to competitive representation, radical democracy would enable:
- more responsibility by involving representatives in consequential political choices,
- more equality by bringing a larger number of people in the process and treating them as having equal importance,
- more political autonomy by enabling citizens to deliberate laws and policies resulting from common problems which are acknowledged as relevant to the group, not because narrow interest groups use money and influence to shape the process.

Whist it eloquently makes the case for a more participatory and deliberative democracy, it does not address the risk of ‘consensual participation’ drifting into populism or lukewarm policies playing in the “me-too” center.

Consider a few slightly simplistic but illustrative examples:

- Switzerland immediately comes to mind when direct democracy is mentioned: any citizen can challenge any law. Is this system favoring the consensus towards domestic conservatism and disengagement from geopolitical issues? (notwithstanding other local specificities)

- In France during the last presidential election Segolene Royale, the Socialist candidate, based her campaign on ‘town-hall meetings’ (débats participatifs) and tried to use her website to get people to write her policies and program: Was it the sign of a lack of leadership as her opponents suggested?

- Same trend in the US where Clinton, Obama and McCain engaged in a series of ‘town-hall meetings’ during the 2008 campaign. Obama even pushed the theme of “bipartisanship” (the holy grail of the ‘wise consensus’). Whilst it proved to be a formidable campaign strategy, what about the required leadership and resolve that people have been crying for?

- In Australia, the ‘town-hall meeting’ format also got legs during the 2010 election. Probably inspired by participative TV programs where “you, the audience, get to ask a question”, or volunteer a comment. But again, has it helped differentiate the two major parties, which have been converging towards the me-too consensus?

To be clear, your correspondent firmly believes in citizen engagement, and to be fair the paper does mention the necessity to get the balance right between participation, deliberation. It also says that “competitive representation are to be transformed by their connections with participatory-deliberative arrangements for solving problems. Whether it will deliver on that promise remains, of course, a very open question.”

Indeed, this is the question that now needs to be answered.

{leLaissezfaire – Sydney 25 Novembre 2010 }

Source: http://www.archonfung.net/papers/Cohen_Fung_Debate_SPSR2004.pdf
Authors: Joshua Cohen, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Archon Fung, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Cohen-MIT Fung-Harvard – Radical Democratic Project – Via @DrSophie7