The Argumentative Turn Revisited

PUBLIC POLICY AS COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2012 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-5245-7

Contents

INTRODUCTION: The Argumentative Turn Revisited Frank Fischer and Herbert Gottweis…………………………………………………………………………….11. Fostering Deliberation in the Forum and Beyond John S. Dryzek and Carolyn M. Hendriks………………………………………………………………………312. Performing Place Governance Collaboratively: Planning as a Communicative Process Patsy Healey……………………………………………………………….583. Discursive Institutionalism: Scope, Dynamics, and Philosophical Underpinnings Vivien A. Schmidt……………………………………………………………..854. From Policy Frames to Discursive Politics: Feminist Approaches to Development Policy and Planning in an Era of Globalization Mary Hawkesworth…………………….1145. The Internet as a Space for Policy Deliberation Stephen Coleman………………………………………………………………………………………….1496. Multimedia and Urban Narratives in the Planning Process: Film as Policy Inquiry and Dialogue Catalyst Leonie Sandercock and Giovanni Attili………………………1807. Political Rhetoric and Stem Cell Policy in the United States: Embodiments, Scenographies, and Emotions Herbert Gottweis………………………………………..2118. The Deep Semiotic Structure of Deservingness: Discourse and Identity in Welfare Policy Sanford F. Schram……………………………………………………..2369. The Argumentative Turn toward Deliberative Democracy: Habermas’s Contribution and the Foucauldian Critique Hubertus Buchstein and Dirk Jörke…………………27110. Poststructuralist Policy Analysis: Discourse, Hegemony, and Critical Explanation David Howarth and Steven Griggs……………………………………………..30511. Transformative Learning in Planning and Policy Deliberation: Probing Social Meaning and Tacit Assumptions Frank Fischer and Alan Mandell………………………..343CONTRIBUTORS…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..371INDEX…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………375

Chapter One

JOHN S. DRYZEK AND CAROLYN M. HENDRIKS

Fostering Deliberation in the Forum and Beyond

The argumentative turn led to appreciation of the variety of forms of communication that could play their parts in public policy processes—and thus also in public policy analysis. These forms include not just argument narrowly conceived, but also rhetoric, testimony, and the telling of stories, narratives, performances, humor, and ceremonial speech. We take it as given that policy analysis now needs to pay strong attention to these communicative forms and the frames or discourses in which they are embedded, and focus here upon the settings in which such communications can occur. These settings range from legislatures to administrative agencies to courts to public hearings to the broader public sphere and also include, crucially, the systems that join all these particular sites. The setting has major consequences for the kinds of communications that can be made and heard. So, for example, courts typically impose fairly strict rules upon who can speak, when, and in what terms; and judges stand ready to rule particular communications out of order.

Sometimes settings are designed to facilitate particular sorts of communications. So, for example, parliaments in Westminster-style political systems are designed to promote adversarial debate. The very design of the chamber distinguishes between government and opposition, with each side facing the other. And all the rules and informal practices are designed to facilitate questioning, challenge, the scoring of points, and the competition of proposals, but not mutual understanding, creativity in the crafting of proposals, or conflict resolution that would be in the interests of all sides.

In recent years, the argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning has converged with the political theory of deliberative democracy and with a movement to institutionalize deliberative forums in political processes. The forums in question include stakeholder dialogues, alternative dispute resolution exercises, collaborative mechanisms, and various designs that rely on lay citizens, such as consensus conferences, citizens’ juries, planning cells, citizens’ assemblies, and deliberative polls. Most of these developed originally without much input from the theory of deliberative democracy (except for deliberative polls), but theorists are now very interested in these forums for their potential embodiment of deliberative ideals (Smith and Wales 2002; Warren and Pearse 2008). Public policy scholars for their part have recognized affinities between their own work and that of deliberative theorists and are interested in the institutional implications of particular sorts of communication. So, for example, Hajer and Wagenaar (2003) speak of “deliberative policy analysis” that proves especially appropriate for contemporary networked forms of governance that downplay the role of sovereign authority in policy making. These sorts of convergent developments lead to questions about what sorts of communications count as deliberative, how existing practices and institutions might be evaluated in these terms, and how forums might be designed to promote these forms of communication. Important associated issues concern who exactly should participate in these forums and on what terms, and the role that particular forums might play in larger systems of governance.

In this chapter, we emphasize in particular the role of design in promoting authentic, inclusive, and effective deliberation. Our aim is not so much to compare and contrast different types of deliberative forums but to look more broadly at how deliberation might be shaped by various design attributes such as the structure of the forum, its participants, and the authority and legitimacy of the forum.

We recognize at the outset that deliberation does not always need to be designed. Everyday political discussion can contribute to public deliberation (Conover, Searing, and Crewe 2001; Mansbridge 1999). In some instances, strategic or coercive forms of communication can “drift” into more deliberative modes, especially when actors learn to trust each other and have the freedom to shape their own procedures (McLaverty and Halpin 2008). Deliberation might also spontaneously emerge, be it within interest groups (Mansbridge 1992), in the larger public sphere (Habermas 1989), or even international negotiations (Risse 2000). It is worth emphasizing international negotiations on security affairs because on the face of it that is exactly the kind of place where deliberation should not emerge, as actors strive above all to maximize their relative advantage. Risse (2000) shows that communicative action in the Habermasian sense can be found in such negotiations, for example, when Soviet negotiators were persuaded that a united Germany within NATO posed less of a threat than if it were outside NATO.

We also acknowledge that designed forums are not the only settings in which deliberation can occur, and we have already pointed out that it is unwise to focus on any particular forum as the sole and proper location for deliberation. We must always keep an eye on how different forum types connect with each other, with other institutions, with the larger public sphere, and with the content of collective decisions. Here it is most helpful to think of how particular forums function within and help constitute a larger deliberative system (Hendriks 2006a; Mansbridge 1999). A deliberative system links different sites that may contribute to the theoretical requirements of a deliberative democracy. Components of a system might include particular institutions (such as a legislature or courts), particular sites (such as social movements or the media), and particular practices (such as activism or justification).

We begin by clarifying what we mean by “deliberation” and how it differs from other forms of communication. Next we survey emerging empirical research on how deliberation is influenced by various design issues, including structure and rules, participants and their roles, and finally the authority and legitimacy of deliberative forums. We show how design can be used to promote (and inhibit) particular kinds of communication in deliberative forums. At first sight, this conclusion highlights the need for political systems to facilitate multiple deliberative spaces such that policy making can be informed by a diverse range of argumentation and communication. However, more important than simple variety is how the different spaces connect to constitute an effective deliberative system.

What Is Deliberative?

We turn now to clarify what we mean by “deliberation” in the context of public policy. We take a relatively expansive view of what deliberative communication in public policy processes can entail. We thus admit any kinds of communications as long as they can induce reflection on the part of those who attend to the communication, are noncoercive, can connect particular interests to some more general principles, and involve an effort to communicate in terms that others can accept (what Gutmann and Thompson [1996] call reciprocity, though they emphasize the particular form of argument). Our own expansive view of deliberation is consistent with what we actually observe in more or less deliberative settings concerning controversial public issues, but that does not mean abandoning critical standards for what should count.

Some early theorists of deliberative democracy placed more demanding requirements on the content of deliberation, with an exclusive emphasis on reason giving (e.g., Bessette 1994; Cohen 1989). More recent contributors, such as Fung (2006), argue that quality deliberation should be rational, reasonable, equal, and inclusive. Fung uses rationality here in an instrumental sense: “individuals advance their own individual and collective ends through discussion, brainstorming, information pooling, planning and problem solving” (167). While theorists influenced by Habermas and Rawls would stress public reasons and public interests, Mansbridge et al. (2010:72–80) believe there is a place for self-interest in deliberation, as long as the self-interest in question can be justified to others as reasonable. They refer to “deliberatively constituted self-interest” (77). An example they give is a person who invokes his or her own job security as a reason not to support a potentially costly political action. In Habermasian language, this kind of self-interest might still be interpreted as generalizable interest (because everyone with a job has an interest in their own job security). For Mansbridge et al., this recognition of self-interest entails accepting “deliberative negotiation” that involves a search for mutually acceptable solutions responsive to the particular interests of each party (2010:90–93).

Reason can work against inclusion if it is specified too narrowly. If reasonableness is taken to mean that persuasion should only be on grounds that people can accept by virtue of their own reasonableness, then we are on contentious Rawlsian ground where (for example) rhetoric has no role in deliberation. If political deliberation is conceptualized in the image of a philosophy seminar it provides a big soft target for critics. Most deliberative democrats who have contemplated rhetoric (which can be defined as persuasion in all its forms) actually believe it has important roles to play (e.g., Chambers 2009; Remer 1999).

While taking a relatively expansive view of what kinds of communication can be allowed under the deliberative heading, we should stress that there are some forms of communication that should be ruled out. These include, most notably, command, heresthetic (defined by Riker [1996] as the manipulation of the choice set of another participant), strategizing, deception, therapy, and coercive bargaining (which works on the basis of threats and inducements).

It is important not to stretch the concept of deliberation too far (Steiner 2008). The most indefensible stretches have actually not been made by deliberative democrats themselves, but by mainstream empirical social scientists and rational choice theorists who have (mis)used the concept of deliberation—presumably because it is so popular—to describe any form of political communication, including lies (e.g., Austen-Smith and Feddersen 2006). Against these excessively stretched usages, we need to be careful about what counts as deliberative and what does not (Bächtiger et al. 2010; Steiner 2008). Opinion remains divided on the extent to which deliberation (as a regulatory ideal) should include alternative forms of communication such as storytelling, narrative, and conversation. When it comes to rhetoric, Chambers (2009) is careful to distinguish “deliberative” (designed to make people think and reflect) from “plebiscitary” rhetoric. The latter suffers from the sins of pandering (to existing preferences in the audience), priming (of prejudice), and crafting (i.e., selecting issues to maximize support for the speaker). Dryzek (2010) argues for a presumption in favor of bridging over bonding rhetoric. Bridging attempts to reach differently situated others, bonding to reinforce group solidarity. However, there are circumstances when this test misleads, such that a better test involves asking whether the rhetoric in question contributes to the establishment or maintenance of an effective deliberative system linking competent and reflective actors. If we follow the advice of Young (2000) and include, in addition to rhetoric, storytelling (or testimony), and greeting as admissible and valuable forms of communication, then we also need tests to distinguish defensible from indefensible uses of these forms.

We note in passing that what counts as deliberation can be connected to, and learn from, other literatures relevant to policy that have addressed communicative questions. Most notable among these is the literature on conflict resolution, mediation, and what is called consensus building (Susskind, McKearnan, and Thomas-Larmer 1999). The term “consensus building” is actually somewhat unfortunate from the point of view of deliberative democracy, which in recent years has been busy trying to escape unrealistic notions of consensus as an ideal, which is associated with Habermas in particular. In the conflict resolution literature, consensus building really means agreement building; protagonists can accept the agreement for very different reasons (including fear of what will happen in the absence of agreement). But the style of communication prized and promoted by conflict resolution professionals, mediators, and facilitators has strong affinities with deliberation (Susskind 2006). Deliberative democrats can allow that nondeliberative communication has its place. For example, partisan activism and boycotts may spur deliberation about injustices and pave the way for deliberation to occur on relatively equal terms (Dodge 2009; Fung 2005).

The question of deliberation’s proper connection to collective decision is a thorny one. Some see deliberation as a problem-solving exercise (e.g., Levine, Fung, and Levine 2005), in contrast to mere dialogue in which individuals work toward mutual understanding. However as Kanra (2007) points out, it is better to think of two complementary phases of deliberation: social learning (covering what others would mean by dialogue) and decision making. Some writers believe that deliberation’s primary home should be in a particular institution that actually makes collectively binding decisions. That institution might be a legislature (Bessette 1994) or a supreme court (Rawls 1993:231). Other writers believe that forums designed with deliberation in mind will (perhaps unsurprisingly) produce better deliberation, ideally with a strong influence on collective decision. Fishkin (2009) has these kinds of hopes for his deliberative polls. Most deliberative democrats are perhaps more open and expansive when it comes to the institutional location of deliberation. But they may still want to apply a relevance test. So, in clinging to some of the loftier ambitions of deliberative democracy to promote a very particular style of public reasoning, Thompson wants to distinguish “ordinary political discussion” from “decision-oriented deliberation,” though he also believes that the relationship between these two sorts of communication merits examination (Thompson 2008:502). It is also possible to think of ordinary discussion, or what Mansbridge (1999) calls “everyday talk,” as having its own rightful place in deliberative systems. Such talk need not necessarily involve reasoning about what is in the common good (Chambers 2003:309; Mansbridge 2006). However, she does not want to let just any talk into the system. In wrestling with this issue, Mansbridge (2006) suggests that the deciding factor should be whether the deliberative communication is politically relevant, that is, whether it involves the “authoritative allocation of values,” in the language of Easton (1953). Much in the way of chitchat and gossip, even it is about politics, presumably fails this test.

As deliberative democrats, we also need to emphasize inclusive forms of public deliberation. A highly structured and formal deliberative process might disadvantage people accustomed to other modes of communication (Sanders 1997; Young 2000) or inadvertently induce strategic behavior (Button and Mattson 1999; Hendriks 2002). Democratically legitimate deliberation entails the right, opportunity, and capacity of all those affected by a collective decision—or their representatives—to participate in consequential decision about the content of that decision. If all those individuals cannot be physically present in a forum, then that raises some large issues of representation. Deliberative democracy should be able to accommodate the kind of pluralization of representation claims, and kinds of representatives (including unelected and self-appointed [self-authorized] ones), that are now stressed by democratic theorists (Montanero 2008; Saward 2008; Urbinati and Warren 2008). This pluralization is a matter of political practice, not just political theory. Deliberative democrats should also be able to identify the characteristics of a good representative in deliberative terms.

(Continues…)

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