Achieving Democracy Richard M. Buck, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy Mount St.

Marys University Recent work in normative democratic theory has moved beyond the aggregate conception of democracy in favor of a deliberative conception, according to which idea of democracy requires more than allowing each citizen to vote his or her preferences and interests. On the deliberative model, the legitimate use of political power can only come about as the result of meaningful discussion and argument rather than a simple tabulation of votes. Deliberations are thought to be meaningful when the parties are willing to not only offer their views up for public scrutiny but to also revise them in the face of the response they received. But not all reasons and arguments that might be offered during discussions are really suitable for this kind of exchange. Sadly, we are too familiar with political discussions that amount to nothing more than a struggle between competing and often incommensurable interests. Thus, truly meaningful political discussions must be driven by reasons that move well beyond particular interests. In other words, the reasons the parties offer to each other must be acceptable to all who would take part in these discussions and be affected by them. This is often understood to mean that those participating in deliberations must begin fromand aim towardan idea of the common good. For only then can it be said that the parties to deliberations are offering each other mutually acceptable reasons in support of the decisions and laws they advocate. Legitimacy requires that political decisions be the outcome of free and meaningful discussion and deliberation from which no one is excluded. The deliberative conception democracy raises several questions. The most important among these, perhaps, is the question of how exactly the deliberative conception of political legitimacy is to be understood. Indeed, the literature on deliberative democracy reveals a variety of answers to this question. Here are some examples: Joshua Cohens view is that the authorization to exercise state power must arise from the collective decisions of the members of the society who are governed by that power and further that for all those bound by the outcomes of the deliberations (i.e., all members of a political society the terms of their association must not merely be the results of their deliberation, but also be manifest to them as such.1 According to Seyla Behabib, Legitimacy in complex democratic societies must be though to result from the free and unconstrained deliberation of all about matters of common concern.2 And for John Dryzek, deliberativeor, as he calls it, discursive, legitimacy is achieved to the degree that collective outcomes are responsive to the balance of competing discourses in the public sphere, to the extent that this balance is itself subject to dispersed and competent control.3 The common thread in all three accounts is a conception of political equalitywhat is often referred to as deliberative 1

equalityaccording to which all who are affected by the outcomes be involved, in some way, in the deliberations. On the face of it, this view of equality seems quite persuasive. It is consistent with core democratic values of equality, liberty, and the common good, and it reflects the widely held view that a truly democratic society rests in a political system that is transparent and open to all. But questions abound concerning its meaning. To be more specific, we need a clearer idea of just what this conception of equality requires. What does it mean to say that the political process is open and transparent? How do we determine if in fact all those who are affected by the deliberations had sufficient access to them? Is the opportunity for participation enough? If so, how is this satisfied? If not, what more is required? In addition, to the extent that participation, at least at the level of political discussion, is necessary for even partial enfranchisement in political life, which enfranchisement is necessary for democracy, these accounts of deliberative equality raise the question of not only how it is to be achieved (how we are to understand it) but by whom. That is, to what extent do citizens and governments share the responsibility of enfranchisement. Answering these questions is important for it will take some way toward answering the larger question of how democracy is achieved (alternatively, when is democracy fully realized?). My perspective in this essay reflects the view that deliberative conceptions are the closest to adequately capturing the idea of democracy, which is to say that I will not attempt to defend the deliberative orientation to democracy against the critics of this general orientation. In addition, I assume that equality is one of the fundamental or structural commitments of any theory of democracy. I will discuss three general approaches to deliberative democracy which have been explored in the recent literature. I then assess these views with an eye to developing an alternative account. I then offer a brief outline of what such an account would look like. I will close with some thoughts on the responsibilities that of government and citizens toward the achievement of democracy.

II. One general approach to the deliberative equality focuses on the structure or process of deliberations, by which I mean both the types of reasons offered by the participants as well as the way in which the deliberations work. On this view political equality is measured by the deliberative process itself and is achieved when the procedures are set up in such a way that, in principle at least, participation in meaningful deliberation is closed off to no one. Ill refer to this as the procedural conception of political equality. Procedural conceptions judge the legitimacy of political processes and institutions by focusing solely on how political power is distributed within them.4 One version of this procedural interpretation of equality is that literally all who are affected by the actions, policies, etc. of political 2

institutions have a role to play in the deliberations that lead to these actions or policies. Obviously, this is unrealizable in most modern democracies, and not only because of the size of most of these societies. Infants, children, the severely mentally and physically disabled, and the members of future generations will all be affected by the actions of political institutions. But members of these groups cannot participate in any meaningful way in deliberations. For this reason, many proceduralists argue that what fairness demands is that deliberations be conducted in terms that all affected by the outcomes of the deliberations could regard as reasonable. Fair deliberations, then, are those conducted through mutually acceptable reasons, and such deliberations would, by their nature (it is assumed), yield outcomes that all who are affected would have agreed to had they been involved in the actual deliberations.5 But this view presents a challenge of its own: how do we determine that this standard has actually been met? Unlike the firstunrealizablestandard of legitimacy, knowing when the outcomes of deliberation have met this standard will prove to be difficult. Indeed, it may be impossible without a preestablished benchmark which all outcomes must meet in order be considered legitimate. At the same time, establishing such a benchmark would undermine the very deliberative process itself, since the outcomes of any legitimate deliberations would, in large part, be determined by the benchmark. In response to this worry, some deliberative theoristsJohn Rawls, for examplearticulate a concept of the reasonable that can serve as a procedural guide for deliberations without undermining the deliberative enterprise. In his later work, Rawls articulates an idea of public reason which serves as a guide for public debate and discussion in a democratic society characterized by reasonable pluralismthe existence of a plurality of reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral views.6 Rawls contends that the content of public reason the values and principles citizens appeal to in the course of their public deliberationsis made up of conceptions of justice that are committed to the following: (1) basic rights, liberties, and opportunities (e.g., freedom of speech, association, and religion); (2) the belief that these rights, liberties, and opportunities have a special standing, and cannot be compromised by, for example, a particular moral, religious, or philosophical conception of the human good; (3) access for all to the means necessary to make use of these rights, liberties, and opportunities. It is Rawlss view that these commitments form the basis of any reasonable position on a fundamental political matterthereby ensuring an outcome that does not undermine political equalitywithout predetermining in any substantive way how the deliberations will run. But critics of this view point out that such a controversial conception of reasonableness (even Rawls notes that it disqualifies utilitarian and libertarian reasoning) undermines the deliberative project and unduly compromises the autonomy of citizens. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson contend that the legitimacy of the outcomes of deliberations is undermined if commitments like those in Rawlss account are built into the deliberative procedures, and therefore insulated from criticism, revision, and 3

rejection. 7 According to Gutmann and Thompson, a deliberative procedure that is consistent with both equality and democratic authority must begin without commitments to particular sets of rights or the priority of rights (whatever they may be) over other values. Following on their criticism of the Rawlsian account of deliberative legitimacy, Gutmann and Thompson articulate their own view which interprets political equality as the demand for reciprocity and mutual respect. Reciprocity requires that citizens justify to one another the institutions, laws, and public policies that collectively govern them. And this entails, according to Gutmann and Thompson, a commitment to basic liberty and fair opportunity, both of which serve to guide the deliberations and prevent them from yielding results that would violate mutual respectthe requirement that citizens acknowledge and act on the need to justify to one another the institutions, laws, and policies that govern them 8. Together, the idea of reciprocity and the value of mutual respect reflect what is for Gutmann and Thompson a non-negotiable component of any viable theory of democracythe requirement for some kind of justification in politics.9 But Gutmanns and Thompsons view seems to succeed only by shifting the question from what does political equality require? to the question what is fair opportunitythe crucial concept in Gutmanns and Thompsons deliberative theory. That is, how do we know when fair opportunity has actually been achieved? Is this simply a matter of how the deliberations run or must we also consider the results of the deliberations? If fair opportunity is just a matter of how deliberations are conducted, then we are back where we started in our search for an interpretation of the demand for political equality and how it is realized in deliberations. This is also the case if we identify mutual respect as the crucial component of the deliberative procedure, since we would still need some way to determine that the demand for mutual respect has been met in the course of deliberations. III. The preceding discussion suggests that procedural accounts of political equality have serious shortcomings. Either the account of equality is empty because theres no clear way of determining that it is has been satisfied, or it provides too much content, which significantly restricts deliberations rendering them meaningless. The only procedural account of equality that avoids these problems cannot be realized since it demands the participation of all who are affected by the outcomes of deliberation. It is also the case that even if the proceduralist conception of equality had been satisfied (and this could be determined), this would not secure the equality of political participation that is crucial to deliberative conceptions of equality. Alternatives to the procederalist approach seek to address this gap by developing a conception of political equality that gives due consideration to the preconditions for political agency--understood as active and meaningful participation in the political processrather than focusing 4

exclusively on the way in which deliberations are conducted. This is one version of what is referred to in the relevant literature as the substantive account of deliberative equality. According to this approach, the structure of the deliberations alone cant really tell us much about equality, because many would-be participants are excluded de facto before deliberations ever begin. Thus, it makes no sense to make claims about the fairness of a political process without taking a close look at the requirements for meaningful political activity. For example, one person one vote seems fair, as does an enforced cap on campaign contributions. But neither policy considers the other factors that would make the political process truly inclusive. The spending cap on campaign contributions only goes so far when there are gross inequalities in wealth that will still allow some to have more access to the political process than others. Likewise, one person one vote cant get single parents with no child care options to neighborhood meetings or the local polling place. The main task for proponents of the substantive approach is to come up with an persuasive account of the requirements for meaningful political activity. One of the more prominent examples of such a view is Amartya Sens capabilities approach, according to which equality is measured in terms of the capability of persons to realize their particular goals through the resources at their disposal.10 According to an alternative account, offered by Joshua Cohen, the relevant standard involves a minimally acceptable threshold of functioning in political deliberations from which is derived a list of relevant primary goods. Both of these views can easily be applied to questions of political equality if we think of capability and functioning in terms of participation in political decision making. Understood in this way, both Sens and Cohens view challenge the idea that political equality is simply a matter of the possession of certain specific goods that are thought to be prerequisites for meaningful participation in political deliberations. Instead, Sen and Cohen claim that the ability to convert resources into meaningful political activitythe ability to take part in deliberations in a meaningful wayis the chief indicator of deliberative political equality. This approach to deliberative equality is persuasive because it suggests that truly deliberative decisionsthose that are not simply imposedare possible only if citizens are able to actually participate in the political life of their society. Furthermore, this general approach draws our attention to the fact that simple equality in resources may not result in opportunity for all citizens to influence political processes. Indeed, we can imagine situations in which factors other the amount of resources one possesses would determine the extent to which ones voice may be heard in public discussion (e.g., access to higher education or good secondary education, employment conditions, family situationi.e., the need for child care, etc.). Ultimately, though, the success of that substantive approach to deliberative equality depends on certain practical questions related to the identification of capacities important for political participation, the measurement of the extent to which these capacities are effectively distributed or in place, and the 5

ability to deal politically with the inequalities in capacities that cannot (and perhaps should not) be eliminated.11 To be sure, these are not insurmountable problems. For example, we should be able to come up with a basic list of resources and capacities necessary for meaningful political activity through a careful study of a societys cultural and political history and existing socio-economic conditions. What may be more difficult to determine, however, is how widely these capacities and resources are distributed that is, whether or not were close to achieving political equality. As Jack Knight and James Johnson point out, the most direct way of assessing political equality is to determine the effect of individual citizens political activity on the results of the deliberative outcome. But this turns out to be quite difficult given the nature of deliberative democracy. Because deliberation involves argument through the exchange of reasons, the participants must open to revising their position; otherwise their participation in the deliberations is a sham. But this means that in the course of deliberations we can expect a certain number of people to change their preferences. This will make it very difficult to determine whether the fact that a persons original preference was not satisfied is the result her being persuaded by a discussion in which she was actively involved or a result of her arguments being ignored and effectively excluded from deliberations. While the most egregious cases of exclusion will be fairly easy to indentify, this is not the case for many other situations in which citizens are prevented from meaningful participation in political life. A metric that could be used to decide so-called hard cases of exclusion would be more difficult to come by. 12 A third approach to deliberative equality also focuses on particular goods or resources, but as the outcome of deliberations rather than as preconditions for them. On this view, deliberative equality is a matter of securing a certain condition or set of goods for all those affected by the outcomes of deliberations. Thus, one way of measuring political equality would be a basic resources or human welfare standard, according to which the legitimacy of political processes and institutions is measured by assessing how they impact the welfare or well-being of citizens as indicated by, for example, the distribution of fundamental goods. This distribution would be taken as a mark of the extent to which the existing political system treats those affected by its outcomes with equal concern. But this view runs into a fair share of difficulties. First, it assumes that there would be agreement on a conception of fundamental human goods or ends. And this is highly unlikely, particularly in modern pluralistic democratic societies. Without this agreement its hard to see where the deliberation is really occurring, since the contours of the discussion will have already been shaped to a significant extent by a predetermined conception of the good. Thus, the substantive view seems to be inconsistent to a certain degree with the very idea of deliberation itself. In addition, the substantive view seems inconsistent with the fundamental idea of political freedom. In judging legitimacy by what amounts to a conception of the common good which was itself not a result of the deliberations, this approach compromises the democratic authority of citizens 6

the freedom of citizens to engage in reasoned political judgment that is not constrained by a particular understanding of the good of persons or society. If on this version of the substantive view the conception of the common good operates as a prior constraint on public reasoninga constraint that is itself not the subject to deliberative scrutinythe the substantive view is most certainly inconsistent with the freedom of citizens. Finally, the substantive view is inconsistent with the idea of equality. Since, as was mentioned above, we cannot expect widespread agreement on a conception of the good, there will be those who have reason to reject the legitimacy of the outcomes of deliberations, when the legitimacy of these outcomes is measured by a view of human goods or ends that they do not endorse. In addition, these citizens may even reject the terms in which the deliberation was conducted. These citizens would find, then, that their political judgments are outside of the scope of proper political deliberations. As a result, their equal standing qua citizens would be compromised. IV. My aim in the first three sections of this essay was to point out the relative strengths and weaknesses of three approaches to deliberative equality. For the sake of brevity, I will not repeat the criticisms here. Suffice it to say that each of the approaches is, in my view, beset by problems that should prevent us from endorsing it entirely. I will now offer a view which, I think, avoids the difficulties of the views I sketched above. On my view, the value of deliberations is a function in large part of how they serve to promote what are thought to be certain ends, aims, or values that, one could argue, are fundamental to the idea of democracy itself, as it is reflected in the practices of democracy, such as deliberation. This view is rooted in Ronald Dworkins view of political equality, which in fact predates much of the discussion of deliberative democracy that has taken place over the last fifteen to twenty years. Although Dworkin did not at the time intend to develop a deliberative theory of democratic legitimacy and equality, his discussion in Political Equality (originally published in 1981) provides helpful insight into the challenges of deliberative democracy that I have been discussing, and points toward an account of deliberative equality that avoids many, if not all, of the most difficult of these challenges. Dworkin distinguishes between two different interpretations of democracy: detached and dependent. According to the detached interpretation, the fairness of a political process is determined by the distribution political power and access within the process. In this way, it is very much like the proceduralist view that I discussed above. Thus, this view would reject as undemocratic any arrangement whereby certain individuals were given more access to political power (e.g., more votes for citizens in poorer districts), even if such an arrangement would result in outcomes that better distribute collective 7

benefits and burdens.13 According to dependent conception of democracy, the best form of democracy that is, the procedure most consistent with democracyis the one that is more likely to result in outcomes that yield a more equal distribution of the resources and opportunities valued by democracy. The difference between these approaches is clear: the detached interpretation puts a premium on political power and its distribution; there is nothing else relevant to the evaluation of democratic processes. The dependent interpretation focuses on outcomes as a way of evaluating democratic processes. The view I will defend is a version of a dependent conception because it supposes that the clearest measure of deliberative equality is given by the results of deliberations rather than by the way in which deliberations are conducted (i.e., how power is distributed in the political process). Earlier in the essay, I discussed another general approach to deliberative equality, which focused on outcomes. I pointed out that this approach was problematic because it effectively predetermined the course of deliberations by judging the deliberations according to a standard that was not arrived at through deliberations. This seemed to undermine the entire deliberative enterprise. At first glance, it might appear that the dependent interpretation has the same flaw. But a closer look reveals an important difference. Unlike the view I sketched earlier, the approach I defend is focused not on resources that reflect a generalwhat might be called comprehensiveconception of the good or human ends. Rather, the outcomes I have in mind are resources and opportunities that are essential to the very idea of democracy itself. An example of such a resource is access to meaningful discussions, and the more concrete goods that make this access possible. In some cases, this may be funding for adequate day care or a scholarship to attend a college or other institution which provides the knowledge necessary to both understand political processes and adequately express ones own views on the most important political issues of the day. One might argue that promoting a more egalitarian distribution of resources such as those I mentioned above may not, in the end, promote real political equality. As Sen and Cohen point out, there is an important difference between having the resources necessary for political participation and having the ability to make adequate use of these resources. Their argument, which I discussed above, focused on this gap as it relates to the ability to have some effect on political decision-making. In defending their conceptions of deliberative equality, both Sen and Cohen are in effect arguing for what Dworkin refers to as equality of political influencethe ability to make a difference in politics by leading other to vote in a certain waysince the point of deliberations is to offer reasons to others in defense of your view, with the aim of influencing those who initially disagreed with you to embrace your view. But is this a goal we should be pursuing? Reducing overall influence in politics, for example would conflict with deeply held democratic values, while otherstraining people not to try to influence otherswould be completely ineffective.14 For these and other reasons, Dworkin suggests that equality of influence really 8

has no place in a conception of democracy. Although I dont agree with Dworkins final assessment of equality of political influence, I share his skepticism about conceptions of democracy that embrace the equality of political influence as a realizable goal, and therefore argue, following Dworkin, for the ability to have at least some influence (not necessary equal with others) as a crucial indicator of deliberative equality. More on this a bit later. This approach I have sketched here avoids the problem of realizability and circularity that the proceduralist deliberative views give rise to, while at the same time accommodating equality insofar as it posits a standard of legitimacy that does not give greater weight to particular groups or interests that are not shared across the society. An interesting implication of this view is that it would be possible for a deliberative procedure that was fully open and inclusiveallowing all members of society to participate to fail to achieve political equality. At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive. But this is only if we assume the political equality is satisfied by ensuring universal access to deliberations. We have already seen that this is an unrealizable goalwhen taken literallyand, as I discussed above, there are good reasons to think that other versions of this conception of political equality fare no better. Furthermore, the idea that equalityor justice in general, for that matteris dependent on more than the process by which outcomes are determined fits with the worry that fully open deliberations may be more prone to serious error. Simply put, making meaningful political activity a reality for an increasing number of persons does not in any way guarantee or even ensure that the deliberations will produce good results. To be sure, it does make sense to think of political participation itself as an important democratic good. But even if we believe that the fundamental democratic commitment to equality is most clearly satisfied when deliberations are as open as possible, we surely do not commit ourselves to the reasonableness or acceptability of the outcomes of these deliberations.15 In addition, the view I am defending avoids the measurement problem associated with the views of Sen and Cohen. Because equality of influence is, on my viewfollowing Dworkinan ideal, the failure to develop an adequately and uncontroversial way of gauging the distribution of influence is no longer a problem. Instead, we focus on managing or moderating those inequalities that we know clearly do impact the ability of some citizens to access in a meaningful way and influence political decision making (for example, campaign financing and adequate funding for day care). While addressing these issues will not guarantee an equal share of influence for all citizens, it is no doubt a step in the right direction, and a meaningful one at that, since it will go some way to guaranteeing some political influence for each person who desires it. The key aim here is to eliminate those easily documented inequalities that clearly prevent certain members of the society from having any influence whatsoever. Continued efforts at addressing these and other issues will prove useful in responding to the frustration and alienation that arises when citizens are convinced that they lack any real political power or influence. This is because the 9

success of such efforts can be evaluated in a fairly straightforward and uncontroversial way. And when evidence of the success of such efforts is made available to citizens, they are likely to be more motivated to participate in the public political life of their society. Assuming that structures are put into to place to address the inequalities I have described above, citizens must recognize important obligations of their own to contribute to the realization of democracy. Most fundamental of these, of course, is to whenever possible, participate directly in the political process. Insofar as we can consider the governments responsibility to eliminate or ameliorate relevant inequalities a moral obligation (in that it is a condition of political legitimacy), surely we can consider citizens to be under a moral obligationan obligation owed to their fellow citizensto contribute as far as is possible to the work necessary to support a democratic society. The obvious avenue for such participation is, of course, voting. But this requires more than simply casting a ballot on election day. It is not a stretch to claim that the promotion of a robust democracy requires an informed citizenry making careful considered judgments. This of course brings up the age-old question (first raised by Plato) of whether most citizens in a democracy are really capable of carrying the moral responsibilities that I have just argued they have. [I liken this to jury servicejust as jurors are forbidden from discussing or further researching a case on which they will deliberate, citizens of a democracy should consider it their responsibility to avoid or ignore information that would taint their decision. Assuming that citizens should be casting their ballots with a well considered view of what is best for society in mind, some information about candidates is clearly irrelevant. This assumes, of course, that citizens can know what information should be avoided. Further, this would place additional responsibilities on media outlets to carefully vet the political advertisements theyre sent, so as to avoid contributing to a situation in which citizens are prevented from voting in a way that clearly privileges a considered view on what is best for the society as a whole].

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The first quote is taken from Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy, in Bohman and Rehg, 407, and the second from Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy, in Bohman and Rehg, 73. 2 Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy, in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 67-94 at 68. 3 Legitimacy and Economy in Deliberative Democracy, Political Theory, vol. 29, no. 5 (Oct. 2001), pp. 651-669 at 652. 4 See Ronald Dworkin, Political Equality in Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. 5 This is not the same as the claim (which I do not endorse) that the outcomes of the debate must be such that all those affected by those outcomes would have chosen them, as opposed to simply being able to accept them. This is, I take it, Rawlss standard in Theory of Justice, where the parties to the OP are conceived of in such a way that they could not rationally have chosen any principles but Rawlss two principles. As is well known, Rawls moves away from this conception of the OP in his later work (look into this), and adopts the latter standard (see his discussion of democratic legitimacy in Political Liberalism). 6 The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, in Rawls, Collected Papers, ed Samuel Freeman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 573. 7 For one such criticism see Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) 8 Why Deliberative Democracy, pp. 133-34; Democracy and Disagreement, pp. 52-53. 9 Put otherwise, Gutmann and Thompson claim that some kind of reason-giving process, whether it be the exchange of reasons between citizens, their representatives, or their political leaders, must be part of the decision-making procedure in any democracy. It is not enough that we be able to say about our institutions, laws, and policies that they would be agreed to in a hypothetical reason-giving process. For Gutmann and Thompson, this would not meet the demands of reciprocity (or mutual respect) as they understand it. 10 Inequality Reexamined 11 What Sort of Equality Does Deliberative Democracy Require?, in Bohman and Rehg, Deliberative Democracy. 12 What Sort of Equality Does Deliberative Demcracy Require? 13 Political Equality, in Sovereign Virtue, 188. 14 Ibid, 195-197. Dworkin also points out that equality of impactthe difference a person can on her owncan be meaningless, since we can imagine a dictatorship, benevolent or otherwise, in which impact would be equal: zero for everyone. 15 The substantive view also challenges the idea, held by some democratic theorists, that democracy is valuable apart from its results. Proponents of the substantive hold that the value of democracy is primarilythough not exclusivelya matter of the results it produces. The idea here being that political equality is much more likely under democratic institutions.