Deliberative Democracy
A Wiki Theory about Deliberative Democracy
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Contents
The Goal of this wiki
The goal of this wiki is to produce a theory about deliberative democracy. The theory should support real life deliberation and apps for online deliberation.
The Model
Abstract
Deliberative democracy is a democracy, in which citizens take part in decision making. It holds high values of democracy. It claims that every citizen should have an equal voice, every citizen should have equal influence in the shaping of public solutions. It manifests that when making a public decisions, every option should be taken into account, even if it’s owners does not have much education in the subject. The reason for that, is that every citizen has her own interests in the public decision, and they may be influenced from the choices the dicision body will make.
Yet letting every citizen participate in the discussion, and influence the option taken by the public, results tedious and everlasting meetings. Many citizens want to shape the solution, while many others want to propose their own unique solutions, while others want to criticize the ideas brought to the table. Equal deliberation may be a very cumbersome process that takes huge amounts of energy and time. If all residents of a small town would have the same influence on the solutions proposed, the deliberation may take years. As the body of decision makers grows, so do the time and energy it takes to make an equal decision. Because of its tediousness many citizens prefer not to participate in it, and therefore making equal deliberation a null.
So, if we want to keep the ideals of deliberation of real equality, while making the process efficient and suited for the participating of thousands and millions, we have to learn how deliberation works. What are her elements, and how they interact with each other? If we will be able to understand the element we will be able to suggest more efficient ways to conduct equal public deliberation, and even invent new application that may help larger groups of citizens engage in the public decisions.
In this web-site we will suggest a theory which will explain the elements of deliberation, and their interactions. We then will investigate into common practice of deliberation and analyze them according to the theory. Lastly, we will suggest future process for deliberative democracy and internet application for deliberative democracy.
Introduction
The Ideals of deliberative democracy
Values of Deliberation
see also theories of deliberation.
Equal Participation
Deliberative theory underlies the notion of ‘strong democracy’ whereby representative institutions should be supplanted by more participatory ones in order to realise the principle of self-government[1][2][3][4].
Political equality is equal consideration of everyone's preferences, where everyone refers to some relevant population or demos, and equal consideration means a process of equal counting so that everyone has the same voting power (and anonymous)[5]
Equal influence on Deliberation
in many cases of online discussions there is a tedency of domination by a minority of people which is bias for deliberation[6][7][8][9][10].
Government Following
following decisions
Janssen and Kien defined Deliberation that has impacto on the goverment as "Major" and a disccusion that do no followed by action by the govenment as "minor"[11]. For the forum to become major, Janssen and Kien suggest three mechanisms:
- visibility of the public space and therefore its potential political influence (i.e. the number of persons reading the messages). For example, one can think at the forum hosted by major newspapers such as the New York Times or Le Monde; ii)
- Aim: There are for instance an increasing number of web-based discussion spaces - the e-consultation procedures - aiming at providing feedback on special issues; iii)
- status and power: it can result from the status and the power of the people participating actively or even just passively (just reading) in the online debates. There are, for example, online discussion spaces where political representatives or high level civil servants participate. It is usually not a spontaneous participation, but a participation resulting from an explicit invitation of the organizers.
Massages in major deliberation, “citizenspace”, that was designed to enable citizens to enter into an interactive relationship with Government, had longer average massages then minor deliberation, e-consultation experience organized by the Hansard society on the Stem research. Coleman found that the major forum had an average of 345 words per massage, while the minor forum had average of 79 words per massage[12]. Janssen and Kies (2000), suggest that major spaces tend to be more respectful and constructive[13].
learning and changing decisions
Basic Democratic settings
Due to the need for the government to follow public decisions and also to make governmental knowledge transparent, an efficient government should be in place before deliberation can start. When government is corrupt and unable to follow easily public decision due to organization inefficiency, the public will not be able to manifest itself on his bureaucracy. Officials will try to hold information from the public and organization inefficiency will cause projects decided by the people to disappear in the corridors of bureaucracy.
To achieve deliberative democracy, the people should pressure the government to be more efficient and more transparent.
Problems in deliberation
The Model
Better understanding is needed for solving these problems, therfore we will suggest the coming set of models.
The Epistemic Model
The Medium Model
The Psychological Model
The Sociological Model
Compering the Model to Deleberative Methods
Bulding new Methods according to the Model
See Also
References
- ↑ Pateman, C. (1970). Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ Cohen, J. (1989). Deliberative Democracy and Democratic Legitimacy, in A. Hamlin and P. Pettit (eds.) The Good Polity, Oxford: Blackwell,pp. 17–34.
- ↑ Fishkin, J.S. (1991). Democracy and Deliberation, Yale: Yale University Press.
- ↑ Barber, B.R. (1998). Three Scenarios for the Future of Technology and Strong Democracy, Political Science Quarterly 113(4): 573–590.
- ↑ Fishkin, J. S., & Luskin, R. C. (2005). Experimenting with a democratic ideal: Deliberative polling and public opinion. Acta Politica, 40(3), 284–298.(page 2)
- ↑ Beierle, T. C. (2002). Democracy Online: An Evaluation of the National Dialogue on Public Involvement in EPA decision. RFF Report, Washington.
- ↑ Davis R. (1999). The Web of Politics. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Dumoulin,
- ↑ Jankowski, N. & Van Selm M. (2000) The promise and Practice of Public Debate in Cyberspace. K. Hacker and J.A.G.M. Van Dijk, Eds. Digital Democracy: Issues of theory and practice. London: Sage.
- ↑ Jankowski, N. W. and R. van Os (2002). Internet-based Political Discourse: A Case Study of Electronic Democracy in the City of Hoogeveen. Euricom Colloquium: Electronic Networks & Democracy. Nijmegen, The Netherlands: 17.
- ↑ Jensen, J. L. (2003). Public Spheres on the Internet: Anarchic or Government- sponsored - A Comparison. Scandinavian Political Studies. 26: 349-374. Kies
- ↑ Janssen, D., & Kies, R. (2004). Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy : Hypotheses , Variables and Methodologies. In Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics”, European University Institute, Florence, 22-23 May 2004 (pp. 1–30). Florence.(p.6)
- ↑ Coleman, S., Hall, N., & Howell, M. (2002). Hearing voices: the experience of online public consultations and discussions in UK governance. Hansard Society.
- ↑ Janssen, D., & Kies, R. (2004). Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy : Hypotheses , Variables and Methodologies. In Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics”, European University Institute, Florence, 22-23 May 2004 (pp. 1–30). Florence.Janssen, D., & Kies, R. (2004). Online Forums and Deliberative Democracy : Hypotheses , Variables and Methodologies. In Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics”, European University Institute, Florence, 22-23 May 2004 (pp. 1–30). Florence.