Many people have started asking for a deliberative democracy after seeing the problems that beset democracies around the world. What is this strange new ​“deliberative” democracy? Read on to find out! 

Democracies have grown in numbers across the world over the last three centuries and appear to be the most widely accepted political system in the world. Democracy has definitely succeeded in reducing the role played by hereditary kings, with their arbitrary actions and erratic judgement. On the other hand, democracy has not quite led to the happy, wealthy and just societies which it had been expected to create. As the joke puts it, democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all those others which have been tried.

Votes can be easily obtained by pandering to the lowest desires and thoughts of a populace. Politicians around the world promote selfish and irresponsible desires, incite hatred and polarise views and find that this pays off during elections. Legislative bodies too often take up a majoritarian form. The group with the largest number of seats pushes its views through, ignoring all other perspectives and positions. Those in opposition rage and fume and hurl increasingly frustrated invective against those in power. Democracies often appear to be more divided and chaotic than even kingships. Some are tempted by this to forget the crazy and selfish acts of real-life kings and dream again of the moral orderliness of a monarchy. 

Those who believe in a deliberative democracy, however, say that solution lies in deepening democracy, not giving it up. They say that the problem is in how we earlier used to imagine a democracy. The solution is in re-imagining it and in improving the processes of democracy. This is to be done by strengthening the processes of deliberation in social and political life. 

Earlier, there used to be two major approaches in democratic thought, both of which influenced India’s freedom struggle: 

A protective democracy: Democracy as a way of protecting people from the arbitrary actions of the rulers and the state. Democracy was seen in an instrumental way, as a political system which ensured that if a sufficiently large number of people were unhappy with a ruler, that ruler could be peacefully removed, without bloodshed or rioting of the kind we are currently seeing in Bangladesh. A new replacement would be installed, one who was more congenial to the wishes of the people. This was the kind of position much favoured by British liberals like Jeremy Bentham, John Locke, etc.

A participatory democracy: Participating in decision-making was good for people, it fulfilled them as human beings and led to more responsible actions. When people were denied political participation they were made passive and hopeless, thus taking away something vitally human in them. Democracy was seen as something which was intrinsically good for people. This was how many like Hannah Arendt, M.K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mills and so on justified why the voice of the people mattered and why it should decide how we are ruled, or rather why we should rule ourselves.

The problem, deliberative democrats say, in both these positions is that they are only about putting forward one’s own views and demanding space for oneself. There is no great attention paid to how we build our views in the first place. Nor is attention paid to the others’ views, especially whether there may be anything worthwhile in them. Such positions lead to a majoritarian democracy, where whatever the government says is thought to be correct, so long as there are enough people willing to vote for it. The weakness of such a democracy is that numbers take up the place of truth and power replaces moral validity in deciding what should be done. If there are enough people willing to vote for a party that says we should close down government schools, that is what will get done. 

On the other hand, if there are enough people to vote for a party that says we should close down private schools, that will get done. The process of deciding what to do is reduced to who has the greater numbers. Deliberative democrats say that such a system of democracy does not give enough importance to reason or evidence or a sense of equality and justice in taking decisions. They say that instead of believing that numbers make one right, one should pay attention to how one is coming to the conclusion that one is right. Too often parties and individuals say that whatever they think is right and is the final word and push with all their force to get it implemented by the state. Instead, they should deliberate and think and examine positions from all angles and then come to the reasoned conclusion that this or that should be done.

In a deliberative democracy the emphasis is thus not on the numbers that justify a position taken by an individual or group, but on deliberation, viz. thinking and discussing with each other to find the best way forward. This invites us to pay attention to the reasoning, evidence and values that can justify a position. It asks for processes that will help different interests and interest groups to put forward their arguments and to listen to other arguments and to weigh them. Legislative bodies should be a place for thinking together, exchanging arguments to come to a conclusion which is best for all the groups in the discussion. They should not be what they have become, sites for shouting matches, demonstrations or worse.

Claus Offe and Ulrich Preuss (1991) say that in a democracy we aim to take the wisest decisions, so there should be an emphasis on reason (not prejudice, ideology and ignorance), on far-sightedness (for example, don’t hand out compensation, but plant trees and regulate construction to stop landslides), and respect for others (not selfishness, bigotry and insularity). Those who understand the place of communities in our lives would add to this the importance of fraternity or maitri. Many value positions are created by experiences and traditions, which have community patterns and are not created by reason alone. A deliberative democracy therefore asks for empathy across social groups. This will permit us to listen to and accommodate other perspectives as well. 

This may sound as idealistic today as democracy sounded in India at the time of the freedom struggle. Yet, as the freedom struggle has shown us, ideas can change the world. They do this by shaping institutions and processes. When institutions and processes emphasise only the sharp articulation of positions, they lead to the current state of affairs. When institutions and processes emphasise deliberation, dialogue and respect for other points of view, they will lead to an improved, enhanced democracy. 

The notion of a deliberative democracy, which takes decisions on the basis of discussion and reflection, asks us to rethink many things. It invites us to look again at our ideal of a good person and how good people act. It further asks us to reflect upon how that good person should act in public affairs. For this it says that our education system, especially civic education within it, needs to be drastically changed so that we build a deliberative rather than majoritarian democracy, with its emphasis on numbers alone. 

An important step forward will be to build suitable cultures. The deliberative democracy will work only when people are supported in being thoughtful, sensitive and reflexive. The education system and public culture must play an important role in this. The current school curricula and our public culture of democracy talk largely about demanding what one thinks is right. They are in line largely with protective democracy by teaching how elections work and how governments function. 

The participatory democracy too appears in our education system, with its high point being the NCF-2005 and its calls for paying attention to marginalised voices. The deliberative democracy, however, is present only in fragments, a little here and a little there. Only occasionally do we hear someone putting forward reasoned arguments and being willing to listen to the arguments of others.

The proponents of a deliberative democracy would say that the political system and its institutions should change their functioning to foreground deliberation rather than just pressing one’s claims. School and college education and public culture will play an important role if this is to happen. Textbooks, ways of teaching and assessment that highlight deliberation and reasoning rather than finished answers will help in this. Young people will then learn to listen to others and to identify valid and invalid arguments. When they learn to recognise what is valid in moral arguments and sift the justifications from the chaff, they will be able to make better decisions. Curricula that promote respect for other social groups and points of view will lead young people to empathise with others. This will enable them to give a fair hearing to all perspectives, rather than just clinging fearfully on to their own. Learning how social conditions can create fair or unfair barriers, learning about how history can affect our perspectives and create biases, will help them to think in a clearer way.

A deliberative democracy may lead us forward from a democracy where people do not listen to each other and get increasingly frustrated at the other’s obtuseness. For this to happen we need to rethink school and university curricula. But we need not wait for that. Every act of promoting deliberation, empathy and dialogue, wherever we get the opportunity to do so, will be a step towards a better world. 

Reference

Offe, C., & Preuss, U.K. (1991). Democratic Institutions and Moral Resources. In D. Held (Ed.), Political Theory Today (pp.143 – 72). Polity Press.

About the author

Amman Madan studied Anthropology and Sociology at Panjab University and Jawaharlal Nehru University and currently teaches at Azim Premji University, Bhopal. He works on promoting cultures of dialogue, justice and fraternity amongst children and youth. 

Featured Image Credit: Microsoft Designer
 

Published on 13 August 2024