EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
Deliberative democracy. (UPSC CSE Mains 2019 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1).
- Deliberative democracy argues that political decisions should be based on fair and reasonable deliberations among citizens. This is required to produce best decisions to achieve public good. In emphasizing on quality of process for best outcomes, John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas have argued for a deliberative democracy. Rawls believed that reason can overcome self interest to attain a just political society. Habermas believed that fair procedures and clear communication would lead to legitimate and mutually agreed upon decisions.
- Deliberative democracy suggests that we value self-rule because it provides an area for discussion, compromise, and consensus. The ideal of deliberative democracy is not that a majority number of votes will clearly determine an answer, but that through transparent and fair deliberation, we should arrive at something close to unanimous consensus, even if that consensus is a compromise in which no one individual gets everything they want. A deliberative democracy is one in which citizens and representatives justify their decisions in an open and transparent arena, using reason to arrive at a best possible conclusion while leaving open the possibility that the conclusion could be revised or changed in the future. Process is key to deliberation—it is a back and forth dialog among individuals engaged in the task of finding solutions to political problems of a community. Where aggregative democracy is centered on the end result, or aggregative, of preferences, deliberative democracy values the process of deliberating as much if not more than the conclusion itself.
- In a democracy, leaders should give reasons for their decisions, and respond to the reasons that citizens give in return. But not all issues, all the time, require deliberation. Deliberative democracy makes room for many other forms of decisionmaking (including bargaining among groups, and secret operations ordered by executives), as long as the use of these forms themselves is justified at some point in a deliberative process. Its first and most important characteristic, then, is its reason-giving requirement.
- The reasons that deliberative democracy asks citizens and their representatives to give should appeal to principles that individuals who are trying to find fair terms of cooperation cannot reasonably reject. The reasons are neither merely procedural nor purely substantive. They are reasons that should be accepted by free and equal persons seeking fair terms of cooperation.
- Deliberative democrats care as much about what happens after a decision is made as about what happens before. Keeping the decision-making process open in this way--recognizing that its results are provisional--is important for two reasons. First, in politics as in much of practical life, decision-making processes and the human understanding upon which they depend are imperfect. We therefore cannot be sure that the decisions we make today will be correct tomorrow, and even the decisions that appear most sound at the time may appear less justifiable in light of later evidence. Even in the case of those that are irreversible, like the decision to attack Iraq, reappraisals can lead to different choices later than were planned initially. Second, in politics most decisions are not consensual. Those citizens and representatives who disagreed with the original decision are more likely to accept it if they believe they have a chance to reverse or modify it in the future. And they are more likely to be able to do so if they have a chance to keep making arguments.
- The essence of deliberative democracy is to be found in 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments. Grassroots participation and social audits inform, educate and enlighten the citizen on the road to social welfare.
Next
previous
Latest News
General Studies