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Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 10
Lesson 15: Deliberative democracyDeliberative democracy
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Geoff Pynn (Elgin Community College) examines the idea known as deliberative democracy, which says that deliberation and discussion are the heart of democracy, much more than the elections that signal an end to deliberation. But is meaningful deliberation possible in complex and diverse modern societies? Created by Gaurav Vazirani.
Video transcript
Hi. I’m Geoff Pynn, and I teach philosophy at
Elgin Community College. In this video, I’m going to talk about
the idea of deliberative democracy. The word “democracy” can
mean a lot of different things. We all know that it means
something like “rule by the people”. But that’s pretty abstract. To get more concrete, think of
some of the symbols of democracy. One symbol is the ballot box. Think of images you’ve seen of
the citizens of a new democracy proudly emerging
from the voting booth having cast a ballot in a free
election for the first time in their life. This symbol captures how
democratic decisions are finalized. Once the votes have been
cast, the issue is settled, and everyone hopefully
returns home in peace. In a democracy, at
the end of the day, it’s the people who have the
final say over big political decisions, and they do it by
casting their votes. Another symbol is the town hall. Imagine a contentious meeting
inside your local municipal building concerning your town’s growing
problem with homelessness. One person gets up to
share their experience, another gives their opinion
on what should be done, a third brings a
different perspective, a fourth shares
that she is homeless and explains why the second’s
proposal won’t work, and so on. This symbol captures the
part of a democratic decision that happens before
any votes are cast. This process is
called deliberation. It seems clear
that you need both the town hall and the ballot box
to have a functioning democracy. Elections where people cast their
ballots for a pre-selected candidate they’ve been instructed to
vote for aren’t really democratic. And if a vote takes place
behind closed doors, secretly unaffected by the
vigorous debate going on in public, well that’s not
democratic either. Some theorists argue that the deliberative
process is the true heart of democracy. Proponents of deliberative democracy hold that democracy’s
real value lies here, rather than in the vote that, in
effect, puts an end to deliberation. So what’s going on in
that town hall meeting? What makes it so valuable? A wise government promotes
society’s common good. But society comprises
many different perspectives, needs,
interests, and desires. How can we know what
really is in society’s interest? And how can we know
how to promote that? One answer is: take a vote! But this answer assumes that
each of those casting their votes has a fully formed respectable
opinion on the matter. Why think we learn anything
about the common good from the votes of people
who don’t really care, or haven’t really
thought about it, or are being paid to
vote in a certain way? Another answer is: have people talk
about it with each other until they come up
with some solutions. Here are some things that are
likely to happen if you do that: People will come to a deeper
understanding of the problems they face People will encounter
reasonable perspectives on the problems
other than their own People will arrive at
proposals to address the problem that are
supported by the majority These outcomes aren’t
guaranteed ofcourse, but they’re certainly more likely
to occur through deliberation than they are through checking
off a box in a voting booth. And there is empirical evidence
that deliberative democracy Produces better outcomes
than simply taking a vote. Plus, in addition to helping
solve the problem at hand, the practice of deliberation
strengthens connections among citizens, enabling them to forge a sense
of solidarity across their disagreements. Of course, deliberative democracy may seem
pretty unrealistic in the modern world. There are over 300
million people in the US -- how is meaningful deliberation
possible in a country so massive? But efforts have been made to
implement deliberative democracy in some large scale contexts. For example, in the city
of Porto Alegre, Brazil, which has a
population of 1.4million, citizens meet in small
deliberative groups to identify needs and
set budget priorities. The city budget is then shaped in
response to this deliberative process. It’s not hard to imagine how such
a system might be implemented to shape the spending priorities and policy
decisions of other large political bodies. But there’s no denying that
it would look very different from the way decisions
are currently made in the world’s largest
so-called democracies. If meaningful deliberation is
the true heart of democracy, it’s hard to avoid
the conclusion that most modern
democracies are on life support. What do you think?