Responsible Deliberation, between Conversation and Consideration

Bernard Reber, Senior Fellow in the Center National for the Scientific Research (CNRS), Sciences Po Paris, (Political Research Center).

• Preface ixAcknowledgments xvIntroduction xviiPart 1 As Many Critiques as There Are Deliberations 1Chapter 1 From Defiant Critical Citizenship to Pluralist Political Critique 51.1 Testing critical citizenship 71.2 Critique as defiance 81.2.1 Relational critique 81.3 Stealth democracy versus sunshine democracy 111.4 From reactive critique to pluralist political critique 141.5 The critique of common sense 181.6 Intensity of critique towards democracy and propensity to engage 201.7 Comparative attractiveness of five features of democracy 251.8 From critical citizenship to citizenship critique 261.8.1 Democracy, citizenship and types of critique 271.8.2 Beyond the four types of critique: communication, responsibility and burdens of judgment 291.9 An unusual debate to tame the critics’ 34Chapter 2 Multiple and Conflicting Origins of Deliberative Democracy 432.1 Recent and deflationary definition of deliberative democracy 462.2 The sources of deliberative democracy 482.2.1 Eight phases in the evolution of a conflict theory 482.2.2 Late arrival of philosophy? 512.2.3 Three additional steps in the history of TDD 532.2.4 A division into two generations 592.3. Questionable developments, remaining problems and the promise of theory 602.4 TDD from three other perspectives 632.5 Contested deliberation and probation 68Part 2 Disseminated Deliberation between Empirical Analyses and Theoretical Disputes 77Chapter 3 Deliberation, Argumentation, Multiscale Agreement Modes 793.1 Fragmented deliberations under institutional constraints 803.2 Access to the agreements 853.3 Philosophy and practical deliberations 923.3.1 Theory and empirical differences 923.3.2 Constructive or critical philosophy 943.3.3 Mobilization of philosophy for empirical work 973.4 Guaranteed or “unfiltered” deliberation? 102Chapter 4 More than a “Familial Dispute” at the Foundation of Deliberative Democracy 1094.1 Between Rawls and Habermas, incompatible perspectives 1114.1.1 Disputes about the limits of politics and the instruments of representation (Rawlsian division) 1144.1.2 Playing Rawls against Rawls (Habermasian reconstruction) 1144.2 Disagreements at the heart of deliberative tools: reflective equilibrium and argumentation 1164.2.1. The equilibrium control of the conjecture of the original position (Rawls) 1164.2.2 Reflective equilibrium well understood (Habermas) 1184.2.3 Theory of incomplete argumentation (Rawls) 1194.3 Challenges of pluralism and limits of reflective equilibrium 1204.3.1 Pluralism at the heart of the judgment 1214.4 Reflective equilibriums put to the test 1254.4.1 Recomposition of the burdens of judgment 1264.4.2 Burdens of judgment in search of equilibrium 1284.5 The law at the risk of democratic debate 130Part 3 Embodied Rhetoric and Complex Political System 135Chapter 5 Argumentation Put Into Question 1435.1 Argumentation, the key to saving communicative rationality 1445.1.1 Problems of the relationship between reasons and validity 1475.1.2 Importance of the relationship between reasons and validity 1505.2 Enigmatic Habermasian additions on argumentation 1525.3 Expectations and disappointed promises of argumentative hopes 1585.4 Give up? 1605.5 Venturing out as the situation requires 1635.6 Types of questions and components of the argument 1655.7 The frameworks of argumentation 1695.8 Arguing, from law to politics 1725.9 Argumentation, legal methodology, social justice 174Chapter 6 From Conversation to Consideration 1836.1 Communication capacities 1836.1.1 Narration 1866.1.2 Interpretation 1866.1.3 Combinations of communication capacities 1876.2 Conversation 1896.3 Consideration 1946.4 Issues, circumstances and responsibilities 1986.4.1 General issues (hexameter) fixing the circumstances 1996.4.2 Detailed responsibilities 2006.4.3 The will is not only a matter of conflicting desires 2016.4.4 Communicating, from circumstances to political responsibilities 2046.5 Rhetoric, as essence and perfection of language 2066.6 System of deliberative systems 2126.6.1 System functions and levels of pluralism 2146.6.2 From social deliberation to deliberative systems 2166.7 Deliberative stage system and expertise 218Conclusion 225References 237Index 251