Young (1996) Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy
Deliberative democracy is a model usually proposed against an interest-based model of
democracy. Young critiques deliberative democracy and proposes an expanded conception
of democratic communication.
Interest-based democracy model: democracy is considered primarily as a process of
expressing one’s preferences and demands, and registering them in a vote. The goal of
democratic decision making is to decide what leaders, rules, and policies will best serve the
greatest number of people and the individual’s personal interests.
Deliberative democracy model: democracy is conceived as a process that creates a public,
where citizens come together to discuss collective problems, goals, ideals and actions.
Instead of being from the point of view of the private utility maximizer, citizens transform their
preferences according to public-minded ends through public deliberation.
Young’s critique of deliberative democracy
1. Democratic discussion is seen only as “critical argument”, thus assuming a culturally
biased conception of discussions that silences and devalues certain people and
groups who do not conform traditionally to that form of argument-making
2. Deliberative theorists assume that processes of discussion that aim to reach
understanding must either begin with shared understandings or take common good
as their goal.
Young’s proposal for an expanded conception of democratic communication inserts new
components to argumentation in the public sphere:
1. Greeting
2. Rhetoric
3. Storytelling
Difference is a resource for polities and narrative communication helps foster it more than
pure objectivity.
Bennet and Livingston (2020) A brief history of disinformation age
Disinformation: intentional falsehoods or distortions, often spread as news, to advance
political goals such as discrediting opponents, disrupting policy debates, influencing voters,
inflaming existing social conflicts, or creating a general backdrop of confusion and
informational paralysis.
Disinformation has become a growingly important problem in the public sphere both for
democracies and illiberal democracies as well as many other nations.
The paper argues that at the core of the current disinformation disorder lies a crisis of
legitimacy of authoritative institutions. Systemic crises have created an opportunity for
radical ideas to enter politics and create issues in the public sphere and information.
These issues are:
- Confirmation Bias: tendency to privilege information aligned with prior beliefs
- Disconfirmation bias: same idea, but from the other direction
, - People are not isolated information processors: they look for trusted information from
their social networks and participate in the production of large volumes of disruptive
content as they exist within a community
- We cannot fit old political communication model to the current technological era
The solution is: repairing the basic functioning of democratic institutions themselves by
finding ways to restore more representative and responsive parties, elections and
government, and to reinvent a press that could aid this goal.
Habermas and Taylor (2011) Dialogue
This paper is a debate between the two authors on the topic of religion within the public
sphere.
Habermas believes in translation
● Religious speech and religious arguments are not admissible in the political sphere
unless they can be translated into secular terms. Otherwise, they are inaccessible.
Religious thinking is
○ Exclusive/Difficult to rely: it makes it hard to have a communicative dialogue
○ Uses Allegorical reasoning: X is good because this story says it is, thus you
need to believe in the story to get to the point
○ Uses Ritual reasoning: X is good because my community says it is. This
makes it inaccessible to those not members of the faith. It requires a
conversation that can be had only by individuals who are committed to the
community.
● The public sphere is a constructed realm where people should leave their identities
behind before entering discussion
Taylor believes in shared spirituality and finds a place for religion in the public sphere
● Spirituality and religion is relevant, thus there is a need for it to have a space in the
public sphere
Mahmood (2001) Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the docile agent: some
reflections on the Egyptian islamic revival.
From a case study of muslim women in egypt, the paper argues for an emic approach to
religion in the public sphere (Emic: from the inside)
Malkki (1992) “National Geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of
national identity among scholars and refugees”
How did we come to think of the world’s population as divided into national populations
which are bound to specific territorial units?
● The category of refugees and their displacement is constructed differently from the
way people construct their idea of homeland and nation.
● Space and Place are sociopolitical constructions.
Metaphorically, people are rooted like trees
● Arborescent roots metaphor to describe belonging to a country/nation
Deliberative democracy is a model usually proposed against an interest-based model of
democracy. Young critiques deliberative democracy and proposes an expanded conception
of democratic communication.
Interest-based democracy model: democracy is considered primarily as a process of
expressing one’s preferences and demands, and registering them in a vote. The goal of
democratic decision making is to decide what leaders, rules, and policies will best serve the
greatest number of people and the individual’s personal interests.
Deliberative democracy model: democracy is conceived as a process that creates a public,
where citizens come together to discuss collective problems, goals, ideals and actions.
Instead of being from the point of view of the private utility maximizer, citizens transform their
preferences according to public-minded ends through public deliberation.
Young’s critique of deliberative democracy
1. Democratic discussion is seen only as “critical argument”, thus assuming a culturally
biased conception of discussions that silences and devalues certain people and
groups who do not conform traditionally to that form of argument-making
2. Deliberative theorists assume that processes of discussion that aim to reach
understanding must either begin with shared understandings or take common good
as their goal.
Young’s proposal for an expanded conception of democratic communication inserts new
components to argumentation in the public sphere:
1. Greeting
2. Rhetoric
3. Storytelling
Difference is a resource for polities and narrative communication helps foster it more than
pure objectivity.
Bennet and Livingston (2020) A brief history of disinformation age
Disinformation: intentional falsehoods or distortions, often spread as news, to advance
political goals such as discrediting opponents, disrupting policy debates, influencing voters,
inflaming existing social conflicts, or creating a general backdrop of confusion and
informational paralysis.
Disinformation has become a growingly important problem in the public sphere both for
democracies and illiberal democracies as well as many other nations.
The paper argues that at the core of the current disinformation disorder lies a crisis of
legitimacy of authoritative institutions. Systemic crises have created an opportunity for
radical ideas to enter politics and create issues in the public sphere and information.
These issues are:
- Confirmation Bias: tendency to privilege information aligned with prior beliefs
- Disconfirmation bias: same idea, but from the other direction
, - People are not isolated information processors: they look for trusted information from
their social networks and participate in the production of large volumes of disruptive
content as they exist within a community
- We cannot fit old political communication model to the current technological era
The solution is: repairing the basic functioning of democratic institutions themselves by
finding ways to restore more representative and responsive parties, elections and
government, and to reinvent a press that could aid this goal.
Habermas and Taylor (2011) Dialogue
This paper is a debate between the two authors on the topic of religion within the public
sphere.
Habermas believes in translation
● Religious speech and religious arguments are not admissible in the political sphere
unless they can be translated into secular terms. Otherwise, they are inaccessible.
Religious thinking is
○ Exclusive/Difficult to rely: it makes it hard to have a communicative dialogue
○ Uses Allegorical reasoning: X is good because this story says it is, thus you
need to believe in the story to get to the point
○ Uses Ritual reasoning: X is good because my community says it is. This
makes it inaccessible to those not members of the faith. It requires a
conversation that can be had only by individuals who are committed to the
community.
● The public sphere is a constructed realm where people should leave their identities
behind before entering discussion
Taylor believes in shared spirituality and finds a place for religion in the public sphere
● Spirituality and religion is relevant, thus there is a need for it to have a space in the
public sphere
Mahmood (2001) Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the docile agent: some
reflections on the Egyptian islamic revival.
From a case study of muslim women in egypt, the paper argues for an emic approach to
religion in the public sphere (Emic: from the inside)
Malkki (1992) “National Geographic: the rooting of peoples and the territorialization of
national identity among scholars and refugees”
How did we come to think of the world’s population as divided into national populations
which are bound to specific territorial units?
● The category of refugees and their displacement is constructed differently from the
way people construct their idea of homeland and nation.
● Space and Place are sociopolitical constructions.
Metaphorically, people are rooted like trees
● Arborescent roots metaphor to describe belonging to a country/nation
