Course: Deliberative Democracy Instructor: Herlin Chien
Student: Yu-Chu Chen 陳郁竹 Student ID: M976020010
The Ideals and Difficulties of Putting Deliberation
into Practice
Outline
The previous readings I read that I figure out that Deliberative
Democracy is an ideal mode of democracy, and I think that it is hard
to put it into practice. So, that is the point that I will pay much
attention to. Also, deliberation can work as a process of democracy.
Most scholars think that deliberation has two kinds of meanings. By
definition, according to many scholars, some scholars regard
deliberation as the inherent worthiness, the others value
deliberation for instrumental reasons, such as achieving consensus,
knowing more about people’s own interests, sense of public
participation raising and so forth. And there is no doubt that the
good), but not for private interests, and it requires that every citizen
can have equality to deliberate and shape the collective identity and
interests together that will be helpful to form the public conception
of common good. The scholars, like Amy Gutmann and Dennis
Thompson, mention that deliberation has two perspectives,
substantive principles and procedural principles. Obviously, they
sort deliberation by two different functions, and this perspective
consists with that of Ian Shapiro, inherent worthiness and
instrumental reasons. I will develop my arguments from these two
perspectives of deliberation; nevertheless, I will make an effort on
revealing ineffectiveness and problems of deliberation as well.
When I thought about my plan of final report, there were some
questions coming out my mind, for instance, I wonder how to make
a final decision after deliberation on earth. It seems that if people
want to make the result of deliberation become a real or final
decision or even policy making, it must classify all differential
opinions into two or multiple options, like yes-no questions or
multiple-choice questions, which people can choose or vote for
be simplified to yes-no questions or even multiple-choice questions,
so, how to put deliberation into practice or make a decision or policy
is a question. If let’s assume that it is possible to make a yes-no
question or even multiple-choice questions, then I wonder who can
have the power to settle these options. Is it possible to make
everyone included? Otherwise it must be like a privilege to someone
who involved. However, is deliberation just an ideal that cannot put
it into practice? If deliberation is just an ideal or a process of
democracy, what the purposes of deliberation are then.What’s
more, I wonder what the connection between Deliberative
Democracy and Participatory Democracy are. In my opinion, I think
Deliberative Democracy is one kind of Participatory Democracy.
When people deliberate on some public issues or affairs, it means
that people take part in public issues or affairs as well. Therefore, if
it is possible to discover the connection between Deliberative
Democracy and Participatory Democracy, it can combine these two
types of democracy into one system of democracy, and then it can
put deliberation into practice, I think. That is to say, Deliberative
In my final report, I attempt to refer to those functions and
ideals of deliberation that some scholars mention firstly, and then
talk about the difficulties of fulfillment of deliberation in my opinion
as well as take the possibility of combination of Deliberative
Democracy and Participatory Democracy into account. Finally, I will
try to provide some possibility of solutions or alternatives of putting
deliberation into practice. Deliberation is an ideal that make people
participate in discussing about their own business freely. As to
freedom of deliberation, government is supposed to positively play
the main role on providing a free forum for people to discuss about
every issue they want, but government should not compel people to
deliberate. The most important thing government should do is to
create a channel for people to take part in deliberation. Some
scholars think that deliberation will waste lots of time on achieving
consensus, and it may not make an immediate decision or policy to
deal with the emergency or immediate incidents. I do this report in
order to find out the feasibility of Deliberative Democracy as well as
what the role of government should be. There are still plenty of
may cause more conflicts, divisions, revealing hidden difference,
forming consensus forcibly or something like that. People who can
set the agendas will control deliberation the most. Additionally,
people who get the most information will have more power to make
others follow them as well. It is unfair to those who lack knowledge
or information. In my final report, I will pay much attention on
finding out those questions of deliberation, and then find the way
out to minimize those questions.
Literature Review
I got most ideas from “Optimal Deliberation?” written by Ian
Shapiro, and “Deliberative Democracy, the Discursive
Dilemma, and Republican Theory” written by Philip Perrir,
chapter six and seven in the book named Debating Deliberative
Democracy. The former article talks about the ideal type of
deliberation mostly, and it also raises some questions which are
worthy to discuss, for example, how much is too much deliberation,
the dilemma of deliberation, such as difficulty of inclusiveness and
unanimity. Moreover, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy”
written by Joshua Cohen, chapter three in Deliberative Democracy:
Essays on Reason and Politics, provides many good definitions and
ideals of deliberation, for example, the author mentions that value
of deliberation is fairness. That means that everyone has the same
chance to get the information and deliberate every issue. This
article makes a linkage between justice and deliberation that I will
take it into account. “Deliberative Democracy Beyond Process”
written by Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson refers to two
perspectives of deliberation, pure proceduralists and substantive
principles. It also provides me some ideas for my points.
Furthermore, Robert Dahl’s article “A Theory of the Democratic
Process” provides some criteria of democratic process that I can
measure what the pros and cons of deliberation are. And I will still
try to find some articles, books or information to make my
