Deliberative democracy is a very expansive term that covers off on a whole raft of stuff, much of which I think would be very beneficial.
What I want to talk about here is the idea that you hear of from a lot of people on the communitarian left that we need to have more direct, deliberative democratic mechanisms, like town hall meetings to decide where new bike paths would be built. What this essentially amounts to is a transition from one person one vote to greater political power for people with heaps of spare time.
Communitarian types never seem to realise that people like representative democracy because they have better things to do than engage in the trivialities of policymaking. The representative system works very well for the modern policy environment, which involves extremely complex policy that needs to be crafted by experts (do you reckon your local community farmer could design a carbon price? What about the tax and transfer system?). The public projects sentiment outward using their voice (discourse, media, protests etc.) Politicians, keen to get elected, hear this noise and promise change. They are experts in politics, not policy, so they consult experts in policy: the public service, academics, relevant stakeholders etc. Those experts produce a policy and work with politicians to adjust it to suit the values of the electorate (e.g. just how large should the higher education subsidy be?). The politicians then take their policies to the electorate and try to convince them to vote them in.
Why do people think it would be more efficient or effective to have citizens involved all along that chain? Mark, you idiot, they don't, they think it would be more equitable. Except that it wouldn't be because the only people involved would be all the retired schoolteachers with backyard permaculture operations that you get at public lectures on climate change, and all the econtrolls who want a return to 'real money backed by real gold' that you get on any macro economics websites ever. These people wouldn't make good decision and wouldn't be broadly representative of the population. The only reason why communitarians want more such deliberative mechanisms is because it would give them more power.
What I want to talk about here is the idea that you hear of from a lot of people on the communitarian left that we need to have more direct, deliberative democratic mechanisms, like town hall meetings to decide where new bike paths would be built. What this essentially amounts to is a transition from one person one vote to greater political power for people with heaps of spare time.
Communitarian types never seem to realise that people like representative democracy because they have better things to do than engage in the trivialities of policymaking. The representative system works very well for the modern policy environment, which involves extremely complex policy that needs to be crafted by experts (do you reckon your local community farmer could design a carbon price? What about the tax and transfer system?). The public projects sentiment outward using their voice (discourse, media, protests etc.) Politicians, keen to get elected, hear this noise and promise change. They are experts in politics, not policy, so they consult experts in policy: the public service, academics, relevant stakeholders etc. Those experts produce a policy and work with politicians to adjust it to suit the values of the electorate (e.g. just how large should the higher education subsidy be?). The politicians then take their policies to the electorate and try to convince them to vote them in.
Why do people think it would be more efficient or effective to have citizens involved all along that chain? Mark, you idiot, they don't, they think it would be more equitable. Except that it wouldn't be because the only people involved would be all the retired schoolteachers with backyard permaculture operations that you get at public lectures on climate change, and all the econtrolls who want a return to 'real money backed by real gold' that you get on any macro economics websites ever. These people wouldn't make good decision and wouldn't be broadly representative of the population. The only reason why communitarians want more such deliberative mechanisms is because it would give them more power.
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