I examine the current state of democracy in the United States and how it has evolved from its original, direct form. Present-day problems with democracy emerge in part because of a failure to exercise our autonomy, which is the very basis of our self-governance. To consistently improve the ways in which we organize ourselves in society, I suggest a civil duty to become informed about political issues and engage with others from different backgrounds. Because we exercise reason in order to determine governance, thoughtful deliberation provides opportunities to include more diverse opinions and ideas in political decision-making. I outline an ideal deliberative democracy that would better serve the interests of the constituents given the uniqueness of today’s challenges. To explore the value of deliberation, I examine Immanuel Kant’s text “What is Enlightenment?” and Michel Foucault’s text in response to Kant. I argue that if deliberation is carried out with intention, citizens in a democracy can help strengthen the system by fulfilling duties of civility. Foucault’s historicocritical examination of ourselves reinstates our autonomy and allows an emergence from a state of immaturity. Recognition of our condition in the present day is, I will argue, an achievement of progress towards a dynamic conception of personal and collective enlightenment.

Habermas’s work since the turn of the millennium is characterized by an increased interest in the role of religion in politics. One of the most significant theses of this so-called “religious turn” is captured by Habermas’s institutional translation proviso, which calls on citizens to participate in translating religious contributions to public dialogue into a secular language purportedly accessible to all. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the translation proviso with a view both to the political inclusion of religious citizens and to the renewal of the normative resources required for democratic self-determination. By way of a critical engagement with the work of Immanuel Kant and Charles Taylor, I argue that, despite being limited as a solution to both problems, Habermas’s institutional translation proviso is nonetheless preferable to available alternatives. To that extent, I maintain that it is an indispensable feature of democratic politics in pluralist societies.

Deliberative democratic theory proposes an active citizenry that becomes empowered by discussing and taking and active part in politics. There is a large gap between theory and practice in the deliberative democratic literature. Namely, while many scholars have theorized why deliberative democracy can be considered normatively desirable, fewer studies have measured whether the benefits gained from deliberation are plausible. Almost all of the major empirical studies in the literature involve either quasi-experimental designs or fieldwork. As such, it becomes difficult to tell whether or not deliberation does produce benefits for individuals, and if so, how durable these gains are. This doctoral dissertation project explores the individual benefits of deliberation by defining, describing and defending the desirability of the more commonly cited benefits. This is followed by a full experimental set-up that includes one control group and three different treatment groups that participate in different forms of deliberation. The treatment groups include: a group that only watches deliberation, a group that participates in a non-hierarchical and informal discussion, and a group that participates in a rigorously-moderated and highly structured deliberation. The hypotheses indicate that different treatment conditions will have different effects on the existence and magnitude of the two types of individual benefits: civic and educative.

There has been much written of the potential positive impact in Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This thesis explores the reliance on deliberative democracy by the proponents of EE/ESD and whether or not they have justification for their beliefs. Specifically, participation and deliberation will be separated in order to identify any faults in these values that may prevent democracy – and therefore education – from addressing the problems of sustainable development and environmental concerns. Through a deconstruction of the relevant literature and a clarification of the lines of thought brought forth throughout the various arguments, it is shown that there is no good theoretical or empirical reason for advocating a deliberative democratic approach to EE/ESD as feverishly as some do. Instead, the case for an educational method and content based on the empirically observed characteristics of current liberal democracies will be made.

In light of the notions of freedom, legitimacy, equality, autonomy, plurality, publicity and action in the philosophies of Rousseau and Arendt, it can be seen that formal democracy, having ceased to be the expression of the sovereignty of the people, fell into a legitimacy crisis and has become a system which makes the people apolitical. Behind these problems, there are many reasons like the ethical deficiency of the monetarist system, deputies&rsquo / abuse of authority and tyranny of the majority. The facts in question have pushed philosophers to re-think the fundamental concepts underlying democracy and search for new conceptions of democracy. Nevertheless, it seems that no political model can succeed unless the people reach a certain level of ethical maturity. In this context, we are confronted with two models: liberal deliberative model which is criticized for giving negative rights priority over the process of public will-formation, and Habermas&rsquo / proceduralism which is based on the theory of discourse ethics. Habermasian democracy&mdash / which, contrary to majoritarianism, assumes the consent of all people as the basis of legitimacy&mdash / has goals like intersubjective understanding through rational justification and consensus in an ideal speech situation. Although it has criticizable sides, being the most appropriate account for our understanding of democracy ethics, which considers politics as a part of being human rather than a matter of governance, proceduralism can be defended with the contributions of Benhabib and Young. In the end, the point is making ethics of democracy prior to political models for re-politization of the people.

<p>There is a gap between the citizens and the political institutions of the European Union. Several years of low participation in the European Parliamentary elections and a number of surveys shows that the EU has weak legitimacy in the eyes of the people.</p><p>This thesis is a critical study of EU’s communication with the citizens until 2005. Based on Habermas’s theoroetical framework, it searches for deliberative qualities within the EU’s structure. According to Habermas, political legitimacy requires that people can shape and express their opinions in a public sphere, but the EU does not really have a public sphere. He also emphasizes the importance of good channels of communication between people and politicians, but within the EU, communication has been synonymous with information (or marketing) and practically unilateral. This leads to the conclusion that the EU’s lack of deliberative qualities can have affected EU’s political legitimacy negatively.</p>

<p>There is a gap between the citizens and the political institutions of the European Union. Many theorists think that this is due to the fact that the EU suffers from a “democratic deficit” and that the EU is perceived as a project made by and for the political elite. Several years of low participation in the European Parliamentary elections and the French and Dutch rejection of the European Constitutional Treaty in Spring 2005 shows that the EU has weak legitimacy in the eyes of the people.</p><p>In 2004, Margot Wallström was charged to renew the European Commission’s communication strategy and to reconnect with the citizens by stimulating dialogue and debate. This thesis is a critical study of the deliberative qualities of the new communication strategy based on Habermas’s discursive theory, which discusses the strategy’s possible effects on EU legitimacy. It finds that the communication strategy, despite several deliberative apects, have little chances to have an impact on EUs legitimacy, since it fails to engage “common people” in the debate and since it is not part of a major institutional reform but just an “icing on the cake”.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

This study explored the nature of Future Session workshops in current Japan by identifying the motivations, conducting analysis from the point of view a deliberative democracy, and examining the potentials for developing future visions of society. Four workshops were targeted that dealt with a wide range of societal problems and commonly challenged existing societal structures. The study found that the workshops were motivated by the doubt over the current direction of the society, a demand for a crosscutting cooperation between different fields, and a need to foster proactive actors through participatory workshop processes. Accordingly, it is argued that “deliberative democracy of workshops” based on dialogue and collaboration rather than confrontational communication and competition constitutes a Japanese deliberative democracy. The study also shows that the created projects and processes of deliberation contained many critical perspectives towards the dominant societal structure and norms. Finally, it is concluded that the process of actualizing the projects should be reflected carefully and the potential of these methods depends on the overreaching objective of its use.

This thesis examines the quality and effectiveness of online political deliberation, within the framework of Jurgen Habermas’ public sphere and discourse theories. The thesis analyzes a deliberative process that took place online, in June 2011, as part of the Liberal Party of Canada’s Extraordinary Convention, specifically through content and discourse analysis of data from online discussion platforms. The analysis sought to ascertain whether the objectives of the convention were met, measured the quality of discourse and identified insights to support the creation of more effective spaces for political deliberation online. Analysis of the results revealed a difference in the discourse quality for each platform, attributed to the synchronicity or asynchronicity of the platform. The thesis concludes with suggestions for a design that makes use of both the synchronous and asynchronous features of the online discussion platforms in order to more specifically target the objectives of the political process.