Jurgen Habermas II - Deliberative Democracy - An Interview (p.60-80)

#ethics

Class: PHIL-282
Author: Jürgen Habermas
Book: A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, edited by Ciaran Cronin.

Text

Deliberative Democracy: An Interview

Today many theorists of deliberation stress that deliberative standards, such as the standard of equal power in the aggregative model of democracy, function as regulative ideals. This implies that the oft-quoted concept of the ideal speech situation' is not ultimately a practically achievable goal. Do you see this as a welcome development?

Your question provides me with an opportunity to clarify a persistent misunderstanding about the concept 'ideal speech situation'. Aside from the fact that I have not used this misleading expression since my 1972 essay on Theories of Truth * and have long since revised it, one must take into account the context in

which a concept is introduced. At the time I used the expression to refer to the cluster of pragmatic presuppositions that we must assume as a matter of fact whenever we engage in argumentation about the validity of propositions. As participants in discourse, we 'know' that we are not arguing 'seriously' if coercion or manipulation is at work in such an exchange of reasons, or if some of those affected are excluded or if relevant opinions and positions are suppressed. We must presuppose that only the unforced force of the better argument comes into play in the given situation. This knowledge of ours, our knowledge of how to participate in a rational discourse, has a regulating influence on how participants actually behave when arguing, even when they are aware that they can fulfil these pragmatic presuppositions only approximately. In view of this counterfactual status, one can perhaps say that the idealizing content of the pragmatic presuppositions of discourse plays the role of a regulative idea for the participants. From the observer perspective, one will find that rational discourses rarely occur in pure form.

However, this in no way alters the fact that, from the participant perspective, we must make those presuppositions that are constitutive of the cooperative search for truth. This is shown, among other things, by the fact that we appeal to these very standards when we criticize a mere pretence of engaging in discourse or an agreement reached by dubious means.

When a philosopher examines the concept of rational discourse, he adopts the epistemic stance of a participant and attempts to reconstruct the latter's performative 'knowledge of how to engage in argument', and hence tries to convert it into explicit 'knowledge of what ...'. By contrast, a social scientist studying discourses - for example, reflecting on democratic practice - is concerned not with rational discourse as such. Rather, she approaches these phenomena from an observer's perspective, describes discourses in space and time - that is, in their diverse empirical manifestations - and for this purpose favours the less sharply defined concept of 'deliberation'. But an empirical researcher also has good reasons not to casually disregard the participants' performative knowledge.

There are many practices that can function only as long as the participants make certain idealizing assumptions. In a constitutional democracy, for example, citizens will conduct their disputes through the courts only as long as they can assume that more or less fair rulings are to be expected (and do not let themselves be perturbed by the evidence unearthed by realists' or the advocates of Critical Legal Studies that judges' motives are guided by interests). Similarly, citizens will participate in political elections only as long as they are able to assume implicitly that their voice can make itself heard and that their vote 'counts' - it should even have the same weight as every other vote. These are also idealizing presuppositions. Unlike informal discourses, however, these discursive practices, which are embedded in institutions of the state, can lose their credibility. Voters who feel 'disconnected' stop going to the polls.

Democratic elections cease to function properly, for example, when the failure to take seriously the interests of underprivileged non-voters leads to a vicious circle, or when the infrastructures of public communication disintegrate to such an extent that numbing resentment gains the upper hand over well-informed public opinions. In short, I do not see deliberative politics as an aloof ideal against which sordid reality must be measured, but as an existential presupposition of any democracy worthy of the name.

It is not a historical accident that a bourgeois public sphere developed in tandem with liberal democracy. Also under the changed conditions of mass democracy, parliamentary legislation, competition between political parties and free political elections need to be rooted in a vibrant political public sphere, an active civil society and a liberal political culture. Without this societal context, the essential deliberative presuppositions for democratic legitimation of rule lack any foothold in reality.

Many theorists of deliberation object that consensus is not necessarily the goal of a successful process of deliberation; rather, deliberation can also lead only to the clarification of preferences. Does the assumed orientation to reaching understanding exercise too strong an influence on deliberation?

Let me make the following clear in advance: the assumption that political discourses are also oriented to the goal of reaching an agreement in no way implies an idealizing

'idyllic' conception of the democratic process as a convivial university seminar. On the contrary, it is safe to assume that it is precisely the participants' orientation to the truth or rightness of their beliefs that first adds fuel to the fire of political disputes and lends them a polemical character. To argue is to contradict. But it is only the right - and, indeed, the encouragement - to say 'no' to each other that elicits the epistemic potential of language without which we could not learn from one another. And this is the point of deliberative politics, namely, that by engaging in political disputes, we improve our beliefs and thereby approach the correct solution to problems. This presupposes, of course, that the political process has an epistemic dimension in the first place ...

Do you think that the clarification of preferences represents a fully valid goal of deliberation? And can deliberation also produce results that cannot be described as consensus in the strict sense, such as compromises or win-win situations?

Clarifying preferences is, of course, the first step in every political discourse; at the same time, discourses justify the expectation that the parties should examine their initial preferences in the course of deliberation and also change them in the light of better reasons. This condition enables us to distinguish cases of deliberative opinion and will formation from compromises. Discourses have an epistemic dimension because they create room for arguments to exert their preference-altering force, whereas compromises, which are negotiated between power-wielding partners in the currency of reciprocal concessions or shared benefits, leave existing preferences unaffected. Both discourses and bargaining are legitimate ways of reaching political agreements. One must pay attention to the kind of issue under discussion in order to establish whether an agreement should be sought along the epistemic paths of discourse or via the route of negotiation.

The crucial question, however, is what kind of reasons we think are sufficiently forceful to bring about rationally motivated changes in preferences. The answer depends on philosophical background assumptions about which political scientists who conduct empirical research on deliberative politics also have to achieve clarity.

Empiricists defend a non-cognitivist conception of practical reason that is supposed to be restricted to the capacity for rational choice and to making strategic decisions.

According to this conception, one's preferences can be influenced exclusively by better information about scopes for action and risks and by comparatively more reliable calculations of the consequences of possible alternative courses of action; however, they cannot be changed by taking the preferences of other participants into consideration. This restrictive view is counter-intuitive, because the reasons in terms of which we argue about the rightness of binding norms of action, or about which values are preferable, carry no less epistemic weight in the rationally motivated formation of preferences than information about facts.

Political discourses deal not only with the truth of descriptive propositions but also with validity claims that we associate with normative and evaluative propositions.

Thus the justice of a legal norm can be examined from the moral viewpoint by asking, with regard to a matter in need of regulation, whether it is 'equally good' for all concerned; here a principle of universalization comes into play. The members of a political community can, furthermore, examine a decision between competing values by asking which of these values is preferable in the light of the ethos of the community's shared form of life. By contrast, preferences as such are not in need of justification, because such first-person statements are authorized by each individual's privileged access to her own desires. Problems of justice are understood as a cognitive task, whereas decisions concerning the priority of some values over others can be regarded as calling for a process of rationally motivated will formation that is in part cognitive and in part volitional. In each case, the participants' orientation to reaching a consensus follows from the meaning of the respective issues. Unlike preferences, norms and values never concern only a single person.

On the other hand, of course, the required orientation of participants towards consensus, which is presupposed with the epistemic understanding of discourse, does not mean that those involved tend to have the unrealistic expectation that they will actually achieve a consensus on political questions. Practical discourses require their participants to demonstrate an improbable willingness to adopt each other's perspectives and to orient themselves to generalizable interests or shared values.

After all, this is why the democratic process connects deliberations subject to time constraints with majority decisions. The majoritarian principle (whether it is a question of a simple or a qualified majority can be justified in turn by the discursive character of opinion formation. Assuming that the presumption of rationally acceptable results is justified and the decision is reversible, each outvoted minority, given the prospect of a resumption of discourse, can subject itself to the will of the majority without having to abandon its own position.

The theory of communicative action assumes that strategic intentions undermine the deliberative orientation to reaching understanding. In other words, truly deliberative actors must bring an orientation to reaching understanding to discourse. In politics, on the other hand, strategic orientations on the part of actors play a central role, which raises the question of whether the deliberative model can have any relevance in political decision-making processes.

Well, most political decisions are, of course, the result of compromises. But modern democracies combine popular sovereignty with the rule of law, which means that compromise formation takes place within the framework of constitutional norms.

Such a constitutional framework means that the search for compromises is consistently connected with questions of political justice and of the realization of values that enjoy political priority. And because these questions imbue political deliberation with an epistemic meaning, deliberation cannot be restricted from the outset to compromises over the distribution of goods between self-interested negotiation partners. Interesting hybrid forms exist and they have been analysed by Mark E. Warren and Jane Mansbridge. They discuss, among others, the example of climate policy legislation that makes use of tradable emission credits. Although in this example a compromise is reached between the climate policy objectives of emission control and the interests of the affected companies, this compromise also touches on questions of justice because it takes into account a policy goal that had already been adopted - namely, putting a stop to global climate change as soon as possible in the general interest of citizens and future generations.

In political theory, the opposition between strategic and communicative action has opened the door for agonistic theories (e.g. that of Chantal Mouffe) that claim to be 'more political' than deliberative theory.

Theories that start from a certain concept of 'the political do not go far enough, regardless of whether they defend an agonistic concept of political struggle, a systemic concept of administratively steered power, or a communicative concept of interactively generated power. If we look back at the evolutionary origins of state formation, it is evident that political power is co-original with state-sanctioned laws.

As a result, those early societies acquired the reflexive capacity to intentionally influence their own conditions of life through collectively binding decisions.

Originally, the belief of subjects in the legitimacy of political power grounded in the sacred complex was a precondition of the stability of existing political systems, although, since the 'axial' period, more exacting standards of legitimacy became a source of criticism of political power as well. Following the secularization of state power in the modern era, finally, democratically generated constitutions superseded religion in this role of provider of legitimacy. Since then, the widespread background consensus on constitutional principles among the population generally differs from a religiously based legitimation in virtue of being brought about democratically - hence, also through the deliberative exchange of arguments. Such a background consensus must be tacitly renewed in every generation, for otherwise democracies would not endure.

However, the fact that this background consensus has a non-antagonistic core does not mean that the constitution organizes the democratic process as a procedure that is continuously oriented to consensus - far from it. One must start from the different functions that political communication is supposed to fulfil in different ways in different arenas with its contributions to a democratic process that is as a whole filtered through deliberation. Then the interesting differences between the functionally necessary requirements of rationality in the various arenas become apparent. These requirements become more and more lax across the various levels of political communication - ranging from, at one extreme, the comparatively high rational requirements of legally institutionalized discourses within the courts and parliamentary bodies to, at the other, the disputes between political actors in the public sphere directed to a diffuse audience, the election campaigns, the voices within civil society and, in general, the political mass communication conveyed by the media. For example, the agonistic character of election campaigns, conflicts between opposing political parties, and confrontations between protest movements and the establishment can be correctly assessed only if one recognizes that the functional contribution of political mass communication to a by and large deliberative process of opinion and will formation is that of generating competing public opinions on topics relevant for decision-making.

An orientation to consensus is functionally required only in the deliberations of those institutions in which legally binding decisions are made. The informal communication within the wider public sphere can also withstand robust protests or wild forms of conflict, because their contribution is limited to mobilizing the relevant themes, information and arguments, whereas decisions are taken elsewhere. Nothing more may be needed to spark an antagonistic dynamic within the public sphere than the conflict-generating orientation to truth that citizens associate with their expressions of political opinions. But that also tends to be functional in generating competing public opinions.

In this context, how do you assess the thesis, which is increasingly often defended, that good and desirable deliberation should include not only rational reasons (or justifications) but also narratives, emotions and rhetoric?

Here again one must view the picture as a whole. The form of mass communication from which the politically relevant public opinions are supposed to emerge is indeed largely fuelled by inputs from the side of the government, the political parties and interest groups, which are then processed by the media. As a general rule, civil society actors have a tough time when faced with the political parties and the experts, PR agencies and lobbies of the various functional subsystems. On the other hand, civil society is the only society-wide sounding board for the problems and impositions caused by malfunctioning subsystems that are troubling their respective clients or 'consumers', as it were. Therefore, the communicative network of civil society plays the role of a kind of early-warning system for politics that registers critical experiences from private areas of life, processes them into voices of protest and feeds them into the political public sphere. Since the social movements into which protest may condense are not the norm, the unedited 'offstage' voices from civil society, when faced with the well-formulated pronouncements of the other political actors, can gain a hearing more readily the more spontaneously they are expressed. Narratives have an intelligible propositional content, as do the passions and desires to which they give expression; moreover, a forceful rhetoric is still among the more conventional means on the long path that a theme must follow to attracting sufficient media attention and finding its way onto the agenda of some influential agency. Spectacular, even transgressive, actions can also facilitate messages that are intended to 'arrive' in the political system.

Some theorists of deliberation emphasize, furthermore, that self-interest should also be part of deliberation (in addition to considerations of the common good, albeit with the proviso that individual interests are legitimate only when constrained by principles of fairness. How do you assess this argument? Are individual interests an essential aspect of desirable deliberation?

I regard this as self-evident. Even moral discourse must start from the interests of the individual parties to the conflict before one can ask from the perspective of justice what is in the equal interest of all affected. To be sure, no democratic polity can function properly when its citizens, in their role as national citizens and co-legislators, follow their own interests exclusively. John Rawls rightly associates the

'public use of reason' with the expectation that citizens should exhibit political virtues. On the other hand, one must also insist against Rousseau that the democratic state can make only modest demands on its citizens when it comes to adopting an orientation to the common good.

How tightly is deliberative democracy integrated into a modern liberal form of political culture? In other words: Can deliberation function at the global level? And, if so, would you agree that this also means that deliberative standards must be adjusted to different cultures?

We must at any rate be on our guard against overexuberant notions that democracy can be simply exported without further ado, whether peacefully or by military force.

Liberal democracy is such a demanding and fragile form of government because it can be realized only in and through the heads of its citizens. On the other hand, this does not mean that, at the international level, 'the West', if I may speak in such terms, should relativize the claim to universality it raises for principles of the democratic rule of law. What is at stake in this discussion are rational principles not contestable values. The idle talk about 'our values' that supposedly have to be defended against the values of other cultures is precisely what polarizes the international community. As a philosopher, I defend the view that 'we' have good reasons in intercultural discourse to defend the universal validity of human rights as the moral foundations of constitutional democracy. However, this is subject to the condition that 'we' participate in such discourses with a willingness to learn and as one party among others. Willingness to learn is already called for by the fact that the brutally violent history of Western imperialism has taught us that we must let our eyes be opened by other cultures concerning the blind spots in our interpretation and application of human rights not only in the past but also in the present. But even the presumptive universal validity of the principles now enshrined in the UN Charter does not mean that we may conduct crusades to disseminate liberal democracy. For the reasons you imply with your question, a democratic system imposed by paternalistic means cannot achieve long-term stability.

On the other hand, I also think that the so-called second-best solution of 'adapting' principles to the values and circumstance of a foreign culture is wrong. The well-meaning 'political' way of dealing with principles of political justice, as recommended, for example, by John Rawls in The Law of Peoples, also forces one to adopt a dubious paternalistic attitude towards other civilizations.

In some social and political situations - for example, under conditions of deep religious or ethnic divisions or when participants do not trust each other - deliberative ideals such as argumentative rationality or respect are difficult to implement. What role, if any, can deliberative theory play in such situations?

Perhaps we should first recall that, as our societies become more pluralistic, the burden of social integration shifts from the level of local forms of life and national cultures to the state and politics. Among the major reasons for this shift are the accelerated changes in living conditions caused by technology and, above all, increasing immigration from foreign cultures. Aside from the common language or languages, what all citizens of a political community are expected to share increasingly crystallizes around citizenship status. Therefore, the political culture can no longer coincide with the traditional majority culture. Even in immigration societies such as the United States, this differentiation process is experienced as painful: it is inducing populist reactions everywhere - not exclusively, but especially, among disadvantaged members of societies.

The religious divisions currently being experienced by the populations of European countries as a result of immigration from Islamic countries are an example of an especially heavy burden. On the one hand, the liberal state that guarantees freedom of religion can go a long way towards accommodating the minorities by granting religious and cultural rights. On the other hand, however, it must not make dubious compromises; it must require that minorities practise their cultural way of life and religion only within the framework of basic rights that are equally valid for everyone.

In view of the fact that these conflicts can, at best, be alleviated with the legislative and bureaucratic means at the disposal of the state, but can be resolved only through long-term acculturation and socialization, you ask about the mediating role of deliberative politics. It is, of course, helpful when the various integration conflicts are thematized sympathetically in the wider public domain and, above all, when the fears and uncertainties fuelled by populist movements are defused. As you yourself hint at, however, the bare political fact that these problems are becoming topics of public deliberation is almost more important than the arguments themselves; in the first instance, it is how these problems are dealt with that initially opens people's eyes for each other and then may foster mutual respect between self-enclosed groups - the style is the message.

Deliberation as a form of communication is indeed generally closely connected with mutual respect between participants in argumentation. John Rawls understands the mutual respect called for by the public use of reason as a political virtue. This form of respect is directed to the person of another who should be recognized as an equal citizen; in the context of the public use of reason, respect includes the willingness to justify one's political opinion to the other person - that is, to engage in discourse with her. Admittedly, this is only a necessary condition for the more far-reaching expectation that, in the course of the discourse, one should also adopt the perspective of one's interlocutor and project oneself into her situation. This sociocognitive achievement is not relevant for discourses about facts, because factual discourses are purely a matter of evaluating arguments. But practical discourses involve disagreements over interests whose relative weights can only be evaluated from the perspective of the lifeworlds of the others involved. This reciprocal perspective taking, which is a precondition of adopting the moral point of view on a conflict, does indeed have a purely cognitive function; however, the real obstacle is the willingness to engage in this strenuous operation across wide cultural distances in the first place. The need to cross this motivational threshold explains the stubbornness of the conflicts you address - but also, more generally, the fact that empirical and theoretical issues are often easier to resolve consensually than practical conflicts.

If I may conclude with a provocative question: Do you agree that with Between Facts and Norms you abandoned the terrain of critical theory? That book strongly emphasizes the functioning of the liberal-democratic state, even though this is also a liberal-capitalist state.

In my theoretical work, I remain committed to the tradition founded by Max Horkheimer and, of course, to my teacher Theodor W. Adorno. The thought of the older generation of critical theorists who were expelled from Germany was dominated by the experiences of fascism and Stalinism. It is only since the Second World War that attempts to tame capitalism through the welfare state have prevailed for the time being, at least in a rather small region of this world. These in retrospect somewhat gilded decades - Eric Hobsbawm spoke half ironically of the 'Golden Age'

Liberal rights do not fall from the sky. Citizens involved in democratic will formation on a basis of equality first have to be able to understand themselves as the authors of the rights that they grant each other as members of an association of free and equal individuals. In the light of this reconstruction one can discern all the more clearly the erosion of democracy that has been progressing ever further since politics has more or less abdicated in the face of the systemic pressure of deregulated markets. From this perspective, the theory of democracy and the critique of capitalism belong together. I did not invent the term 'post-democracy. But the political repercussions of the impacts of the global implementation of neoliberal policies on society can be brought together under it.

Summary & Notes

1. The Ideal Speech Situation (ISS) as a Regulative Ideal

2. Orientation to Consensus vs. Preference Clarification

3. Deliberation Goals: Preference Change vs. Compromise

4. Strategic Action and Relevance in Politics

5. Agonistic Theories and Arena Differentiation

6. Role of Narratives, Emotions, and Rhetoric

7. Inclusion of Self-Interest

8. Global Application and Universal Standards

9. Deliberation in Deeply Divided Societies

10. Critical Theory and Between Facts and Norms