The Case for Less Accountability

Streaming audio requires RealPlayer.The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.Jane J. Mansbridge, Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values at Harvard, is the author of Beyond Adversary Democracy and Why We Lost the ERA (corecipient of the American Political Science Association's Kammerer Award in 1987, and the Schuck Award in 1988)Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, streaming audi

"The fallacy of tightening the reins"

'Im gegenwärtigen Diskurs über die Reformbedürftigkeit demokratischer Systeme wird versucht, der Unzufriedenheit der BürgerInnen mit Vorschlägen zur stärkeren Kontrolle der RepräsentantInnen zu begegnen. Dies soll auf der einen Seite durch eine Betonung der elektoralen Verbindung, auf der anderen Seite durch eine bessere Kontrolle der Bürokratie durch die gewählten RepräsentantInnen erfolgen. Die Überbetonung der Wahl stößt jedoch auf Schwierigkeiten: Wahlen können Quelle von Desinformation und Auslöser für populistische Politik sein, deren einziges Ziel der Wahlerfolg ist. Darüber hinaus ist im verbreiteten Modell der 'gyroskopischen' Repräsentation die Verweigerung der Wahlunterstützung eine leere Drohung. Vielmehr muss eine Form der 'narrativen' und deliberativen Accountability und eine Betonung der non-elektoralen Mechanismen angewandt werden, um die Responsivität des politischen Systems zu erhöhen und das demokratische Defizit zu verringern. Kommunikation und politische Bildung werden als Ergänzungen elektoraler Kontrolle präsentiert.' (Autorenreferat)'A prevalent recent response to dissatisfaction with democracy has been to try to 'tighten the reins' by increasing voters' control of representatives through the electoral connection and elected representatives' control of bureaucrats, positing election as the only source of democratic authority. Yet the electoral connection is a weak reed for democracy: electoral campaigns are poor sources of information, distort information, and sometimes create perverse incentives for politicians. In addition, one frequently practiced and normatively justifiable form of representation, the 'gyroscopic', does not respond in the expected manner to the threat of non-election or non-reelection. The gyroscopic representative's form of accountability is narrative and deliberative, prompted by non-electoral incentives. Responding to the problems in the electoral system, I suggest heuristically various non-electoral mechanisms to generate deliberative accountability, increase government responsiveness, reduce the democratic deficit, and enhance the representative process. These non-electoral mechanisms are intended to supplement relations based on control through threat of sanction with relations of mutual communication and education.' (author's abstract

Deliberative and Non-deliberative Negotiations

The classic statements of deliberative democratic theory defined deliberation in opposition to negotiation. As deliberative theory has developed, that opposition has weakened. The normative terms of that relation, however, are as yet unclear. Building on work reformulating the regulative ideals for deliberative democracy (Mansbridge et al. forthcoming), this paper argues that four previously excluded forms of agreement are themselves "deliberative." One is simple convergence on an outcome. The other three--incompletely theorized agreements, integrative negotiation, and fully cooperative distributive negotiation--are forms of deliberative negotiation. The "regulative ideals" of these forms of negotiation, that is, the standards to which we should aspire in their practice even when full achievement is impossible, meet all the criteria for deliberation. This paper aims at reformulating the regulative ideal of deliberative democracy to incorporate these forms of agreement.

Lend us your ears: fixing the crisis of legitimacy in politics

A crisis in legitimacy afflicts British and American politics. Voters complain their voices go unheard. Democratic Audit editor Ros Taylor asks Harvard democracy professor Jane Mansbridge how politicians about why, in a society where new channels of communication are opening up, politicians are increasingly distanced from the electorate. How does it help to explain Donald Trump’s success – and what are the lessons for the Democratic Party

Conflicto y autointerés en la deliberación

La mayor parte de este análisis se refiere a los roles que tienen en la deliberación los conflictos y los intereses individuales, considerando los siguientes cuatro objetivos de la deliberación: esclarecer los intereses en juego, generar conductas solidarias, facilitar la comprensión, y expresar, o reflejar, respeto mutuo. El trabajo parte de la idea de que el conflicto y el interés individual son componentes valiosos del ideal democrático de estado; también defiende la inclusión de la legitimidad normativa del acuerdo, la negociación y el voto entre los métodos democráticos. La conclusión sugiere que, en la práctica, el reconocimiento del conflicto y la manifestación de los intereses individuales pueden ayudar a esclarecer los intereses en pugna, forjar lazos comunes e incluso promover la comprensión y respeto mutuos

A Citizen-Centered Theory

Because our collective needs for state coercion will steadily increase with greater human interdependence, we must take far more seriously the need to justify that coercion to the coerced. Cristina Lafont moves to the forefront of democratic theory the goal that citizens should ‘own and identify with the institutions, laws and policies’ that coerce them – an important move, particularly today, when many feel, often correctly, that they have not been ‘heard’ in producing the laws that coerce them. Lafont’s approach might be furthered, I argue, by a theory of legitimacy that a) explicitly endorses plural sources of democratic legitimacy, b) acknowledges the aspirational quality of the many democratic ideals that make up this legitimacy, and c) recognizes consequently that democratic legitimacy is always partial

Deliberative and Non-Deliberative Negotiations

Theorists in all three major branches of deliberative theory have traditionally excluded from the concept of deliberation simple convergence to an outcome as well as any form of negotiation. In a major reformulation of the deliberative ideal, this paper argues that not only convergence but also incompletely theorized agreements, integrative negotiations, and fully cooperative distributive negotiations are valid forms of democratic deliberation. The analysis takes the absence of coercive power as the central feature of the “regulative ideal” of deliberation (a regulative ideal being a standard, admittedly impossible to achieve fully, toward which to strive). In their ideal forms, these four methods of achieving agreement do not involve coercive power. In the ideal, therefore, they are fully deliberative forms of negotiation. Democracies also need non-deliberative forms of negotiation and decision, which should be judged on other criteria, including the degree to which the parties involve exercise equal power

Reflections on deploying distributed consultation technologies with community organisations

In recent years there has been an increased focus upon developing platforms for community decision-making, and an awareness of the importance of handing over civic platforms to community organisations to oversee the process of decision-making at a local level. In this paper, we detail fieldwork from working with two community organisations who used our distributed situated devices as part of consultation processes. We focus on some of the mundane and often-untold aspects of this type of work: how questions for consultations were formed, how locations for devices were determined, and the ways in which the data collected fed into decision-making processes. We highlight a number of challenges for HCI and civic technology research going forward, related to the role of the researcher, the messiness of decision making in communities, and the ability of community organisations to influence how citizens participate in democratic processes

Collective Interview on the History of Town Meetings

As illustrated in the introduction, the special issue ends with a ‘collective interview’ to some distinguished scholars that have given an important contribution to the study of New England Town Meetings. The collective interview has been realized by submitting three questions to our interviewees, who responded individually in written. The text of the answers has not been edited, if not minimally. However, the editors have broken up longer individual answers in shorter parts. These have been subsequently rearranged in an effort to provide, as much as possible, a fluid structure and a degree of interaction among the different perspectives provided by our interviewees on similar issues. The final version of this interview has been edited and approved by all interviewees

`Representing and Being Represented in Turn’ - A Symposium on Hélène Landemore’s "Open Democracy"

Hélene Landemore’s Open Democracy challenges today’s democracies to meet their legitimacy deficits by opening up a wide array of participatory opportunities, from enhanced forms of direct democracy, to internet crowdsourcing, to representation through random selection to a citizens’ assembly: “representing and being represented in turn” (p. xvii).  Her aim: to replace citizen consent with citizen power.  The critics advance both praise and misgivings.  Joshua Cohen asks if Landemore's innovations are best understood as supplements or alternatives to the current system. Daniele Cammack argues for the significance of open mass meetings as well as smaller representative bodies. Peter Stone considers citizens’ assemblies inadequate for popular sovereignty.  Christopher Achen warns of problems in accurate representation, through both self-selection into the lottery and domination in the discussion. Ethan Lieb argues that particular innovations are useful only in some contexts, and that in each citizens should learn their appropriate role responsibilities. Landemore responds by agreeing, clarifying and rebutting