DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AND POWER IN GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENTS

Abstract

Autor najprije razmatra ideju deliberacije i deliberativne demokracije općenito a zatim prikazuje svoje istraživanje pokreta za globalnu pravdu Razmatraju se dva pitanja: “Kako deliberacija, participacija i donošenje odluka (ili pokušaj da ih se ostvari) izgledaju u različitim vrstama skupina, različitim zemljama (i vjerojatno na različitim razinama – od lokalnih do međunarodnih)?”, te “Koji čimbenici utječu na deliberativne/participativne prakse i ograničavaju ih?”. Empirijsko istraživanje se uglavnom temeljilo na polustrukturiranom i strukturiranom promatranju sa sudjelovanjem, koje nadopunjuju neformalni intervjui u lokalnim ili regionalnim skupinama u šest zemalja i na nizu transnacionalnih sastanaka mreža i političkih kampanja za globalnu pravdu. Autor najprije zaključuje da skupine pokreta za globalnu pravdu – iako općenito stavljaju veliki naglasak na smanjivanje onoga što percipiraju kao nelegitimne oblike moći unutar vlastitih redova i na to da deliberiraju što je više moguće – pokazuju priličan broj odstupanja od tog ideala. Nadalje, na temelju rezultata istraživanja autor zaključuje da deliberacija, u najmanju ruku na razini malih skupina, nije samo san nego doista postoji, te da su u nastojanju da smanje “tvrdu” moć u svojoj internoj komunikaciji i omoguće deliberaciju većina skupina za globalnu pravdu uspješnije nego većina sindikata, političkih stranaka i velikih nevladinih organizacija.The author starts the article with a discussion of the ideas of deliberation and deliberative democracy in general and then presents some impressions and findings of the ongoing comparative research project on global justice movements. The research tries to answer two main questions: ”How do (attempts to) deliberation, participation and decision-making look like in different kinds of groups, different countries (and probably at different levels – from the local to the international)?” and ”What factors influence and restrict deliberate/ participatory practices?”. The presented empirical investigation is mainly based on a semi-structured and full-structured participant observation, complemented by informal interviews in the local and regional groups in six countries and a number of transnational meetings of networks and political campaigns for global justice. The author concludes that global justice groups, though generally putting much emphasis reducing what they perceive as illegitimate forms of power within their own ranks and to deliberate as much as possible, do exhibit quite a number of aberrations from this ideal. Still, the author points out that deliberation, at least at the level of small-scale groups, is not just a dream but actually occurs, and that the majority of these groups are more successful in reducing in their internal communication “hard” power and enabling deliberation than most trade unions, political parties, and big NGOs

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