Deliberative Democracy

• Author: James S. Fishkin
• Pages: 763-765

Page 763

Deliberative democracy aspires to combine two fundamental values in the design of political institutions?political equality and deliberation. The idea is to combine the equal consideration of everyone's views (political equality) with conditions that facilitate those views' being formed on the basis of good information, good faith discussion, and a balanced account of competing arguments (deliberation). Some theorists have held that the American Constitution has, from the beginning, been an attempt to create the social conditions where deliberative democracy might be possible, at least among representatives who speak for, or act for, the people.

JAMES MADISON, most notably, was committed to the "republican principle" (which entailed political equality) as well as to a scheme of government that would "refine the popular appointments by successive filtrations," as he said at the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787. The aspiration for deliberative democracy was famously expressed by Madison in FEDERALIST No. 10, where he said representatives "refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through a chosen body of citizens." ALEXANDER HAMILTON added, in Federalist No. 71, "The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern ? but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests." It is representatives who must "withstand the temporary delusion" to "give time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection." The Federalist distinguishes deliberative public opinion, filtered through representatives considering the public interest on the basis of cool and sedate reflection, from the more direct expressions of the public will that can be twisted by vicious arts of campaigning and persuasion. Directly consulting the people can be dangerous because the people may be motivated by passions or interests to form factions adverse to the rights of others or to the general interest. Such factions are not motivated by deliberative public opinion, the Federalists believed. Indeed deliberation might well have prevented the evils of more DIRECT DEMOCRACY as experienced by the ancient Athenians. Madison speculates in Federalist No. 63 that a representative and deliberative body like the U.S. SENATE might have protected the Athenians from "decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next." It was, after all, the Athenians who killed Socrates.

The Federalist position was that deliberative democracy could be practiced only in small representative bodies that preserved some independence from the public. No matter what the character of the participants, too large a body would make deliberative democracy impossible. "Had every Athenian citizen been...