Table Of ContentDebating Deliberative Democracy
Dedicated to the memory of Peter Laslett, 1915–2001,
who helped us see worlds we have lost – and gained
Philosophy, Politics and Society 7
Debating Deliberative
Democracy
Edited by
JAMES S. FISHKIN AND
PETER LASLETT
©(cid:561)2003(cid:561)by(cid:561)Blackwell(cid:561)Publishing(cid:561)Ltd(cid:561)
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Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
1 Deliberation Day 7
Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin
2 Deliberative Democracy Beyond Process 31
Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson
3 Democratic Deliberation Within 54
Robert E. Goodin
4 The Law of Group Polarization 80
Cass R. Sunstein
5 Activist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy 102
Iris Marion Young
6 Optimal Deliberation? 121
Ian Shapiro
7 Deliberative Democracy, the Discursive Dilemma,
and Republican Theory 138
Philip Pettit
8 Street-level Epistemology and Democratic Participation 163
Russell Hardin
9 Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice 182
David Miller
vvii RCounntneinntgs Head
10 Deliberation Between Institutions 200
Jeffrey K. Tulis
11 Environmental Ethics and the Obsolescence of Existing
Political Institutions 212
Peter Laslett
Index 225
Acknowledgments vii
Contributors
Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale
University.
James S. Fishkin is Patterson-Banister Chair in Government, Law, and Phi-
losophy, University of Texas at Austin.
Robert E. Goodin is Professor of Social and Political Theory and Philosophy,
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.
Amy Gutmann is Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics
and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
Russell Hardin is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and
Professor of Politics at New York University.
Peter Laslett was Reader in Politics and the History of Social Structure, Cam-
bridge University, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
David Miller is Official Fellow in Social and Political Theory, Nuffield Col-
lege, Oxford.
Philip Pettit is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton
University.
Ian Shapiro is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor and Chairman, Department of
Political Science, Yale University.
Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurispru-
dence, University of Chicago, Law School and Department of Political Science.
Dennis Thompson is Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political␣ Philoso-
phy, Harvard University.
Jeffrey K. Tulis is Associate Professor, Department of Government, University
of Texas at Austin.
Iris Marion Young is Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.
viii Running Head
Acknowledgments
The editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to
reproduce the copyright material in this book:
Chapter 1: Blackwell Publishing for Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin,
“Deliberation Day” from Journal of Political Philosophy (June 2002);
Chapter 2: Blackwell Publishing for Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson,
“Deliberative Democracy Beyond Process” from Journal of Political Philosophy
(June 2002);
Chapter 3: Princeton University Press for Robert E. Goodin, “Democratic
Deliberation Within” from Philosophy & Public Affairs 29:1 (Winter 2000), pp.
79–107. © 2000 by Princeton University Press;
Chapter 4: Blackwell Publishing for Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group
Polarization” from Journal of Political Philosophy (June 2002);
Chapter 5: Sage Publications, Inc. and the author for Iris Marion Young, “Activ-
ist Challenges to Deliberative Democracy” from Political Theory (Oct. 2001);
Chapter 6: Blackwell Publishing for Ian Shapiro, “Optimal Deliberation?” from
Journal of Political Philosophy (June 2002);
Chapter 7: Philip Pettit for “Deliberative Democracy, the Discursive Dilemma
and Republican Theory.” This chapter was written especially for this volume;
Chapter 8: Blackwell Publishing for Russell Hardin, “Street-level Epistemology
and Democratic Participation” from Journal of Political Philosophy (June 2002);
Chapter 9: Blackwell Publishing for David Miller, “Deliberative Democracy and
Social Choice” from Political Studies 40 (1992), pp. 54–67;
Chapter 10: Jeffrey K. Tulis for “Deliberation Between Institutions.” This chap-
ter was written especially for this volume.
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter 11: Palgrave Macmillan for Peter Laslett, “Environmental Ethics and the
Obsolescence of Existing Political Institutions” from Brendan Gleeson and
Nicholas Low (eds), Governing for the Environment, 2nd ed. (2001).
The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would
be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future
reprints or editions of this book.
Introduction
James S. Fishkin and Peter Laslett
In his essay for the first volume of Philosophy, Politics and Society, Peter Laslett
posed the problem of whether the politics of “face to face society,” of small
groups of manageable size talking to one another before taking decisions, could
be adapted to the “territorial societies” of the large-scale nation-state. In that
essay, Laslett probed the gap between face-to-face discussion as a preface to
decision-making in small polities and the kinds of opportunities left for citizens
in mass societies.
“The Face to Face Society” helped inspire work in political science and po-
litical theory that would attempt to bring some of the characteristics of small
group face-to-face deliberation to the large-scale nation-state. In particular, it
influenced James Fishkin to develop “Deliberative Polling,” a process discussed
by several of the contributors to this volume. At the time Laslett’s essay was
written, none of these issues were on the agenda of political theory (or related
areas of the social sciences). In fact, it was reasonable for Laslett to ask at the time
whether or not political theory would even continue to exist.
As political theory underwent a major revival, a process evident from the
succeeding volumes in this series, a great deal of it came to focus not on realistic
deliberations of the kind possible in a “face to face society,” but rather on the
deliberations of agents in purely imaginary thought experiments. The work of
John Rawls, in particular, inspired a flowering of work on hypothetical decision
procedures, asking us what principles we would choose if we could hypothesize
ourselves behind a “veil of ignorance” in which we lacked knowledge of all
particulars about ourselves or our society. The Rawlsian “original position” was
not meant to be instituted, it was only meant to be imagined. The claim was that
if we envision it faithfully, we can work out the appropriate first principles of
justice for the whole society.
The very abstractness of the Rawlsian hypothetical allows it largely to avoid a
number of questions that more realistic prescriptions of deliberation would have
to face. What goes on in a deliberative process? Is it necessarily a good thing?
Who participates? Under what social conditions or institutions might it take
