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`Consensus` in the Theory and Practice of Deliberative Democracy
Unformatted Document Text:  Draft paper for the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28 —August 31, 2003. PLURALISM AND CONSENSUS IN POLITICAL DELIBERATION John S. Dryzek Australian National University Simon J. Niemeyer University of Birmingham Introduction To many political theorists, consensus is the gold standard of democratic legitimacy. The deliberative turn in democratic theory that occurred around 1990 meant that increasingly legitimacy came to be seen in terms of the right or capacity of those subject to a collective decision to participate in deliberation about its content (Manin 1987). Initially this turn reinforced the legitimating power of consensus. On some interpretations (for example Elster 1986a, p.112) the goal of deliberation is complete consensus or ‘rational agreement’, to the extent that voting is unnecessary (Cohen 1989). In their 1990s publications, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas both embrace deliberative democracy, recognize plurality, yet cling to some kind of consensus as central to the construction or operation of the good polity. Some theorists did however remain unconvinced that plurality could be so easily accommodated. Rescher (1993, p.3) defended a more robust pluralism against a lingering ‘pre-democratic dirigisme’ he discerns in both Rawlsian and Habermasian privileging of consensus. Difference democrats such as Sanders (1997) and Young (1996) believed consensus can only be achieved by silencing particular kinds of voices. Mouffe (2000) revived agonistic engagement across different identities as an alternative to deliberation’s promotion of a consensus that in reality can only mask power. Is it possible to reconcile ideals of plurality and free consensus in deliberation? 1 Certainly there are empirical examples of group agreement on a course of action that still respect continued difference in basic individual commitments (MacIntyre 1984, pp. 500–1). Sunstein (1995) calls these ‘incompletely theorized agreements’ (see also Dryzek 1990, pp. 16-17). More theoretically, Rawls’s (1993) ‘overlapping consensus’ is designed to secure the consent of partisans of different ‘comprehensive doctrines’, though at substantial cost to pluralism.

Authors: Niemeyer, Simon. and Dryzek, John.
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Draft paper for the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 28 —
August 31, 2003.
PLURALISM AND CONSENSUS IN POLITICAL DELIBERATION
John S. Dryzek
Australian National University
Simon J. Niemeyer
University of Birmingham
Introduction
To many political theorists, consensus is the gold standard of democratic legitimacy.
The deliberative turn in democratic theory that occurred around 1990 meant that
increasingly legitimacy came to be seen in terms of the right or capacity of those
subject to a collective decision to participate in deliberation about its content (Manin
1987). Initially this turn reinforced the legitimating power of consensus. On some
interpretations (for example Elster 1986a, p.112) the goal of deliberation is complete
consensus or ‘rational agreement’, to the extent that voting is unnecessary (Cohen
1989). In their 1990s publications, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas both embrace
deliberative democracy, recognize plurality, yet cling to some kind of consensus as
central to the construction or operation of the good polity.
Some theorists did however remain unconvinced that plurality could be so easily
accommodated. Rescher (1993, p.3) defended a more robust pluralism against a
lingering ‘pre-democratic dirigisme’ he discerns in both Rawlsian and Habermasian
privileging of consensus. Difference democrats such as Sanders (1997) and
Young (1996) believed consensus can only be achieved by silencing particular kinds
of voices. Mouffe (2000) revived agonistic engagement across different identities as
an alternative to deliberation’s promotion of a consensus that in reality can only mask
power.
Is it possible to reconcile ideals of plurality and free consensus in deliberation?
1
Certainly there are empirical examples of group agreement on a course of action that
still respect continued difference in basic individual commitments (MacIntyre 1984,
pp. 500–1). Sunstein (1995) calls these ‘incompletely theorized agreements’ (see also
Dryzek 1990, pp. 16-17). More theoretically, Rawls’s (1993) ‘overlapping consensus’
is designed to secure the consent of partisans of different ‘comprehensive doctrines’,
though at substantial cost to pluralism.


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