Democratic Theory Seminar: on Ontario Citizens' Assembly

The focus of this week’s discussion was the concept of deliberative democracy, which is a pertinent concept when considering the Citizens’ Assembly (CA). What I aim to do in this post is describe the basic theory of deliberative democracy, discussing key issues like reciprocity and legitimacy. Applying these concepts to the case of the CA, I will attempt to illustrate ways in which the CA can be viewed as legitimate by the public at large, specifically through the use of reasoned arguments appropriate to the setting. I apologize in advance for the length of this posting, but the complexity of the subject matter and its relevance to the CA necessitates it.

Deliberative democracy is currently a major focus of study by political scientists and democratic theorists. Stemming from the philosophy of Jurgen Habermas, deliberative democracy emphasizes the role of communication and discussion in regards to politics and public issues. Its basic contention is that the best method of reaching the best decisions which everyone would feel were legitimate is through the ongoing defense and critique of public opinions through the reasoned arguments of active and engaged citizen-participants. As John Rawls puts eloquently,

when citizens deliberate, they exchange views and debate their supporting reasons concerning public political questions. They suppose that their political opinions may be revised by their discussion with other citizens; and therefore these opinions are not simply a fixed outcome of their existing private or nonpolitical interests.[i]

Accordingly, deliberation is seen as a means to produce results which, even if everybody has not been convinced of, everybody can at least understand the logic of and see as legitimate. It also is seen as effectively taking issues out of the realm of “private or nonpolitical interests” and made appropriately public in nature, an idea which I will develop later.

In their now canonical book Democracy and Disagreement, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson outline a theory of deliberative democracy based on its capability to properly address moral disagreement in politics. Noting that deliberative discussion, even at the level of political elites, only occurs in reference to democratic procedure or in matters of interpreting governing principles (ie Supreme Court rulings), Gutmann and Thompson contend that the practice of deliberation should extend to what they call “middle democracy,” which encompasses “any setting in which citizens come together on a regular basis to reach collective decisions about public issues—governmental as well as nongovernmental institutions.”[ii] By extending deliberation to policy-making, administration and public reaction, citizens are put in more situations in which they are forced to defend their moral views to those who disagree, and are made to listen to opposing arguments and rationales. In doing so, “they express and respect [each other’s] status as political equals even as they continue to disagree about important matters of public policy.”[iii]

Gutmann and Thompson articulate three traits which democratic deliberation must possess in order to properly address moral dispute: reciprocity, publicity and accountability. Publicity refers to openness of argument, that moral claims and refutations are intended for “dissemination in public forums.”[iv] The notion of accountability indicates the need for those making moral claims to explain their claims to those for whom the reasons are offered. So, in current political life elected officials are (in theory) accountable to those who elected them, and therefore must defend their actions to the citizens. In deliberation, not only elected officials, but “ordinary citizens when they act in a public capacity”[v] (inclusive to participating in public deliberation) must be able to defend and explain their stances to other citizens. These two concepts, publicity and accountability, when taken in tandem point towards the third criterion of reciprocity.

Reciprocity refers to the method of argumentation, and essentially entails a respect for other citizens as politically and morally equal. Thusly, “reciprocity asks us to appeal to reasons that are shared or could come to be shared by our fellow citizens.”[vi] So, if in defending one’s moral stance a citizen cites his or her religious doctrine as a reason, he or she is appealing to reasons which other citizens not of the same religious belief could not reasonably, as free and equal citizens, come to share. Reciprocity also asks that “empirical claims in political argument be consistent with reliable methods of inquiry, as these methods are available to us here and now, not for all times and all places,”[vii] so that a claim and its supporting facts can be examined by other citizens, being open to scrutiny by other empirical claims. By making claims which follow the concept of reciprocity, citizens are making themselves accountable to their interlocutors and making their stances open to the public.

By this light, the CA is a legitimate deliberative body if it follows these three principles. To demonstrate how these principles might and might not be followed, an example is helpful. Say Bill is a member of the CA from Kapuskasing which is located in northern Ontario. In the deliberative phase of the CA, Bill makes the following argument: “The current FPTP system will represent me and my interests better than any other system because I am from the north. FPTP gives me better representation, therefore we should not alter the electoral system.” This argument does not satisfy reciprocity. Bill’s reasons (“FPTP gives me better representation”) prioritize his interests over others and, in turn, his argument does not appeal to reasons which others could reasonably come to share. Furthermore, he has not given any rationale as to why FPTP would better represent his interests just because he is from the north; without giving an account for how he came to this conclusion Bill appeals to a belief which he has, and by doing so forecloses any rational discussion or criticism of his claim. A better argument, which falls more in line with reciprocity, would be: “It is important that our electoral system take into account the regional diversity of Ontario, and assures representation of regional interests in Parliament. FPTP, with its geographic riding systems, best considers the regional interests of Ontarians.” Here, Bill appeals to reasons which are more open to inspection. Someone might hear this argument and agree that regional interests are most important, and in turn support FPTP. If someone disagrees they can refute Doug’s claims through argumentation of their own. So, someone might argue that regional interests are not nearly as important as proportionality, and give reasons why. Or, someone might agree that regional interests are important, but demonstrate the ways in which FPTP does not actually account for regional interest (For an example of such an argument see my Response to Scholar84)). In this way, whether or not we agree with Bill, we can understand his argument and his reasons, and accordingly see it as a legitimate claim, refuting it by challenging the method in which he arrived at the conclusion.

In this example what deliberation can be seen to do is create public-mindedness in citizens. This is perhaps the most important and distinguishing aspect of deliberative democracy. Prior to the development of deliberative theories of democracy, the prevailing concepts of democracy fell into the category of social choice theory. Social choice theory, as Jon Elster explains, sees political views as determined by private interest, and therefore sees political participation as a private act. The political system then functions in a manner similar to the market in which individuals compete for their own interests, making the goal of politics “the optimal compromise between given, and irreducibly opposed, private interests.”[viii] Deliberative democracy differs in that it sees politics as a necessarily public realm. In this way, individual interests should not be aggregated and then a conclusive compromise be reached, but interests should be made into public interests in which all could discuss on the same grounds: “the core of the theory, then is that rather than aggregating or filtering preferences, the political system should be set up with a view to changing them by public debate and confrontation.”[ix] As I stated in the beginning of this discussion, deliberation makes political issues appropriately public in nature, by making the grounds on which citizens seek to justify their claims public-minded. Even if private interests are stated, they must be stated in terms of reciprocity, and in turn they are opened to exposure. Our previous example of Bill from Kapuskasing, illustrates this: while his interests might still be entrenched in his stance, he is still forced to appeal to the public good. Public-mindedness is forced to be brought out in deliberative bodies on the simple basis that individual-interest-based arguments will not move a forum brought together to discuss the good of the whole.

In these ways, the deliberations of the CA would are seen as legitimate if arguments conform to reciprocity and if the issues are discussed in terms of public-welfare as opposed to private interest. But legitimacy in this situation must function in two ways, both within the CA and outside the CA: even if the deliberations of the CA are reasoned and open, how might the general public see these deliberations as legitimate? This is characteristic of a question which has already come up on this forum, namely why should Ontario see the deliberations of the CA as representative or legitimate? This is a more difficult question to answer, which a contextualizing of the CA in terms of deliberative democratic theory will illustrate.

The CA is emblematic of a departure from the more classical theories of deliberative democracy to the more contemporary. James Bohman writes of this transition,[x] noting that earlier democratic theorists dealt mainly with concepts of ideal speech situation, in which the actualization of something like Habermas’s ideal public sphere[xi] was the main goal. Currently, deliberative democrats deal more with making current institutions and procedures more compatible with, and open to, public deliberations. Bohman writes, referencing the more contemporary theories of Habermas, that “the only feasible form of deliberation occurs in the interaction between formally organized institutional decision-making mechanisms and informal and “anonymous” debates and discussion in the public sphere…it is this interaction via institutional channels…that makes deliberative politics possible, five the “unavoidable” constraints of complexity and the need for…law.”[xii] As such, the CA represents the opening up of electoral procedures and policy-making powers of the legislature to deliberative practice. However, the CA is hard to locate in the terms which Bohman lays out; certainly it is not part of the “institutional decision-making mechanisms” which the Ontario parliament represents, but it is also not simply an “informal and anonymous” debate as it has been vested with some authority, and has been called together by the Ontario government. Simply put, does the CA lie in the public sphere or in the governmental realm? This ambiguity makes it hard to define where the CA’s legitimacy lies: not in its purely spontaneous dedication to the pursuit of the public good, nor through its elected status, as neither of these are true. So how can the deliberation of the CA be viewed as legitimate by the public?

Ideally, the vast majority of Ontarians would be involved in the process, making deputations and attenting consultation meetings, thereby integrating their views and arguments with those of the CA members. In this way the CA’s deliberation would contain the views of most of Ontarians, and in turn be viewed as legitimate by most of Ontarians. However, this has not been the case as of yet, and there seems to be no reason to suspect it will.

I would suggest that, similar to how arguments would be legitimate within its deliberations, the CA’s decision should be seen as legitimate based on the reasons, which follow reciprocity, it gives the general public for its decision (its decision being the question posed in the referendum). The general public can then agree or disagree with the CA’s suggestion and vote accordingly. In this way, if the reasons the CA offer do not convince the general public they are held accountable through the vote. But the suggestion would still be legitimate based on the rationale offered. According to this view, whether the CA is “representative” is not really important; the prime function of deliberation is to produce reasoned conclusions and any body, representative or not, might be completely capable of doing that. One might argue, as I would, that the merit and quality of the reasons and arguments the CA, or any deliberative body, offers might be directly related to how representative it is. For example, if the CA was composed entirely of Torontonians, not only would this not be representative of all Ontario, it would be very unlikely that it would produce a reasoned conclusion which all of Ontario would see the logic to. Still, representation, as it is commonly understood, is only important in terms of its instrumentality to effective and good deliberation.[xiii] This differs from the notion of representation which individual-interest-oriented models, like those of social choice theory, would suggest. In those cases, representation is seen as crucial because the final decision rests on the aggregation of individual interest. If a citizen’s interest is not seen to have been represented in the process, the end-result is fundamentally flawed because it did not encompass the interests of all in some form. Because the basis for deliberation is the public, and not the private, good, the “fair representation” of individual-interest in the process is not obligatory for the decision reached at the end to be legitimate. As stated before, the role of “fair representation” in deliberation is to create a more complete understanding of the public good. If the majority of Ontarians disagree with this conception (and its ensuing proposal), they can vote against it. However, they will be voting against it in terms of the reasons, which must conform to reciprocity, offered. In this way, the CA’s decision is made public, and is held accountable through the referendum.[xiv]