Deliberative Drift: The Emergence of Deliberation in the Policy Process
| Author | Darren Halpin,Peter Mclaverty |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512107085612 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Political Science Review (2008), Vol. 29, No. 2, 197–214
DOI: 10.1177/0192512107085612 © 2008 International Political Science Association
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, and Singapore)
Deliberative Drift: The Emergence of
Deliberation in the Policy Process
Peter McLaverty and Darren Halpin
Abstract. This article explores the issue of what we call “deliberative drift”:
the emergence of deliberation in a non-deliberative setting. The literature
on deliberative democracy has tended to focus upon practices taking place
in specifically deliberative settings. We ask whether deliberation cannot
logically occur elsewhere in the policy process, or, more specifically, can
politics based on bargaining and aggregation be transformed (or drift)
toward deliberative practice? In pondering this question, Habermas’s
argument that a communicative rationality underpins deliberation is
useful, as it demarcates deliberative from other practices by a willingness
of participants to cast aside fixed preferences. While procedures and
institutional designs are inflexible, the orientations or rationalities of
individuals may be much more malleable. We explore one empirical
case in which what started as negotiating and instrumental processes
drifted toward a deliberative practice. We speculate that the rationalities
that participants bring to their interaction, and the ways in which those
rationalities change with the development of trust between participants,
are as important in determining whether deliberation occurs as is the
setting within which the interaction takes place.
Keywords: • Deliberation • Democracy • Bargaining • Communicative
rationality • Trust
Introduction: Deliberation Happens Over There?
The starting point for this article is the contention that deliberation is a different,
separate, and unique way of doing politics. In current political theory and scholarly
debate, there are arguments that bargaining and negotiation are different ways
of conducting politics from deliberation (Bohman and Regh, 1997; Elster, 1998b;
Gambetta, 1998). Of course, the view that deliberation is a unique way of doing
politics was not always held in the past. In Ancient Athens, for example, deliberation
was regarded as a central part of politics (Barker, 1958: 188–93, 382–3). Manin (1987)
198 International Political Science Review 29(2)
has argued that legitimate laws are based on deliberation by the people and writers
such as Edmund Burke (2002) in the 18th century, John Stuart Mill (1951)
in the 19th century, and John Dewey (1927) in the early 20th century all saw
deliberation as an essential component of democratic politics.1 However, public
policy today, and the politics associated with it, takes place in a number of settings
besides parliaments and assemblies, and often involves a number of players other
than elected representatives or the people directly. The public policy process can
involve representatives of groups in society coming together, sometimes along
with elected politicians or public officials, and attempting to reach agreement.
The interaction s between group representative s can b e based on barg aining
or negotiation and, where this is the case, some writers argue a very different
form of politics is undertaken than would be the case if participants interacted,
and attempted to reach agreement, through deliberation (compare Deitelhoff
and Müller, 2005; Elster, 1991, 1998b; Gambetta, 1998). But in what ways can
deliberation be seen as a distinct or exceptional form of politics?
Perhaps the basis of this exceptionalism is to be found in the theoretical ap-
proach, like that of Habermas (1984, 1989), that separates out differing rationalities
informing decision making. Bargaining and negotiation can be seen as associated
with instrumental or strategic rationality in Habermas’s terms, while deliberation
can be seen as based on communicative rationality. This distinction could lead us
to investigate how the different rationalities work out during interactions between
people and to consider whether, during the interactions, people’s rationalities might
undergo change, and the impact of this change on the decision reached. That
bargaining and deliberation operate according to differing rationalities (instru-
mental or strategic and communicative, respectively) could direct us to look at the
way individuals, who initially engage in bargaining, come to adopt a deliberative
approach. Yet, a number of writers have argued that, for scholars interested in
political deliberation, the focus of attention should be on the design of institutions
which are likely to promote deliberation between participants (Elster, 1989, 1998b;
Fung and Wright, 2003; Smith, 2003; Warren, 2007). As such, they look for and
plan for deliberation away from the less normatively valuable processes where
the representatives of groups come together to try to reach agreement. The risk
of this position is that it ossifies deliberative approaches to politics, on the one
hand, and aggregative approaches and approaches to politics based on trying
to reconcile the positions of representatives of different groups, on the other. It
treats them as separate and distinctive endeavors and makes them contingent on
initial design: one must plan for deliberation and design events accordingly. This
has implications for the way in which deliberation can be studied empirically.
The issue arises as to whether the way to study deliberation is by evaluating what
happens in deliberative settings or whether a broader study of “political” settings
and contexts is necessary.
One way to get purchase on this crucial point is by asking how we know when
we have achieved deliberation. Two related aspects are salient. As Parkinson re-
liably summarizes, deliberative democracy is said to require a set of “procedural
conditions,” key among which are “inclusiveness” and a willingness by participants
to “set aside pre-formed preferences” and to “be persuaded” (2003: 180–1). Elster
(1998a: 8) sees the core of deliberation as “decision making by means of argu-
ments offered by and to participants who are committed to the values of rationality
and impartiality.” These definitions accurately reflect the theoretical connection
To continue reading
Request your trial