Effective Opportunity and Democratic Deliberation
| Author | Michael Allen |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2007.00283.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Research Article |
Research Article
Effective Opportunity and Democratic
Deliberation
Michael Allen
East Tennessee State University
This article develops a conception of effective opportunities of minority speakers that is tied to the
possibilities of conceptual innovation in informally inclusive democratic deliberation. My argument
proceeds through a critical engagement with Brian Barry and Bikhu Parekh on what it means to
have an equal opportunity in a multicultural society. I claim that the exchange between Barry and
Parekh reaches a conceptual deadlock over the possibility of producing a substantive revision in the
concept of equality. I break this conceptual deadlock, however, by appeal to the potential of diverse
speakers in informal deliberation to reinvent the meanings of their basic political terms of
co-operation.
In this article, I shall defend a conception of the effective opportunities of minority
speakers to resolve controversial claims to justice based on culture. Indeed, I shall
argue that such opportunities depend on the ‘informal inclusion’ of minority
speakers in democratic deliberation. Such informal inclusion may be understood by
contrast with that of ‘formal inclusion’ (Young, 2000). Unlike the informal variety,
formal inclusion does not guarantee for minorities that their claims will gain
meaningful democratic uptake. Instead, it guarantees only that they should enjoy
‘equal treatment’ under strictly impartial law. Here the assumption of the formal
conception is that such legal impartiality is sufficient for equal effective opportuni-
ties to resolve controversial claims. This assumption has, however, been strenuously
challenged in recent discussions in political theory-discussions which focus specifi-
cally on cases in which it is the formal ideal of equality itself that is in contention
(see, for example, Kelly, 2002). Indeed, most of the theorists contributing to these
discussions agree that the formal ideal of equality proves insufficient to guarantee
effective opportunities to resolve minority claims. But they also tend to disagree on
the more conceptual issue of how such opportunities should be understood in
relation to equal treatment under the law.
This conceptual issue is central to the recent exchanges between Bikhu Parekh and
Brian Barry. In these exchanges, the relationship of effective opportunities to equal
treatment turns out to hinge entirely on the possibility of innovation in respect of
what it means to have an ‘equal opportunity’. On the one hand, Parekh believes
that a theoretical reformulation of equal opportunity is a genuine possibility;
indeed, innovation in respect of the meaning of this term is a precondition for the
resolution of controversial claims by cultural minorities. On the other hand, Barry
denies precisely this possibility of innovation, even though he is every bit as
© 2007 The Author. Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
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concerned as Parekh to promote justice for minorities in cases of controversy. For
him, the effective opportunities of minorities to resolve claims must be promoted by
a multicultural society, but only if it is done in a way that leaves untouched the
original meaning of equality of opportunity.
But, in spite of this fundamental disagreement about the possibility of innovation,
both Parekh and Barry assume in their exchanges that the meaning of equal
opportunity should be authoritative prior to deliberation. Controversial claims based
on culture cannot plausibly be resolved unless deliberation proceeds from an
agreement on what it means to have an equal opportunity. On the one hand, for
Parekh, this meaning must be fixed by the theoretician in order to facilitate the
resolution of the contested claims. On the other hand, for Barry, the ‘natural’ or
etymological meaning of opportunity must be honoured so that the ability of
minority speakers to seek resolution has no reference to the idea of equality.
Neither of them, however, conceives of a relationship between the informal and
formal conceptions of inclusion in which the effective opportunities of minority
speakers are taken to be an appropriate source of changing the meanings of basic
political terms in democratic deliberation.
In what follows, I set out to sketch just such a relationship; one that prioritises the
authority of inclusive democratic deliberation in formulating new meanings over
the authority of established meanings. To this extent, my principal claim is that the
opportunities of minority speakers are not truly effective unless they encompass the
open possibility of fundamental conceptual revision and innovation. I proceed in
three stages. First, I discuss the dispute between Parekh and Barry. Second, I show
why this dispute results in a ‘conceptual deadlock’ concerning the possibility of
innovation. Third, I suggest how the deadlock may be broken in a way that
establishes the authority of democratic deliberation in contesting and potentially
reformulating basic meanings. I conclude with some reflection on the larger impli-
cations of this conception of effective opportunity for the agonistic and deliberative
models of democracy, as those models of democracy to which it is most closely
allied.
Parekh and Barry on equal opportunity
In his analysis of equal...
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