Interruptive protests in dysfunctional deliberative systems
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395720960297 |
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
| Author | Nicole Curato |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395720960297
Politics
2021, Vol. 41(3) 388 –403
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0263395720960297
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
Interruptive protests in
dysfunctional deliberative
systems
Nicole Curato
University of Canberra, Australia
Abstract
The field of deliberative democracy has long recognised the role of interruptive protests to make
polities more sensitive to good reasons. But how exactly interruptive protests enhance deliberative
systems remain an open question. ‘Non-deliberative acts may have deliberative consequences’ is
a crucial line of argument in the deliberative systems literature, but the precise character of these
consequences is yet to be spelled out. In this article, I describe three ways in which consequences
of interruptive protests enhance the deliberative system. I argue that interruptive protests can
redistribute (1) voice and visibility, (2) attention, and (3) deliberative agency which, in turn, can lay
bare the weaknesses of a dysfunctional deliberative system. The arguments I put forward are based
on interpretive case studies focusing on protest movements in the Philippines and Puerto Rico in
the aftermath of record-breaking hurricanes. Overall, this paper seeks to clarify the relationship
between deliberative politics and protest action, by identifying the distinctive contributions of
interruptive protests in redistributing power in dysfunctional deliberative systems.
Keywords
deliberative democracy, deliberative system, disasters, protests, social movements
Received: 3rd April 2020; Accepted: 17th August 2020
Public deliberation is rarely a smooth process, and when things go smoothly, the process
is suspicious. Whether in carefully designed forums or the unstructured public sphere, the
practice of deliberation is far from its caricature as genteel exchange of reasons among
peers. Deliberative theorists have long recognised the role of interruptive protests as part
of the repertoire of communication that allows polities to be sensitive to good reasons and
considerations (Dryzek, 2010; Mendonça and Ercan, 2015; Polletta, 2015 also see Della
Porta and Rucht, 2013). To uphold inclusiveness, deliberation needs the intrusion of mar-
ginalised actors when there are overt or innocent exclusions in the public sphere. To
pursue the goal of epistemic fruitfulness, deliberation needs to break pathological path
dependencies in collective will formation that constrain the horizon of argumentation (see
Corresponding author:
Nicole Curato, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra,
11 Kirinari Street, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
Email: Nicole.Curato@canberra.edu.au
960297POL0010.1177/0263395720960297PoliticsCurato
research-article2020
Article
Curato 389
Dryzek and Pickering, 2019). Sometimes, protesters need to put a break to an emerging
consensus when some discourses have yet to secure a fair hearing.
While deliberative theory has increasingly become hospitable to interruptive protests,
questions remain about the consequences of protest action that enhances a deliberative
system. Non-deliberative acts may have deliberative consequences is a crucial yet under-
theorised line of argument in the deliberative systems literature (Stevenson and Dryzek,
2014).1 While this theoretical development prompts deliberative democrats to imagine
creative ways in which deliberative systems can be enhanced, the question about what
counts as ‘deliberative consequences’ demands further theoretical refinement in light of
empirical investigation.
In this article, I argue that interruptive protests have productive consequences to the
deliberative system because they can redistribute (1) voice and visibility, (2) attention,
and (3) deliberative agency. I use the term ‘redistribute’ purposively to underscore ine-
qualities of voice, attention, and agency in the deliberative system. In cases where mar-
ginalised political communities have no assured voice, assumed audience, and capacity to
express their views in their own terms, interruptive protests can renegotiate the terms of
engagement in the public sphere by creating conditions for equal and pluralistic delibera-
tion. The arguments I put forward are based on empirical cases of protest movements in
the Philippines and Puerto Rico in the aftermath of record-breaking hurricanes. These
‘extreme’ cases of ‘dysfunctional’ deliberative systems demonstrate how interruptive pro-
tests disrupt the course of public deliberation about disaster response and rehabilitation
and promote virtues of equality and pluralistic discourse that can shape the procedural
outcomes of deliberation.
I present these arguments in four parts. First, I chart recent developments in deliberative
theory that situate the role of interruptive protests in the deliberative system. Second, I
provide an overview of normative approaches that assess the deliberative quality of inter-
ruptive protests. For the most part, protests have been assessed based on the deliberative
credentials of their enactment (procedure), but more can be done to theorise the delibera-
tive quality of its consequences (outcomes). I argue that current normative debates can
benefit from empirically informed reflection on how precisely interruption can generate
positive outcomes for the deliberative system. In the third section, I examine the cases of
post-disaster Philippines and Puerto Rico and reflect on the legacies of interruptive pro-
tests in the deliberative system where asymmetries of power are most pronounced. The
concluding section reflects on the implications of these arguments to the trajectory of nor-
mative deliberative theory, and social movements, and democracy studies more broadly.
Dysfunctional deliberative systems
The impression that public deliberation is about the unhindered exchange of reasons is
not unfounded. After all, deliberative democracy’s account of legitimacy, at least in some
of its early conceptualisations, emphasises ‘rationally-motivated consensus’ as the ideal
outcome of free and reasoned argumentation among equals (Cohen, 2003: 347). When
appreciated in this manner, deliberation does give an impression that it takes place in a
‘disinfected argumentative operating theatre where the sealed air conditioning vents stop
any everyday fluff floating down infecting the sterilised truth’ (Gordon-Smith, 2019: 3).
This leaves agonistic democrats critiquing deliberative democracy’s ideals as fetishizing
order at the expense of messy confrontation, focusing on reasonable consensus than pas-
sionate disagreement. Deliberative democrats, argues Chantal Mouffe (1999: 45), fail to
To continue reading
Request your trial