Which conception of political equality do deliberative mini-publics promote?
| Published date | 01 July 2019 |
| Author | Dominique Leydet |
| Date | 01 July 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885116665600 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2019, Vol. 18(3) 349–370
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885116665600
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EJPT
Article
Which conception of
political equality do
deliberative mini-publics
promote?
Dominique Leydet
Department of Philosophy, Universite
´du Que
´bec a
`Montre
´al,
Canada
Abstract
In democratic political systems, political equality is often defined as an equality of oppor-
tunity for influence. But inequalities in resources and status affect the capacity of
disadvantaged citizens to achieve an effective political equality. One common thread
running through recent democratic innovations is the belief that appropriate institutional
devices and procedures can alleviate the impact of background inequalities on the pres-
ence and voice of the disadvantaged within those designs. My objective is to achieve a
clearer understanding of the conception of political equality that informs a specific subset
of these designs: deliberative mini-publics. I focus firstly on the methods of participant
selection advocated to secure equal presence. According to what principle is participa-
tion distributed? If it is according to the ‘equal probability’ principle, rather than ‘equal
opportunity’, what difference does this make in terms of political equality? Secondly,
achieving equality of voice is usually conceived in terms of equalising opportunities for
influence among participants. How is this objective understood and what does this say
about the underlying conception of political equality?
Keywords
Political equality, mini-publics, deliberation, deliberative polls, equality of opportunity,
random selection
Political equality is at the heart of democratic citizenship. Contemporary democ-
racies affirm the equal rights of citizens to vote, join political parties and stand for
elections. The conception of political equality that informs these rights is stand-
ardly described as an equality of opportunity for influence (Christiano, 2004: 275;
Corresponding author:
Dominique Leydet, Department of Philosophy, Universite
´du Que
´bec a
`Montre
´al, Case postale 8888,
succursale Centre-ville, Montre
´al, Que
´bec H3C 3P8, Canada.
Email: leydet.dominique@uqam.ca
Cohen and Fung, 2004: 171; Knight and Johnson, 1997: 280; Swift, 2006: 189).
Though citizens may choose not to participate in the political life of their society,
political rights formally secure their equal opportunity to participate in processes of
opinion and will formation. This conception of political equality includes agency as
one of its key elements: equal rights enable citizens to perform political activities
individually as well as collectively. Indeed, the capacity to act with others is a
central component of democratic politics.
Yet contemporary democracies are also societies in which vast inequalities in
resources and status exist between citizens, and these inequalities significantly affect
opportunities for political influence. Empirical enquiries consistently show that
background inequalities in socio-economic resources and education, as well as
inequality associated with gender and ethnicity, translate into unequal ‘presence’
and ‘voice’ within the institutions and practices of contemporary democracies.
1
Citizens who are economically and socially disadvantaged find themselves in a
situation of ‘political poverty’ defined by James Bohman (1997: 333) as the
‘inability of groups of citizens to participate effectively in the democratic process’,
which is related to a deficit in the ‘capability for effective social agency’ (1997: 343).
Political poverty means public exclusion, since politically poor citizens are incap-
able of successfully initiating the joint activity of public deliberation. It also means
a form of coercive political inclusion since the politically marginalised are the legal
addressees of decisions over which they have next to no control or influence.
One common thread running through the different participatory and delibera-
tive innovations that have developed over the last 30 years is the belief that appro-
priate institutional devices and procedures can alleviate the impact of background
inequalities on the presence and voice of the disadvantaged within those designs
(Chambers, 2009; Cohen and Fung, 2004; O’Flynn and Sood, 2014; Smith and
Wales, 2000; Thompson, 2008a). Though inequalities in resources and status per-
sist, democratic designs can be structured to function as ‘more perfect public
spheres’ (Fung, 2003: 338). Neither erasing background inequalities nor vying
to replace existing political institutions, one of their goals is to provide arenas in
which disadvantaged citizens may exercise their citizenship in ways that are too
often denied to them in the real world of democratic societies.
My objective in this article is to achieve a clearer understanding of the concep-
tion of political equality that informs at least some of these democratic designs in
relation to equality of opportunity, but also in relation to agency, both individual
and collective.
To do so, I will focus, in the first section, on the methods of participant selection
advocated to secure equal presence. According to what principle is participation
distributed? If it is according to the equal chance or equal probability principle,
rather than equal opportunity, what difference does this make in terms of the
underlying conception of political equality? Is ‘equal presence’ conceived strictly
in individualist terms or is it related to groups? And, if so, how?
In the second section, I consider the issue of voice. Achieving equality in this
context is conceived in terms of equalising opportunities for influence among
350 European Journal of Political Theory 18(3)
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