Abstract
This article takes up the question of how to facilitate substantive inclusion in deeply divided societies. Turning to deliberative democracy and consociationalism, we find that there is a surprising amount of overlap between the two potentially contradictory models of inclusion. We consider the deliberative potential of consociational institutions that not only address majority and minority relations, but that also find ways to include minorities within minorities. To this end, we examine the institutions that make up a consociation and recommend a two-stage approach to deliberation that facilitates the articulation of public reasons in political decision-making. We argue that extending broad inclusion in an initial stage of deliberations where people do not have to adhere to the criterion of public reason avoids pre-emptive exclusions, while introducing this criterion in a second, decision-making stage of deliberations retains the benefits of deliberative democracy. This two-stage approach addresses the democratic concerns in consociational democracy vis-à-vis minority groups and in deliberative democracy vis-à-vis marginalized groups (that is, minorities within minorities). We argue that adopting this two-stage approach will deepen the level of inclusion found within consociational democracies and widen the applicable scope for deliberative democracy, which is often thought most amenable to small-scale decision-making.
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Notes
Fundamentalist arguments are those that always appeal to inaccessible arguments – such as ‘because God said so.’
Extremist parties employ electoral strategies such as othering, eschewing cooperation and compromise, and equating group promotion with ‘the totality of the common interests’ (Gunther and Diamond, 2003, p. 184). Moderates also promote a narrowly defined group constituency but not at the expense of other groups. They may be more willing to cooperate with parties that represent other groups.
One example would be Milorad Dodik in Republika Srpska, Bosnia. Dodik has moved his platform from a moderate one to an extreme one, and has enhanced his electoral victories in the process.
The approach aims to ‘support moderates against extremists’ (Horowitz, 2008, p. 1217).
We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting these benefits.
Although binding, all decisions are provisional in the sense that deliberants are free to revisit the issue in future deliberations.
Dryzek and Addis similarly look to Sunstein on this point but both make the same omission as O’Flynn and so fail to mention the positive effects of institutional design in mitigating the problem (Addis, 2009, pp. 77–78; Dryzek, 2009, p. 19).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, as well as Joe Carens and Margaret Moore who commented on an earlier draft.
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Drake, A., McCulloch, A. Deliberative consociationalism in deeply divided societies. Contemp Polit Theory 10, 372–392 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2010.22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2010.22