Article
Polity (2005) 37, 54–81. doi:10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300005
Agonism, Deliberation, and the Politics of Abortion*
Simona Goi, teaches political theory at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, MI. Her research interests include contemporary democratic theory, feminist theory, and the intersection of political theory and literature. She is currently finishing a manuscript on agonism, deliberation, and the ethics of care, and she is beginning to work on a new project on Hannah Arendt and political judgment. She can be reached at sgoi@calvin.edu
Simona Goi1
1Calvin College
*For helpful comments on different versions of this essay, I wish to thank Bonnie Honig, Nancy Love, William Katerberg, and the anonymous reviewers at Polity. For invaluable research assistance, I am indebted to Jenni Fetters, whose work was supported by the MacGregor Summer Research Fellowship. Initial work on this project was made possible by a Calvin Research Fellowship.
Abstract
Deliberative democracy claims to provide a model for dialogue on difficult political disagreements such as the question of abortion. But this model functions only at the cost of misrepresenting the nature of the disagreement. Agonal democratic theory provides some insight as to why this is so, and a modified agonal approach is more accurate in describing the dynamics of such a contentious issue, and in providing grounds for continued dialogue. The Pro-choice and Pro-life Leaders' Dialogue sponsored by the Public Conversations Project in Boston, Massachusetts, demonstrates the importance of this alternative conception of democratic interaction to preserve the complexity of an issue and to sustain authentic dialogue.
Keywords:
agonal/agonistic democracy, deliberation, democratic dialogue, abortion
