Political Deliberation & the Adversarial Principle

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard Manin

Retrieving an insight dating back to antiquity, this essay argues that the confrontation of opposing views and arguments is desirable in political deliberation. But freedom of speech and diversity among deliberators do not suffice to secure that outcome. Therefore we should actively facilitate and encourage the presentation of contrary opinions during deliberation. Such confrontation is our best means of improving the quality of collective decisions. It also counteracts the pernicious fragmentation of the public sphere. It facilitates the comprehension of choices. Lastly, arguing for and against a given decision treats the minority with respect. This essay proposes practical ways of promoting adversarial deliberation, in particular the organization of debates disconnected from electoral competition.

2019 ◽  
pp. 138-160
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont

This chapter explores how we might institutionalize deliberative minipublics in order to serve genuinely democratic goals. In contrast to empowered uses of minipublics that would bypass the citizenry’s political deliberation, citizens could use minipublics for contestatory, vigilant, and anticipatory purposes. These uses of minipublics would improve the quality of deliberation in the public sphere and would also force the political system to take the high road of properly involving the citizenry in the political process. The chapter illustrates these potential forms of “deliberative activism” with the help of examples of actual deliberative polls that James Fishkin has conducted over several decades. This analysis shows how deliberative minipublics can help improve the democratic quality of political deliberation in the public sphere while strengthening citizens’ democratic control over political decisions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 11-27
Author(s):  
Karrar Imad Abdulsahib Al-Shammari

The subject of halal slaughtering is one of the most widely discussed issues of animal cruelty and animal welfare in the public sphere. The discrepancy in understanding the contemporary and religious laws pertaining to animal slaughtering does not fully publicize to Islamic and Muslim majority countries especially with respect to interpreting the use of stunning in animals. The electrical stunning is the cheapest, easiest, safest, and most suitable method for slaughtering that is widespread and developed. However, stunning on head of poultry before being slaughtered is a controversial aspect among the Islamic sects due to regulations of the European Union and some other countries. The current review highlights the instructions of halal slaughtering, legal legislation, and the effect of this global practice on poultry welfare and the quality of produced meat.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. E
Author(s):  
Frank Kupper ◽  
Carolina Moreno-Castro ◽  
Alessandra Fornetti

Science communication continues to grow, develop and change, as a practice and field of research. The boundaries between science and the rest of society are blurring. Digitalization transforms the public sphere. This JCOM special issue aims to rethink science communication in light of the changing science communication landscape. How to characterize the emerging science communication ecosystem in relation to the introduction of new media and actors involved? What new practices are emerging? How is the quality of science communication maintained or improved? We present a selection of papers that provide different perspectives on these questions and challenges.


2019 ◽  
pp. 146-172
Author(s):  
Paul Mutsaers

This concluding chapter synergizes the previous chapters and adds something new. Both functions are captured by the title, Reclaiming the Public in Policing. First, it argues that the empirical and conceptual work in this book points at the corrosion of the public character of policing, which results in law enforcement agencies that find it increasingly difficult to exclude politics, particularism, and populism from their operations. This part of the chapter concludes that it is imperative that we ‘unthink’ bureaucracy as the social evil of our time and revalue the public contours of policing. A second way to reclaim the ‘public’ in policing, now defined not as a quality of the police but an engaged citizenry that is involved in public debates on the police, concerns the role of police scholars in the public sphere. The chapter advocates a public anthropology of police and reflects on the author's efforts to ‘go public’.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 99
Author(s):  
Manousos Marangudakis ◽  
Kostas Rontos

<p>The purpose of this article is to examine the condition of the civil and civic perception of the common good, and the attitudes toward the public sphere in the Greek islands of the Northern Aegean. In particular, we wish to examine whether they constitute a region of particular political-cultural characteristics. Based upon the findings of a previous study (Marangudakis, Rontos, and Xenitidou 2013), we examine the moral self in a political framework:.Following Alexander and Smith. Triandis, and Ramfos we examine the quality of specific moral attributes and value preferences vis-a-vis aspects of modern and pre-modern mentality, as well as the valueand mean- orientation of their purposeful action.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Masdar Hilmy ◽  
Khoirun Niam

<p>Scholarly works on the way Indonesian Muslims perceive and respond to a pandemic—including Covid-19—have left an untouched theoretical gap. Works on pandemics or plagues mostly consist of sporadic and preliminary brief reflective pieces. This article endeavors to fill the academic gap concerning this theme. This article seeks to portray the dynamics of the religious disputes among Indonesian Muslims about the Covid-19 pandemic that affects the entire world. Using a qualitative method of analysis based on data derived from various sources - such as social and non-social media like newspapers and such - the paper argues that the public sphere serves as an open stage to contest ideas among society members where ideas based on sacred and scientific texts are publicly tested. While the majority of Muslims comply with the official disease prevention protocol, others resist it on the grounds that the protocol might undermine the spirit of Islam and the quality of the faith. Their resistance to some degree indicates the dominance of the deductive paradigm that religious authority is endangered in the public sphere.</p>


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