how the British working classes lacked representation of their own. As he went on to say:
I do not believe that the classes who do participate in it have in general any intention of sacrificing the working classes to themselves. … Yet does Parliament, or almost any of the members composing it, ever for an instant look at any question with the eyes of a working man? When a subject arises in which the labourers as such have an interest, is it regarded from any point of view but that of the employers of labour? I do not say that the working men’s view of these questions is in general nearer to the truth than the other: but it is sometimes quite as near; and in any case it ought to be respectfully listened to, instead of being, as it is, not merely turned away from, but ignored. ([1861] 1991, 246)
For Mill, therefore, the prospects for accountability in representative systems were tied to the prospects for inclusion. To hold government to account, parliament needed to be a microcosm of society, to which end he called for serious electoral reform. More precisely, he called for the introduction of ‘Mr Hare’s system’, or what today we would refer to as the single transferrable vote form of proportional representation. Indeed, he called for a more fundamental restructuring of society itself ([1869] 1991). Controversially for the time, he called for the emancipation of women and the recognition of their civil and political rights, including the right to work outside the home, the right to higher education and the right to vote. Only with such changes in place could parliament function as a genuine ‘Congress of Opinions’ or deliberative chamber.
Mill clearly thought that, in representative systems, parliament should be the core of deliberative practice. But there are tensions in his account. As already noted, his view is that, while government should be responsible for making decisions, parliament should be responsible for holding government to account. Yet although this division of labour makes perfect sense (again, large bodies are not effective instruments of government), it also suggests that, while holding people to account may be discursive, it is not deliberative. After all, accountability is not fundamentally about reasoning together to a common judgement. It is, at bottom, about making others answer for decisions that they have already made (cf. Gutmann and Thompson 1996, 128–32). That is obviously important in representative systems. But it raises a question about the deliberative nature of parliament.
While there are conceptual tensions in Mill’s account, there are also worries of a more principled sort. Nowadays, political equality is widely understood to entail (among other things) that each person should have one vote and each vote should count the same. However, Mill’s view was more restricted: ‘though every one ought to have a voice – that every one should have an equal voice is a totally different proposition’ ([1861] 1991, 334). We should broaden the argument pool, but we should also remember that some parts of the pool are likely to be murkier than others. (In other words, dispersed knowledge may not be evenly dispersed, an issue that, as we will see in Chapter 3, can also affect mini-publics.) Consequently, or so Mill thought, while everyone should have a vote, the votes of the better educated, or the more virtuous, should count for more; in practice, the better educated should have more than one vote. Hence, ‘plural voting’, as it is usually termed.
Mill, then, was clearly concerned by the fact that some people are more politically competent, or cognitively able, than others (see Thompson 1976, 99–101). Yet to modern ears, concerns of this sort have an unacceptably elitist ring to them (cf. Brennan 2016). Indeed, it was precisely concerns about elitism and its obverse, the decline of party identification and the loss of representation that it involved, that in no small measure led to the major deliberative revival that began in the 1980s and that has continued right up to the present day (Floridia 2017).
More precisely, three such concerns loomed large (see also Goodin 2003, 2–7). First, many democratic theorists (e.g., Elster 1986) had become increasingly dissatisfied with the prevailing view that, because democracy imposes unrealistic demands on the time and attention of ordinary people, political decision-making should be left to political elites who would then be held to account at election time. Second, the deliberative revival was also driven by a desire to afford a greater say to individuals and groups who, through no fault of their own, were politically marginalized. Partly, this was in response to the arguments of feminists and multiculturalists (see, e.g., Phillips 1991). But it was also in response to the more general failure of political elites to advance the cause of social justice (see, e.g., Fishkin 1991). Finally, democratic theorists were also concerned with the quality of democracy itself. In particular, they were searching for new means of addressing growing levels of political disaffection among ordinary citizens and the consequent atrophying of civic life (see, e.g., Cohen and Rogers 1992).
In short, democratic theorists sought to reject the prevailing elitist model of democracy in favour of one that could allow ordinary people, especially those at the margins, a much more effective say. They continue to make this case today, focusing not just on stable democratic societies, but on societies where democracy is far less secure – due, for example, to the legacy of colonialism, ethnic conflict, authoritarian backsliding or natural disasters (see, e.g., Curato 2019; Levy et al. 2021). They have even begun to think about the case for including future generations, or at least their interests, in democratic decision-making (e.g., Smith 2021).
At the same time, while deliberative democrats are united in the view that deliberation is essential to political legitimacy, they differ on how ‘deliberative democracy’ is best defined. In Chapter 2, we will consider the more important of these differences. However, since we must start somewhere, I want to conclude this chapter by focusing on the extended definition provided by Joshua Cohen in his seminal essay, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’ (1989). Granted, Cohen’s essay was not the first to argue for a deliberative revival. Jon Elster’s ‘The Market and the Forum’ (1986), published three years earlier, had already made that point, but since it did not provide an extended definition, Cohen’s is the more obvious place to begin.
What is deliberative democracy?
While there is no single, universally agreed definition of ‘deliberative democracy’, the elements Cohen highlights in his essay have, since its publication, remained central to the definitional question in deliberative theory. As such, his definition provides a set of essential reference points for anyone interested in the development of the theory of deliberative democracy.
Cohen begins by telling us that, roughly, a deliberative democracy is ‘an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members’ (1989, 21). That definition is clearly circular, since it defines deliberative democracy in terms of the deliberation of its members. To a person who does not already know what ‘deliberative democracy’ is, the definition says nothing. However, he soon tells us that the ‘notion of a deliberative democracy is rooted in the intuitive ideal of a democratic association in which the justification of the terms and conditions of association proceeds through public argument and reasoning among equal citizens’. Moreover, citizens in such an order ‘share a commitment to the resolution of problems of collective choice through public reasoning, and regard their basic institutions as legitimate in so far as they establish the framework for free public deliberation’ (1989, 21).
There are at least two important themes here, one of which we have already touched upon, the other of which we have not. The first theme concerns democratic justification, or what we referred to earlier as democratic legitimacy. In a deliberative conception of democracy, a decision is legitimate if it is reached through a process of public argument and reasoning among equal citizens. The second theme concerns the vital role of institutions in the theory and practice of deliberative democracy. Cohen is clear throughout his essay that meaningful, sustained deliberation about important matters of law and public policy, including fundamental constitutional matters, is unlikely to occur without the right institutional support. Both themes have preoccupied deliberative theorists ever since, and we will return to them frequently throughout
