Bächtiger & Dryzek: "Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times"

I've recently become interested in the theory of deliberative democracy as a set of diagnoses and proposals for revitalising politics and strengthening popular power. I did some research on Habermas, writing an essay which I'm just editing now – I'll put that up here soon. While doing that, I wanted to see if there was any more recent work on the topic, so I found this book, published just last year. It directly addresses the potential for a deliberative model of democracy amidst a rise in right-wing populism, extremism, denial, and authoritarianism.

Democracy is under threat by a range of "diabolical" actors and forces. Bächtiger & Dryzek explain that this is partly due to the deterioration of political communication. Elites have perverse incentives to reduce the quality of debate in the public sphere for their own gain, de-legitimising experts and opponents, claiming that journalists spread "fake news", and spreading their own misinformation. In this way, they are diabolical, intelligently working in their own interest against the public good. In addition, the sheer quantity of political communication reduces the capacity for deep listening and reflection. Broadly, this has led to an increase in populism, extremism, denial, and authoritarianism, which all present challenges to democracy. The authors call for the construction of a deliberative culture with a range of institutions forming a cohesive deliberative system.

First, the authors address realist and skeptical challenges, centering around the claim that citizens cannot live up to the deliberative ideal. They take evidence from psychological experiments that show bias and incompetence as the norm. From the premise that these defects are context-dependent, not essential, the authors collect a range of evidence which demonstrates that, in the right situation, citizens are capable of high-quality deliberation. For example, Mercier and Sperber (2011) find that evaluation others' arguments in a deliberative environment produces better reasoning about both sides of a disputed issue. They find the basis to be optimistic regarding the possibility of deliberation.

Finding that context is essential in understanding citizens' deliberative capabilities, the authors examine today's "diabolical soundscape". In an era with greater amounts of communication than ever before, we are suffering from "expressive overload (p. 53), where "the noise comes to dominate the signal" (p. 55). The media polarises, then forget issues, parliamentary debate is ritualistic and unreflective, politicians employ meaningless slogans, and social media is simplistic and makes use of algorithms to induce anger and engagement. The polarisation of society leads to in-groups and out-groups which make use of cultural cognition instead of reasoned reflection. Incivility and extremist media, online and offline, further distort political communication.

The authors argue that public discourse needs both a truthfulness norm and a civility norm to recover. They call for all political communicators to work towards these norms. Without a truthfulness norm, fact-checking becomes useless (Aird et al., 2018). Online platforms could be reformed, with algorithms biased towards truthfulness, and a reduction of news personalisation would promote better reflection. Better journalism is essential, as well as media literacy.

The next four chapters turn to different types of diabolical actors, right-wing populists, extremists, deniers, and authoritarians. First, populists simplify political life into an opposition between the "people" and the "elite", choosing to define those two terms in specific ways. The easy narrative of populism is gaining control in the wider media narrative, especially in the US and the UK. Necessarily, this leads to a decline in the quality and reflexiveness of public (and parliamentary) debate. Populist leaders must be contested and argued against – deliberation can reveal the complexities of social life that populism hides. Even though the people versus elite narrative is easy, it can be challenged and shown that populist leaders won't actually improve things – the authors cite the contradiction between Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again" and the policies that will impoverish and harm citizens like environmental deregulation and tariffs. There is an opportunity with citizens susceptible to populism: they rightly identify that existing liberal-parliamentary structures do not properly represent their interests. That lack of legitimacy can be channeled away from populist leaders and towards radical democratic reform and participation.

Extremists are another case of a group against deliberation. They aim to redefine and narrow who belongs in society, designating an in-group and an out-group, usually on racial, religious, or cultural grounds. Here, the authors turn to discursive psychology to propose a solution: by diversifying the discourses that extremist citizens are presented with, they have the possibility of reasoning across ideologies. Here, deliberation is able to build understanding, weaken in-group/out-group distinctions, and moderate extremist citizens. Other measures, like preferential voting, can moderate extremist candidates by encouraging them to compete for preferences from other, more mainstream candidates.

Possibly the most concerning group are deniers. Because collective debate and decision making require high quality information, those that deny scientific, historical, and other evidence seem unable to participate. To deniers, facts are less important than broader interpretations and narratives – if one believes that an elite controls academic and political institutions, they are likely to dismiss the conclusions of "corrupt scientists". The authors argue that news organisations should focus on objectivity and truth, not impartiality, and that communicators should work towards being seen as "friends" by deniers, able to talk across boundaries. Vocabulary changes can re-frame issues, the authors cite the use of the words "creation care" instead of "environmentalism" to induce (likely right-leaning) Christians to support environmental measures. However, to some extent, deniers may just need to be kept to the fringe, to avoid the spread of denial.

Finally, authoritarians present a challenge to the essence of democracy: popular power. Authoritarians seduce citizens by promising prosperity in exchange for democratic control. Mulhberger (2018) is cited to show that participation in democratic procedures reduces authoritarian attitudes. Civic education and high-quality journalis, are also needed. The last two chapters focus on deliberation with the majority of citizens, and measures for the renewal of a deliberative democracy.

This book presents a fairly compelling case for the use of deliberative measures to improve democracy. What I think might be lacking is an explanation of how exactly they can be implemented – who's job is it? Local governments? State and federal governments? Civil society? Of course, this isn't the authors' focus here, but it is a question that seems very important to answer. It would be nice for political leaders to pick up this book and then do as it asks, but that is unrealistic. More work needs to be done on the operationalisation of deliberative renewal, which I will seek out.

There is also little discussion on what a deliberative political process would look like. Again, the scope of this book is limited to the renewal of political communication as a way to improve democracy, but what Rawls called "the basic structure of society" seems more important. There are some interesting proposals, like upper houses of parliaments, as houses of review, being at least partially elected by lot. In that way, politicians in lower houses would need to justify their policy to a kind of grand jury. But is the national government the most appropriate arena for deliberation? When electors for national parliaments are in the millions, the political power of one vote is miniscule. What is the use of using so much effort for such little reward? The fact that real deliberation is only possible on a small scale seems to suggest smaller political units like assemblies and councils. Of course, geographically large governments are necessary, especially due to extreme capital mobility (see Studebaker, 2023). The possibility of a delegative model should be examined – where citizen assemblies send, and can instantly recall, delegates to local councils, which in turn send delegates to regional councils, and so on. In this way, some can specialise in political work while the lower councils and assemblies as the rank-and-file dominate the higher levels of government. In this way, since power lies at the bottom, any political structures must necessarily be consensual. Here, deliberation can occur at all levels, and between levels. Councils deliberate on issues, following which delegates return to lower councils or the constituent assemblies, and communicate the reasoning and conclusions of those councils. Here is another opportunity for deliberation, where the assembly can accept or reject those reasons, causing the delegate to either change their vote or face being recalled and replaced.

Overall, Bächtiger & Dryzek present a useful resource for deliberative theorists and the public. The intersection and interaction between deliberation and alternative democratic models is an area of research I would like to see more of.