John B. Min

This chapter retraces the place of power in the normative theory of deliberative democracy. It describes deliberative democracy’s ambivalent relationship with power—it promises to humble coercive forms of power, yet it produces its own, productive form of power for this, which does not always come without problems.The chapter thus explores the nuances of both coercive and productive forms of power, responds to critiques of deliberative theory as either powerless or too powerful, and introduces a typology of deliberative democracy’s relationship with four different types of power, to culminate in a theory of deliberative power that centres on the power of justification to curb and legitimate uses of power in an inevitably imperfect world.

This final substantive chapter extends the discussion of deliberative democracy and power by focusing on three topics that have shaped contemporary thinking about the pathologies of democracy—post-truth, populism, and illiberalism. The chapter concludes with questions often raised but as yet unanswered in deliberative theory: What is its account of change? How does it take power? The chapter makes a case for a humble version of deliberative theory, one that does not hoist a flag declaring mission accomplished, but one that constantly evolves because it learns from its mistakes.

This chapter takes a broad view of deliberative politics beyond the forum. It examines the field’s ‘systemic turn’ as a normative, empirical, and a political project, with each dimension appreciating deliberative democracy’s operation in an imperfect speech situation. Placing the issue of power at the centre of analysis not only identifies obstructions in the circulation of inclusive and contesting discourses, but also examines the possibilities for democratic renewal. Power plays an ambiguous and sometimes contradictory role in the deliberative system. The challenge is to critically examine the context in which these exercises of power take place.

Epistemic justifi cation is necessary for deliberative democracy, yet there is a question about what we mean by the concept of epistemic values of public deliberation. According to one reading, the epistemic value of public deliberation implies a procedure’s ability to achieve a correct outcome, as judged by a procedure-independent standard of correctness. As I shall show in this paper, however, there is another reading of the "epistemic" value of public deliberation extant in the literature: Epistemic values are constitutive of a deliberative process as an exchange of reasons. If the distinction between two concepts of epistemic values of public deliberation holds, then we can re-conceptualize the relationship between procedural fairness, epistemic values, and legitimacy. Thus, a concept of legitimacy that combines procedural fairness and a procedure-independent standard of correctness on the one hand, versus one that combines procedural fairness and the constitutive epistemic value of deliberation on the other hand.

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism.

This article offers a comprehensive review of the major theoretical issues and findings of the epistemic approaches to deliberative democracy. Section 2 surveys the norms and ideals of deliberative democracy in relation to deliberation's ability to “track the truth.” Section 3 examines the conditions under which deliberative mini‐publics can “track the truth.” Section 4 discusses how “truth‐tracking” deliberative democracy is possible through the division of epistemic labor in a deliberative system.

ABSTRACTIn “The Politics of Getting It Right,” Russell Muirhead has contended in this journal that democracy is valuable because of its procedural legitimacy rather than because of the epistemic values of “getting things right.” However, pure procedural theories of legitimacy fail. Thus, if democracy is legitimate, it will have to be due partly to its epistemic advantages. There are two ways of thinking about these advantages. One approach, associated most prominently with David Estlund and Hélène Landemore, equates the epistemic advantages of democracy with its ability to approximate a procedure-independent standard of correctness. The other, associated with Fabienne Peter, explicitly rejects that standard. Peter’s view, however, is incapable of answering challenges against pure procedural theories of legitimacy.

Contrary to the popular belief, I argue that a more inclusive polity does not necessarily conflict with the goal of improving the epistemic capacities of deliberation. My argument examines one property of democracy that is usually thought of in non-epistemic terms, inclusion. Inclusion is not only valuable for moral reasons, but it also has epistemic virtues. I consider two epistemic benefits of inclusive deliberation: inclusive deliberation helps to create a more complete picture of the world that everyone dwells together; and inclusive deliberation can be helpful in reducing biases and errors endemic to a society. Having advanced two epistemic arguments for inclusive deliberation, I argue that the Deweyan model best captures the knowledge-pooling function of deliberation.