Mass Publics in Transnational Deliberative Systems

The study of deliberative systems opens up to look at how individual institutional processes contribute to epistemic, ethical and democratic functions in the system as a whole. This system approach does not rule out strategically motivated interaction, particularly for public opinion-making and democratic decision-making. Simone Chambers is correct that deliberative systems often aim at mass publics, and often try to construct them. I would add that this also happens at the transnational level. Jürgen Habermas has also argued that mass (or society-wide) deliberation depends on the existence of a participatory and indeed contestatory "wild public sphere." An important outcome of such contestation is the possible emergence of new mass publics, some of which will contest the status quo, as happens in Latin America. My paper will explore mass forms of democracy that shape and change the processes of opinion- and will-formation under circumstances of conflict mediated through various large-scale publics.