Deliberative Citizenship: A Critical Reappraisal

Deliberative democracy used to be closely aligned with a family of conceptions of democratic citizenship, which united around the core idea that citizens should be willing and able to engage in a particular mode of communicative interaction. This core idea was interpreted quite differently, with liberals in the Rawlsian tradition defending an ideal of public reason and critical theorists in the Habermasian tradition allowing for more active and adversarial participation in the public sphere. The commitment to dialogue, underpinned by a certain account of mutual respect, was nonetheless a fundamental component of ‘deliberative citizenship’. The evolution of the paradigm, particularly the systemic turn, has called into doubt the connection between deliberative democracy and this notion of democratic citizenship. The systemic turn does not require—and often rejects—the civic virtues associated with this notion, calling upon citizens to act in such a way that enhances the functionality of a macro-level deliberative system. This development in deliberative theory is understandable to a certain extent, but it has arguably come at a considerable price. It is, in particular, not at all clear that the systemic turn can offer an account of democratic citizenship that can either motivate or guide actors in embedded societal contexts. This paper thus calls for a return to the discarded ideal of deliberative citizenship, through reaffirming the virtues of epistemic reflection, mutual respect, and dialogic interaction that are central to that ideal.