Deliberative Ecologies: A Relational Critique of Deliberative Systems

The concept of deliberative systems has had an enormous influence in the field of deliberative democracy. Due to its relevance and undeniable contributions, the concept thrived with scarce friction. This article aims at challenging the idea of deliberative systems and at advocating an alternative to it. We argue that the notion of deliberative ecology can deliver the necessary conceptual elements that deliberative democrats seek in deliberative systems without some problems they either overlook or embrace in the concept. One may acknowledge that public discussions can (and should) happen in a variety of arenas spread over space and time without adopting a systemic perspective. An ecological approach can grasp this idea while also avoiding conceptual and practical limitations inherent to the premises of structural functionalism that pervade, in a way or another, the idea of deliberative systems. Drawing from theories of complexity and from pragmatism, an ecological approach considers social entities according to the webs of interdependence that simultaneously support and constrain them at a given moment in time. Since it understands those relational webs as fluid and complex, it does not qualify actors and political arenas with fixed, universal and aprioristic categories, roles and functions. Such perspective values the dynamic and unpredictable features of reality, refusing the quest to organize it in ways that would enable a causal understanding of the world. It also pays attention to the contradictions and tensions pervading a given ecology. In doing so, this ecological approach recognizes the multiple, recursive, and shifty nature of relationships grounding the vivid and non-teleological unfolding of beings, spaces, and temporalities. To advocate the difference and advantages of this perspective in comparison to the notion of deliberative systems, we organize this article in two parts. In the first part, we briefly reconstruct the notion of deliberative systems and deal with the main criticisms raised against it, arguing that they are insufficient to grasp the problems inherent to the idea of systems. In the second part, we advance six comparative points, aimed at showing limitations of the systemic approach and the different angles enabled by an ecological perspective: (1) functions of arenas and players vs. performances of actants; (2) transmission across arenas vs. articulations and translations; (3) pathologies and disfunctions vs. vulnerabilities; (4) design vs. practice; (5) linear temporality vs. diverse temporalities; (6) organic analysis vs. hologram-based approach. In a nutshell, we claim that the way deliberative systems conceive of the relationships between different discursive arenas simplifies and linearizes complex and recursive interconnections. Deliberative democrats frequently look for transmission processes and for the functions or roles of different arenas, without acknowledging the open-ended dynamic of discursive flows. This has thwarted a proper conceptualization, for instance, of forms or relationship between discursive arenas that actually obstruct deliberation. An ecological approach to deliberation has the advantage of conceptualizing an ever-changing web of relations of interdependency, which connects diverse entities that are relevant to a public discussion or that hinder its enactment.