Three Approaches to Conceptualizing Deliberation

This paper argues that recent critiques (O´Flynn 2021; Scudder 2021) of ‘new wave’ conceptions of deliberation - especially ´expansive’ notions (Mansbridge et al. 2010) and ‘problem-based’ approaches (Warren 2017; Bächtiger and Parkinson 2019) - are not just ‘family quarrels’ but reflect deeper disagreements with broad ramifications for how we understand the ´workings´ of deliberation in politics and society, its antecedents and consequences. In order to better grapple with such disagreements, I articulate three stylized approaches to conceptualizing and understanding deliberation: a constitutive, a model-based and a problem-based approach. While the constitutive (or Habermasian) approach focuses on the constitutive dimensions of language and argument for producing mutual understanding as well as generating political legitimacy in modern, pluralistic societies marked by dissensus, the model-based approach seeks to realize (as well as institutionalize) deliberative ideals (and a “deliberative stance”) in the real world with direct effects, assuming that more deliberation will quasi-automatically strengthen democratic practice; the problem-based approach, in turn, understands deliberation as a contingent communicative practice that takes different forms according to different contexts and goals and that can improve - but also deteriorate - the workings of democratic systems. The boundaries among the three approaches are not always sharp and multiple areas of overlap and entanglements exist; nonetheless, the three approaches have different emphases and analytical foci. Distinguishing among them and understanding their internal precepts will help us better understand what deliberation is, what aims it serves and how it can – and should - function in a political system. Moreover, given the fact that all three approaches have distinct strengths and weaknesses, it makes sense to consider a unifying perspective. I propose that a generic problem-based perspective might provide a useful second-order framework (Mackie 1977; Saward 2021) from which the two other approaches can be put into new perspective. In so doing, we enter into a post-Habermasian era of deliberative thinking while still keeping some of its constituent parts.