Initiating a More Deliberative Rhetoric: The Rhetorical Dimensions of Direct Democracy Past and Present

The models of direct and deliberative democracy are broadly considered the major alternatives to representative democracy. So far, the two models have been merged under the broad umbrella of participatory democracy and thus little is known about why citizens support direct democracy and/or deliberation. They are distinct procedures, driven by different logics and outcomes and this makes it likely that the preference for them rest on different premises. This article fills this gap in the literature and distinguishes between the models proposing two central arguments. First, we expect that several general determinants have a positive impact on the support for both direct democracy and deliberation because they are different from representative democracy. Second, we test the effect of specific determinants that drive people towards supporting more one of the two alternative models of democracy. We use individual level data from an original survey conducted in December 2018 on a representative sample of 1094 respondents in the UK. The results indicate that the supporters of direct democracy differ from those of deliberative democracy in several ways.

Voting for Pleasure, Or a View from a Victorian Theatre Gallery

This article is devoted to the consideration of the institutions of direct and deliberative democracy known to Russian municipal law. The author provides a description of deliberative democratic practices through discussion or communicative action. The author makes an attempt to distinguish the concepts of “direct democracy” and “deliberative democracy”. Using the example of various deliberative practices, such as public hearings, citizens' gatherings, citizens' conferences, public consultations as part of assessing the regulatory impact of municipal acts, etc., the particular importance of deliberative democracy in municipal rule-making is demonstrated. The final part of the article is devoted to the issue of using deliberative practices when conducting a legal examination of municipal regulations in order to identify the opinion of the population and predict social reaction to the introduced regulation.


 
 
 Imagine this historical scene, if you will. It is 1892, and you are up in the gallery at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, taking in an English burlesque. The people around you have just found out that Alice Leamar will not be performing her famed turn in Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay tonight, a high-kicking Can-Canesque number, very much the dance du jour. Your fellow audience members are none too pleased about this – they are shouting, and stamping the heels of their boots so loudly the whole theatre resounds with the noise. Most people in the expensive seats below look up in the direction of the gallery with a familiar blend of fear and loathing. The rough ‘gods’ up there are nearly always restless, more this time than usual. The uproar fulfils its purpose, though, because tomorrow night, Leamar’s act will be reinstated: the ‘gods’ will have their way (Bulletin, 1 October 1892). Another scene now, this time at the Newtown Bridge Theatre in Sydney, shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. A comedian is trying a new routine for the crowd, but no one seems much impressed so far. A few discontented rumbles begin at first – ‘I want to go home’, says one wag, and then another – and soon these gain momentum, so that almost everyone is caught up in an ecstasy of roisterous abuse. A burly ‘chucker out’ appears, trying to eject some of the loudest hecklers, and a fully-fledged punch-up ensues (Djubal 19, 23; Cheshire 86). Eventually, one or two men are made to leave – but so too is the hapless comedian, evicted by derisive howls from the stage. The scenes I have just described show that audience interaction was a key feature in late-nineteenth century popular theatre, and in some cases even persisted into the following century. Obviously, there was no formal voting mechanism used during these performances à la contemporary shows like Idol. But rowdy practises amounted to a kind of audience ‘vote’ nonetheless, through which people decided those entertainers they wanted to see and those they emphatically did not. In this paper, I intend to use these bald parallels between Victorian audience practices and new-millennium viewer-voting to investigate claims about the links between democracy and plebiscitary entertainment. The rise of voting for pleasure in televised contests and online polls is widely attended by debate about democracy (e.g. Andrejevic; Coleman; Hartley, “Reality”). The most hyped commentary on this count evokes a teleological assumption – that western history is inexorably moving towards direct democracy. This view becomes hard to sustain when we consider the extent to which the direct expression of audience views was a feature of Victorian popular entertainment, and that these participatory practices were largely suppressed by the turn of the twentieth century. Old audience practices also allow us to question some of the uses of the term ‘direct democracy’ in new media commentary. Descriptions of voting for pleasure as part of a growth towards direct democracy are often made to celebrate rather than investigate plebiscitary forms. They elide the fact that direct democracy is a vexed political ideal. And they limit our discussion of voting for leisure and fun. Ultimately, arguing back and forth about whether viewer-voting is democratic stops us from more interesting explorations of this emerging cultural phenomenon. ‘To a degree that would be unimaginable to theatregoers today’, says historian Robert Allen, ‘early nineteenth-century audiences controlled what went on at the theatre’. The so-called ‘shirt-sleeve’ crowd in the cheapest seats of theatrical venues were habitually given to hissing, shouting, and even throwing objects in order to evict performers during the course of a show. The control exerted by the peanut-chomping gallery was certainly apparent in the mid-century burlesques Allen writes about (55). It was also apparent in minstrel, variety and music hall productions until around the turn of the century. Audience members in the galleries of variety theatres and music halls regularly engaged in the pleasure of voicing their aesthetic preferences. Sometimes comic interjectors from among them even drew more laughs than the performers on stage. ‘We went there not as spectators but as performers’, as an English music-hall habitué put it (Bailey 154). In more downmarket venues such as Sydney’s Newtown Bridge Theatre, these participatory practices continued into the early 1900s. Boisterous audience practices came under sustained attack in the late-Victorian era. A series of measures were taken by authorities, theatre managers and social commentators to wrest the control of popular performances from those in theatre pits and galleries. These included restricting the sale of alcohol in theatre venues, employing brawn in the form of ‘chuckers out’, and darkening auditoriums, so that only the stage was illuminated and the audience thus de-emphasised (Allen 51–61; Bailey 157–68; Waterhouse 127, 138–43). They also included a relentless public critique of those engaging in heckling behaviours, thus displaying their ‘littleness of mind’ (Age, 6 Sep. 1876). The intensity of attacks on rowdy audience participation suggests that symbolic factors were at play in late-Victorian attempts to enforce decorous conduct at the theatre. The last half of the century was, after all, an era of intense debate about the qualities necessary for democratic citizenship. The suffrage was being dramatically expanded during this time, so that it encompassed the vast majority of white men – and by the early twentieth century, many white women as well. In Australia, the prelude to federation also involved debate about the type of democracy to be adopted. Should it be republican? Should it enfranchise all men and women; all people, or only white ones? At stake in these debates were the characteristics and subjectivities one needed to possess before being deemed capable of enfranchisement. To be worthy of the vote, as of other democratic privileges, one needed to be what Toby Miller has called a ‘well-tempered’ subject at the turn of the twentieth century (Miller; Joyce 4). One needed to be carefully deliberative and self-watching, to avoid being ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, emotive – all qualities which riotous audience members (like black people and women) were thought not to possess (Lake). This is why the growing respectability of popular theatre is so often considered a key feature of the modernisation of popular culture. Civil and respectful audience behaviours went hand in hand with liberal-democratic concepts of the well-tempered citizen. Working-class culture in late nineteenth-century England has famously (and notoriously) been described as a ‘culture of consolation’: an escapist desire for fun based on a fatalistic acceptance of under-privilege and social discrimination (Jones). This idea does not do justice to the range of hopes and efforts to create a better society among workingpeople at the time. But it still captures the motivation behind most unruly audience behaviours: a gleeful kind of resistance or ‘culture jamming’ which viewed disruption and uproar as ends in themselves, without the hope that they would be productive of improved social conditions. Whether or not theatrical rowdiness served a solely consolatory purpose for the shirt-sleeve crowd, it certainly evoked a sharp fear of disorderly exuberance in mainstream society. Anxieties about violent working-class uprisings leading to the institution of mob rule were a characteristic of the late-nineteenth century, often making their way into fiction (Brantlinger). Roisterous behaviours in popular theatres resonated with the concerns expressed in works such as Caesar’s Column (Donnelly), feeding on a long association between the theatre and misrule. These fears obviously stand in stark contrast to the ebullient commentary surrounding interactive entertainment today. Over-oxygenated rhetoric about the democratic potential of cyberspace was of course a feature of new media commentary at the beginning of the 1990s (for a critique of such rhetoric see Meikle 33–42; Grossman). Current helium-giddy claims about digital technologies as ‘democratising’ reprise this cyberhype (Andrejevic 12–15, 23–8; Jenkins and Thornburn). One recent example of upbeat talk about plebiscitary formats as direct democracy is John Hartley’s contribution to the edited collection, Politicotainment (Hartley, “Reality”). There are now a range of TV shows and online formats, he says, which offer audiences the opportunity to directly express their views. The development of these entertainment forms are part of a movement towards a ‘direct open network’ in global media culture (3). They are also part of a macro historical shift: a movement ‘down the value chain of meaning’ which has taken place over the past few centuries (Hartley, “Value Chain”). Hartley’s notion of a ‘value chain of meaning’ is an application of business analysis to media and cultural studies. In business, a value chain is what links the producer/originator, via commodity/distribution, to the consumer. In the same way, Hartley says, one might speak of a symbolic value chain moving from an author/producer, via the text, to the audience/consumer. Much of western history may indeed be understood as a movement along this chain. In pre-modern times, meaning resided in the author. The Divine Author, God, was regarded as the source of all meaning. In the modern period, ‘after Milton and Johnson’, meaning was located in texts. Experts observed the properties of a text or other object, and by this means discovered its meaning. In ‘the contemporary period’, however – the period roughly following the Second World War – meaning has overwhelming come to be located with audiences or consumers (Hartley, “Value Chain” 131–35). It is in this context, Hartley tells us, that the plebis

In Direct Democracy or Representative Government? John Haskell develops a devastating critique of direct democracy by exposing the central flaw in populist thinking. Contrary to the beliefs of populist advocates of direct democracy, the popular will cannot be interpreted from the results of the plebiscite. John Haskell presents a defense of representative institutions that brings to bear, in an understandable way, the findings of public choice scholars. Haskell covers the clash of ideas between populists and constitutionalists throughout American history. He follows the development of direct democracy during the twentieth century, especially the dramatically increased use of initiatives and referenda in the last decade. As Americans become increasingly frustrated with the workings of the institutions of government at the state and national levels, and as populist ideas gain greater currency, new forms of direct and participatory democracy making use of the latest computer technology appeal to more people. Haskell speculates as to the likely future direction of direct democracy in the U.S. He describes in clear language the fundamental problem with the premise of populist thinking and explains why direct democracy presents a threat to minority rights and only promises irresponsible and unaccountable governance.

Implementing direct democracy via representation

Canada's main political parties have been sceptical if not hostile towards the idea of active citizen participation in the policy-making process. political leaders have tended to ignore proposals for direct democracy and have found intellectual support for this view in the work of democratic theorists who dismiss direct democracy as incompatible with the parliamentary system, the Westminister tradition, executive federalism, a multiethnic community, and responsible government (see, for example, Bobbio 1987, 54). However, what may be disquieting to political leaders about direct democracy may not be citizen participation per se, but the form of direct democracy with which they are most familiar: citizen initiatives as practised in the U.S. states. In fact, I suggest that there is a more Canadian way to incorporate citizens into the policy-making process than the California Model. I will also suggest that unless political parties actively pursue a more deliberative form of direct democracy, they will inevitably end up with that which they most abhor: the populist, majoritarian, disorganized, direct democracy of California. Through an examination of new legislation (Bill 36, 1994) in British Columbia which permits citizens to initiate referenda and recall sitting members of the provincial legislature, (1) and a review of the literature on initiative politics as practised in the U.S. states, (2) I elaborate a theoretical typology for analyzing direct democracy. Disquieting or not, as citizen support for parties, institutions, and governments declines (Clarke and Kornberg 1992), the trend toward more active citizen participation in some form in Canada is inevitable. A change in political culture has occurred whereby citizens have more confidence in their ability to make decisions and show less deference toward elites (Inglehart 1991), though political institutions have yet to adapt to this cultural change. A response must eventually come, and I suggest that the choices made about how best to incorporate citizens into the policy-making process will have a profound influence on the texture of our politics, and that adopting U.S. models holus bolus is inappropriate for Canada. Direct Democracy in Canada The use of direct democracy has always been a part of the political environment, though its practice and use have been haphazard and unsystematic. There have been the highly publicized referenda on conscription in 1942, on Newfoundland's joining of Confederation in 1947, on Quebec's constitutional status in 1980 and 1995, and on the Constitutional Charlottetown Accords in 1992, but these are only a small fraction of referenda held through history. (3) As well, from 1913 to 1916, all three Prairie provinces enacted legislation to permit citizen-sponsored initiatives. And currently, there are over seventy separate statutes across Canada which provide the opportunity for citizens to participate directly in the legislative process at the municipal level (Boyer 1992, 190). (4) Despite these instances of direct democracy, political science has treated these instances as irregular and occasional additions to the representative system. However, Canada's self-image as a parliamentary democracy that eschews citizen participation is increasingly a perverted depiction of political reality. In fact, if we hold up a mirror to political practice, we find a growing number of political spheres that expect or require citizen participation, though we have yet to acknowledge the scope or influence of this participation. Many parties are choosing their leaders through direct election akin to American primaries (Courtney 1995). In these contests, all party members are permitted to vote, and though the major federal parties have yet to use such a procedure, many provincial parties have adopted it and many sitting premiers having been selected through direct election. …

^3 H LAWRENCE M. LIPIN 1 AND WILLIAM LUNCH ES H Moralistic Direct I Democracy H Political Insurgents, Religion,and theState H inTwentieth-Century Oregon ^^^ OREGON'S REPUTATION FOR political innovation dates back to I^^Hi theimplementation of thesystem of "direct democracy"embodiedby the %2|gfx initiative and referendum systems thatwere established early in the twentieth I century, transforming a constitution that in its original writing reflected less originality than commitment to older, eighteenth-century ideals.1 No state has utilized these tools more than Oregon, and no other state was earlier in itsusage.2 Among the states that have had the initiative available, more have appeared on theOregon ballot, 349, than in any other since the system began in the early twentieth century; only California is close with 331.3 Yet, the patterns have not been consistent, as usage of the tools of direct democracy have waxed and waned over the century since their adoption. More precisely, there have been two significant waves of heavy usage, at the beginning and end of the twentieth century. Political scientist Richard Ellis points out thatmore measures appeared on theOregon ballot between 1906 and 1914 than for the entire period between 1920 and 1969 and thatduring the 1980s and 1990s,more measures passed than in the previous six decades.4 If Oregon has been shaped by the use of direct democracy, that formation has been within specific historical contexts. This article examines themoments of frequent recourse to direct democracy, drawing conclusions about the particular influence ofmoral beliefs on the process. Both of thesemoments have been characterized by the deployment of a populist moralism thatblended policies regarding the role of the statewith a 514 OHQ vol. 110, no. 4 ? 2o?9 Oregon Historical Society From Joseph Gaston, Portland,Oregon: Its History and Builders (Chicago, 1911); OHS digitalno. baoi9279 Critics of the initiativeand referendumargued that the public would be inundated with overlycomplicatedproposals. This 1911cartoon compares theGlasgow, Scotland, voteron the left, who votes simply for his citycouncilfrom hisward, and the Des Moines, Iowa, voter in thecenter, who votesmerelyforfive city commissioners, with the overwhelmed Portland, Oregon, voter, who contemplates a three-foot-long ballotwith a heading, uForExpertsOnly." rhetorical style that argued "natural" and "traditional" values and economic opportunities had been perverted by elites. The fight fordirect democracy at the turn of the twentieth century began in earnest when a group ofworker and farmer organizations joined together under the leadership of William S. U'Ren to form the JointCommittee on Direct Legislation. These insurgents perceived the legislature as an obstacle to reforms supported by populist voting blocs, and theybelieved the tools of direct democracy would permit "the people" to circumvent the corrupt "interests" that seemed to control the votes of legislators. These earliest proponents of the tools of direct democracy decried the growing economic power of corporations and sought to revive a form of Jeffersonian democracy they believed had once characterized Lipin and Lunch,Moralistic Direct Democracy 515 American politics by first establishing the system itself and then proposing new laws that promised a radical transformation of the structures of power and wealth in the state. Some seventy years later, use of the initiative again intensified as con servative reformers qualified for the ballot initiatives to reduce taxes and limit state spending; they calculated such measures to undo the process of state building that occurred between these two periods of extensive direct democracy. Political scientists have utilized the term "conservative popu lists" to describe some of the activists who have made frequent use of the initiative process in this latter period. Richard Clucas and Mark Henkels, for example, argue that "conservative populists believe the core problem ofmodern politics is how government agencies, politicians, and an elitist media interferewith the popular will. They fear that these groups hinder private economic choice, the effectiveness of themarket, and the public's ability to promote broadly shared conservative social values."5 Conservative populists have also favored government intervention to enforce what they perceive as traditional social relations. The advocates of suchmeasures have had strong ties to the evangelical churches, and themainstream press has often portrayed them as the shock troops forwhat Patrick Buchanan at the 1992Republican National Convention called a "religious war...

Representative democracy is currently challenged in all Western political systems. In Italy this challenge in recent years has been launched in a distinctive way by the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5s, Five Star Movement). According to the leader of this Movement, Beppe Grillo, the widespread diffusion of information technology tools enables direct democracy, allowing citizens to take part in political decisions without politicians and political parties’ intermediation. The article aims, first, to explore the links and differences between the concepts of deliberative, direct and participatory democracy. On the basis of this conceptual clarification it then identifies which “idea” of democracy inspires the M5s. Analysis of documents and statements of the M5s shows that, in a very contradictory way, the Movement tries to combine three different challenges to representative democracy: a reformist challenge (through the strengthening of a set of instruments of direct democracy, such as referenda, within an institutional frame that remains centered on the parliament), an utopian challenge (the complete transcendence of representative democracy through the massive use of ICT tools) and a plebiscitary challenge (which is expressed via a top-down use of the web).

In democratic theory and practice, direct democracy always marks a basic contrast to representative democracy, offering citizens greater opportunities for participation and "more democracy". Both in theory and practice, major justifications for direct democracy are derived from deficits in representative systems and from the theoretical limitations of liberal democracy. The more general attempts at criticizing liberal-representative democracy have been provided by authors who developed theories of participatory democracy (Pateman 1970; Bachrach dt. 1970). When the debate on expanding democratic participation began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many contributions to the theory of participatory democracy did not elaborate on direct democracy as a form of extended participation. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that theories of participatory democracy, in which the main general normative justifications which also apply to direct democracy have been put forward, should be the natural 'home base' of direct democracy. It is not, however, the purpose of this paper to repeat these patterns of justifications, which are well known (summaries in Butler/Ranney 1994: 11 ff.; Schmidt 2000: 358 ff.). Neither will the literature with a primary focus on direct democracy be discussed here (overviews of the subject: Möckli 1994; Schiller 2002). I will, rather, look at more general theories of participatory democracy and ask how they deal with direct democracy. Do we find considerations of functions, institutional structures and models of direct democracy as instruments of participation? And what can be learnt about qualitative aspects and in relation to possible designs of qualified institutions of direct democracy? It will not be possible to present a full picture of these aspects, but rather some representative observations, including attempts to explain why approaches to democratic participation are surprisingly hesitant about direct democracy. One general reason may be that direct democracy is often perceived only as a mechanism for a popular decisive vote with a majoritarian character. We will examine whether, on the other hand, direct democracy is or can be also viewed in a broader perspective as an institution covering a complete decision-making process, from setting the agenda for an issue to the final referendum vote. In the paper, some basic conceptual elements of participatory democracy will first be recalled. Secondly, we will look at the principles of democracy in the version of Robert Dahl and James Fishkin. A third section will give a short account of Barber's "strong democracy". Section four looks into different segments of theory deriving from the concept of participatory democracy, in particular the deliberative democracy approach, leading to some conclusions about the relations and distances of such theories to direct democracy as a participatory institution.KeywordsPolitical CommunicationDirect DemocracyPublic CommunicationDeliberative DemocracyDemocratic TheoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Simon de Montfort would have enjoyed the clash that recently took place in the Federal Republic of Germany between the adherents of increased direct democracy and the proponents of a system of pure representative democracy. At stake was the crucial issue of atomic armament for the West German defence forces. Should the basic decision be made by the people through a referendum, or by their representatives in parliament? This constitutional and political question was referred to the Federal Constitutional Court, which reached a verdict of importance to the future of the Republic-and to political scientists.This essay is designed to serve as a case study of a nation in the twentieth century in debate over the scope of direct democracy within a representative system. It also seeks to assess the rationale of transferring, on occasion, the power to make decisions in the realms of foreign and military policy from the executive and parliament to the people themselves. And finally it attempts to evaluate the interplay of political parties and interest groups, and the conflict over jurisdiction between the national government and the constituent Laender in the context of the proposed referendum.

This text deals with one of the attempts to make the idea of deliberative democracy more acceptable by conducting it through the Internet. Citing the simplicity of access and use of the Internet, many authors believe that it is possible to join deliberative democracy with direct democracy, and thus reach the best possible system of political decision making. It will be shown, however, that although this idea has many advantages over classical theories of deliberative democracy, it raises more issues than it solves. Despite this, the idea of online deliberative democracy should not be neglected, but rather joined with existing procedures of political decision making, significantly improving these procedures.

ABSTRACTThis paper contributes to the discussion on deliberative, direct democracy and volunteer mobilization in the Internet era by analyzing the vote participation levels of Wikipedia volunteer editors (Wikipedians). On 18th January 2012 in the ‘first Internet strike’ against the American ‘Stop Online Piracy Act' legislation, over two thousand Wikipedians took part in the vote concerning whether their site should undertake a protest action, with vast majority expressing support for this action. However, the vote participants formed only a tiny fraction of the total number of Wikipedians who number in millions. Although Wikipedia can be seen as an open, democratic forum practicing deliberative, direct democracy, the process of voting on Wikipedia is significantly influenced by participation inequality, with a majority of the vote participation coming from a small group of most active contributors – an effective oligarchy. This paper discusses the intricate dynamics between Wikipedia egalitarian ethos and the creed to discuss project matters deliberately on one hand and the conspicuous lack of promotion and advertisement stemming from a rule against ‘canvassing’ and an overall skepticism regarding the status of majority votes. While voters' passivity and lack of interest play a major role, as expected, another factor emerges as a significant factor responsible for the low levels of participation: an inefficient information distribution system, as the vast majority of Wikipedians were not aware of the ongoing discussions and the vote itself until after their conclusion.

Referendums and deliberative democracy

The purpose of this study is to identify and propose the necessary tasks for establishing deliberative participatory budgeting in South Korea by comparing and examining the characteristics of deliberative participatory budgeting implemented by local governments in three countries with different political and social backgrounds. To do so, theoretical and practical discussions on ‘deliberative participatory budgeting’, which encompass perspectives of participatory and direct democracy as well as deliberative democracy, were reviewed. Then, three cases of ‘deliberation-based participatory budgeting’ implemented by local governments such as Zeguo town in China, the city of Greater Geraldton in Australia, and Eunpyeong-gu in Korea, were compared and analyzed. The cases of Zeguo and Geraldton demonstrated that when participatory budgeting systems are combined with deliberative mechanisms such as deliberative pollings and town meetings to address local issues, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy can positively interact with each other and contribute to problem-solving. The case of Eunpyeong-gu stood out for utilizing deliberation in public forums from the stage of proposing ideas for solving local issues to determining priorities. As improvement tasks, it was suggested to diversify the Korean participatory budgeting model, which is primarily operated under the ‘resident proposal project’, and reduce the ‘bias in participation by self-selection’ through the multi-level operation of public forums based on neighborhoods, themes, and target groups.