Abstract
This article reviews extant conceptualizations of procedural justice and reports the results of an empirical study testing the effects of fair deliberation. From a communicative action perspective, we argue that Habermas’s conceptions of speech conditions and validity conditions can be used to evaluate the discursive and substantive dimensions of procedural justice in deliberation. That is, fair deliberation is built on the fulfillment of discourse norms and the communicativeness of dialogic interactions. The communicative measures are compatible with extant procedural justice measures and provide a communication-centered ground for evaluating deliberative outcomes related to procedural justice. The case study involves public discussion of the Singaporean government’s population policies on an online deliberative platform. The results show that when procedural justice is presented in the realization of both speech conditions and validity conditions, it fosters participants’ beliefs in the rightfulness of deliberative policymaking. Additionally, speech conditions play a more important role than validity conditions in predicting citizens’ specific policy support after online deliberation. The findings illustrate one instance of how communicative norms are prioritized in different deliberative settings and what deliberative benefits a fair procedure can achieve. The results shed light on the theorization of procedural justice and advance the extant knowledge of evaluating procedural justice in deliberation.
Highlights
Deliberation has demonstrated its normative importance and applicability in different institutional and issuespecific contexts (Curato et al 2017)
We review studies from both camps to justify our proposal of using a communicative action approach for evaluating procedural justice in deliberation
The hypotheses predicted that participants’ positive evaluations of the speech conditions and validity conditions of deliberation can account for their general support for deliberative policymaking (H1) and specific policy support (H2)
Summary
Deliberation has demonstrated its normative importance and applicability in different institutional and issuespecific contexts (Curato et al 2017). This study examines the procedural justice aspect of deliberation to inform and evaluate elements that comprise good deliberation and underpin beneficial deliberative outcomes. Instead of treating deliberation as a unidimensional attendance variable with a yes/no response (e.g., the presence or absence of deliberation in political decision making), we propose that deliberative processes may vary in their degrees of fulfillment of procedural justice norms. Citizens may take part in a political discussion on public affairs but may not perceive it to be deliberative due to unmet discourse rules and/or unsatisfactory claims to validity that curb open dialogue and mutual reason giving. A partial or complete lack of fulfillment of procedural justice norms may hamper the beneficial effects that good deliberation ought to generate
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