Participation In Public Debate Research Articles

Radio listening clubs in Malawi as alternative public spheres

Abstract Many people in rural areas in Malawi lack access to information due to illiteracy and the unavailability of reliable sources of information. There is also an absence of a proper forum where rural ordinary people can express their views and have their voices heard. However, in communities where there are community radio stations, the stations are helping create spaces for ordinary people to participate in public life by setting up radio listening clubs (RLCs). This article examines how RLCs offer ordinary people opportunities for mediated participation in public debate and for self-representation. Based on face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation, the article argues that the organization of listeners into RLCs by community radio stations enables ordinary people to receive and discuss crucial information and hold debate on issues of interest. As such, the RLCs possess some characteristics of the public sphere; hence the reference to them as alternative public spheres.

The Paradox of Political Participation: Theorizing Uncivil Society

The paper addresses the phenomenon of civil societies turning into uncivil societies and the capacity of civil societies for self-repair. Confronted with the recent events of the rise and fall of civil society in the “Arab Spring” and in the Ukrainian Maidan movement a conceptual framework is offered for accounting for such rise and fall. It starts with the paradox that participation in public debate equally produces civil and uncivil outcomes, thus taking up the classic thesis of the “fall of reason” formulated in the tradition of “critical theory” on the “dialectics of enlightenment”. Such “dialectics” results from the interplay of three mechanisms that shape the making of a civil society: the rule of law, the market and the forum. These mechanisms have their specific historical legacy in political and social philosophy. Civil society praised by some as the outcome of the rule of law, by others as the outcome of free markets and by others as the outcome of free speech, empirically does not stand up to these normative expectations. These mechanisms produce “perverse effects”, grasped by the metaphor of monsters representing the rule of law and the market: Leviathan (the perverse effects of the rule of law) and Behemoth (the perverse of the market). These perverse effects cumulate in the emergence of uncivil society as the apotheosis of unreason. Fascism is a case for the perverse effects of public communication and political mobilization of people. After identifying the third monster, I will put forward the argument that the forum works not only as mechanism of repairing the rule of law and the market, but also as a “mechanism of self-repair” of civil so­ciety

From The Emperor of the Moon to the Sultan’s Prison

From The Emperor of the Moon to the Sultan’s Prison Paula R. Backscheider (bio) Eighteenth-century people loved processions. They crowded the streets for Lord Mayor’s Day, royal progresses, and parades of prisoners to be transported, and they lucratively rewarded theatre managers for staging reenactments of coronations and all manner of grand processions from the serious to the ridiculous. Accompanied by opulent music, kings from every continent marched across the stages with a magnitude of attendees. Priests from every religion, armies in every uniform, various animals, shepherdesses nearly obscured by masses of flowers, and prisoners or beggars in grungy rags—audiences could see them all. Even the opening of theatres became performance occasions (fig. 1). Processions were but one kind of spectacle, and from the time Sir William Davenant had to overcome handicaps built into his patent at the Restoration they became a source of reliable revenue. In addition to their entertainment value, they were major ways that playwrights incorporated political commentary. Many of them began as though they were royal, even patriotic, events celebrating national values or merely calculated attempts to keep audiences coming. Suddenly a wildly ridiculous element interrupts and a serious, often angry point is disclosed. [End Page 1] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. John Rich’s entry into the Covent Garden Theatre, 1732. William Hogarth, Thomas Cooke, Samuel Davenport, and John Trusler, The Works of William Hogarth, vol. 2 (London: Printed for J. Sharpe, King-Street, Covent-Garden; R. Griffin and Co. Glasgow, 1821). Characters, costumes, sets, music, gestures, and mimicry provided means of commentary although only a few big productions with tableaux and processions had new sets and trappings. In fact, the most notable spectacular productions were the work of manager-playwrights or special alliances between managers and playwrights. Examples are the William Davenant- John Dryden-Henry Purcell Tempest (1674), the Thomas Betterton-Thomas Shadwell Psyche (1675), the John Rich-Lewis Theobald-Johann Galliard The Necromancer; or Harlequin Dr. Faustus 1723) and The Rape of Proserpine with the Birth of Harlequin (1727),1 the David Garrick-Charles Dibdin-Isaac Bickerstaff Maid of the Mill (1765), and the George Colman- William Shield-Alexander Johnstone (machinist) Blue-Beard (1798). There is an obvious break between the seventeenth-century productions, the pantomimes of the second quarter of the eighteenth century, and the spectacular farces later in the century. In fact, farce became the genre that made a home for the seventeenth-century dramatic spectaculars. I want to work with two examples of women’s uniting of spectacle and farce in times of crises as a way of beginning to explore mixed form plays as means of participation in public debate and of carrying out individual political agendas (domestic and national). My emphasis here will be popular culture formulas that are especially prevalent and long-lived in farce and spectacle. [End Page 2] I will begin with Aphra Behn’s farce Emperor of the Moon with special attention to its relationship to John Dryden’s Albion and Albanius, both elaborate spectacle plays produced during the troubled reign of King James II. Both are magnificent examples of their theatrical times. I will conclude with a few of Elizabeth Inchbald’s plays. Mogul Tale is the farce that launched her career as a playwright, and another, Wives as They Were, Maids as They Are, about which she said that she could not “sustain true comedy” but “had recourse at the end of her second act to farce,”2 is recognized as one of her most important plays. Produced nearly 100 years later, her plays are also representative of the plays of their time, of an equally tumultuous political time, and of playwrights’ understanding of the work spectacle and processions can do when employed within farces. The World of Farce and Spectacle The standard for spectacular productions was set by Dorset Garden 1673–1692, and episodes from them continued to be performed as afterpieces and interludes throughout the eighteenth century. For example, Thomas Augustine Arne used the entire finale and Juno’s Peacock machine from Albion and Albanius in 1771 in his The Fairy Prince, and Emperor of the Moon and pieces of it continued to...

Privacy and social interaction

This article joins in and extends the contemporary debate on the right to privacy. We bring together two strands of the contemporary discourse on privacy. While we endorse the prevailing claim that norms of informational privacy protect the autonomy of individual subjects, we supplement it with an argument demonstrating that privacy is an integral element of the dynamics of all social relationships. This latter claim is developed in terms of the social role theory and substantiated by an analysis of the role of privacy in intimate relationships, in professional relationships and in social interactions between strangers in public. We conclude by arguing that it is not always reasonable to assume a conflict between individual privacy on the one hand and society on the other. Legislators and participants in public debate also have to take into account the consequences of limiting privacy on social interaction and the integration of the society.

To be or not to be? Public archaeology as a tool of public opinion and the dilemma of intellectuality

AbstractStating the value of archaeology for contemporary society is a very difficult task hardly undertaken by archaeologists. Work with a contemporary record directly linked to local communities, and the approach of public archaeology, have helped to bring society and archaeology closer together. However, the role of a public intellectual goes beyond archaeology, delving into current social worries. Is it possible to play this game from archaeology? The multiple and complex relations between archaeology and society open the door to participation in public debates, but we stand to lose our essence. We face a Shakespearean dilemma, a choice between having an influential voice in the present, or just an expert opinion.

The need and potential for an archaeology orientated towards the present

AbstractThe question ‘Can an archaeologist be a public intellectual?’ appears to express both an unfulfilled desire and a secret hope of an entire professional corps to count among them at least a few public intellectuals. I suggest that the state of the discipline of archaeology makes it harder, compared with other disciplines, for its professional representatives to address present-day issues and relate to public debates. I also suggest that maybe the most significant effect of the fact that society's public intellectuals generally do not have degrees in archaeology is that participants in public debates and policy makers are unaware of how various applications of archaeology and cultural heritage can benefit contemporary society. This potential will therefore have to be realized in different ways.

Indian Anthropology Today

A survey of the changing aspects of different disciplines—belonging to different faculties—informs us of the impact that anthropological methods, perspectives, theories, and the conclusions of their cross-cultural studies have exercised on them, which indirectly confirms the analytical strength, explanatory power, and methodological sophistication of anthropology. Notwithstanding this, the growth of anthropology in India has been both uneven and slow, a consequence of which has been the ‘interiorisation’ of anthropologists, or which T.H. Ericksen has termed ‘inward-gazing’. Contemporary anthropologists have become aware of what they have been passing through, and are striving their best to recover the past glory of their discipline when they were active participants in public debates. One of the points that this article puts forth is that anthropologists are ‘dispassionate observers’ as well as ‘citizens’. In the first role, they are committed to understanding the social and cultural processes; in the second, like any other conscientious citizen, they expect all societies and states to be just, civil, and inclusive. In the dialectics of these roles, the state of contemporary anthropology can be properly located.

Governance of stem cell research: Public participation and decision-making in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan

This article compares and explores forms of 'public' participation in the development of bioethical governance of human embryonic stem cell research (hESR) in four Asian societies, and in doing so it contributes to the wider discussions on expertise and public inclusion. The article aims to add nuance to the concept of 'public consultation' by focusing on the contested meanings and relationships through which public roles and public debates are defined. The analysis seeks to go beyond a straightforward comparison by interpreting public discussions of hESR as being influenced by both local conditions and interconnected global science institutions. An adequate understanding of the public participation in debates on science requires the analysis of (a) particular reasons for scientific issues to require public discussion; (b) pressures of transnational forces; (c) variability of publics relevant to bioethical regulation; and, (d) the effects of institutionalization of bioethics. This study uses data from fieldwork conducted between 2006 and 2010 in four Asian countries. Most of the interviews were conducted in the local languages and concerned various kinds of public participation in bioethics activities, as well as the views of stem cell scientists on the need to involve the public in discussions on the acceptability of their research.

On being a (modern) scientist: risks of public engagement in the UK interspecies embryo debate

In 2006, a small group of UK academic scientists made headlines when they proposed the creation of interspecies embryos – mixing human and animal genetic material. A public campaign was fought to mobilize support for the research. Drawing on interviews with the key scientists involved, this paper argues that engaging the public through communicating their ideas via the media can result in tensions between the necessity of, and inherent dangers in, scientists campaigning on controversial issues. Some scientists believed that communicating science had damaged their professional standing in the eyes of their peers, who, in turn, policed the boundaries around what they believed constituted a “good” scientist. Tensions between promoting “science” versus promotion of the “scientist”; engaging the public versus publishing peer-reviewed articles and winning grants; and building expectations versus overhyping the science reveal the difficult choices scientists in the modern world have to make over the potential gains and risks of communicating science. We conclude that although scientists' participation in public debates is often encouraged, the rewards of such engagement remain. Moreover, this participation can detrimentally affect scientists' careers.

Civil Society and Deliberative Democracy: Have Voluntary Organisations Faded from National Public Politics?

The political context of civil society in Western Europe has changed dramatically in recent decades. These changing circumstances may produce a decline in the integration of civil society into political life – especially deliberative activities at the national level. This article discusses how serious these alleged threats are to a hitherto vital civil society – that of Sweden. It focuses on fours indicators of organised civil society's contribution to deliberative democracy. First, have efforts to contact politicians, public servants and the media, as well as participation in public debates, decreased? Second, has civil society directed interest away from national arenas and instead concentrated resources in local and/or supranational arenas? Third, is there any evidence of a withdrawal from public activities, such as public debates and media activities in favour of direct contacts with politicians and public servants? Fourth, has civil society become more professionalised in the sense that interest groups are increasingly hiring professional consultants? Two surveys conducted in 1999 and 2005 show that Swedish organised civil society has not faded from national public politics. However, growing public participation is almost exclusively connected to increasing communication via the mass media and direct contact with politicians. Taking part in open public debate has not increased. The national arena has marginally lost some importance. Moreover, there is an increasing tendency to hire professional lobbying consultants. This might improve the quality of civil society's contributions to public deliberation, but a more elitist civil society might also develop, which is uninterested in social dialogue.

Participatory Governance and Development: In Search of a Causal Nexus

This paper discusses the causal nexuses between participatory governance and development through theoretical debate and research that empirically investigates this relationship. It starts by discussing literature on participation and then goes on to deal with the most relevant contributions to international debates about development. Next, departing from two of the principal explanations presented in studies about participatory democracy – institutional design and social mobilization – it analyzes empirical evidence that supports the relationship between participation and development. Finally, in light of this discussion, some conclusions are presented concerning the causal nexus capable of supporting the belief in the potentially virtuous relationship between participation and development. Early literature on participation was broadly optimistic about what participatory governance could achieve in terms of public policies and democracy, often assuming that participation could contribute to more viable and just policies, and have a positive impact on poverty, inequality and development processes. More recently, studies have become more focused on the real conditions under which forms of participatory governance have evolved. These studies have focused on: the dilemmas of emphasizing either efficiency or the inclusion of the poorest in institutional design (Abramovay et al. 2010; Bebbington et al. 2008); the difficulties of checking the distributive impacts of participatory experiences (Avritzer 2007); the disjunction between the motives and resources mobilized by the agents responsible for organizing participatory spaces; the technical and economic dimensions involved in processing the problems dealt with in these spaces (Coelho 2006; Coelho and Favareto 2007; Dagnino and Tatagiba 2007); and the fragility of the connections between deliberative experiences and governance (Favareto and Demarco 2004; Melo and Baiochi 2007). There is a lack of evidence about the causal nexuses capable of supporting the link between participation and development. The belief in participatory governance associates the inclusion of a broad spectrum of citizens in public life with an increased circulation of information, greater transparency in political processes, and participation in public debate. The democratization of debate and decision-making, together with decentralization, are key elements in an intricate process of improving systems of governance which should contribute toward giving impetus to development. This belief is based upon the combination of two analytical perspectives. The first suggests that changes in the design of the institutions can contribute to promoting changes in policy. The second draws attention to the role of social actors and their capacity to push for change in processes of development. In both approaches, participation can promote access to public policies, and their quality and responsiveness.

Nouvelles stratégies de mobilisation et réforme du droit de la famille

Le droit de la famille dans les pays arabes est chargé d’une telle symbolique politique et religieuse que la référence au religieux est devenue une modalité incontournable de participation au débat public. Aucun acteur ne remet plus en cause sa prédominance et les organisations féministes ont même fini par se rallier à ce cadre discursif dominé par la quête du « véritable sens » des sources religieuses en matière de statut personnel. À travers l’analyse du processus d’élaboration de la « loi sur le khul’ » en Égypte en 2000 et les débats et mobilisations suscités par son adoption, cette contribution s’attachera à analyser les tensions et les enjeux qui prédominent au sein de la scène politique égyptienne et la prégnance du cadre de référence religieux, tout en s’interrogeant sur le rôle que peuvent jouer, dans le changement social, des normes juridiques imposées par l’État.

The 2008 Mumbai terror attacks: (re-)constructing Indian (counter-)terrorism

This paper deploys a discursive approach to the ‘scripting’ of the November 2008 Mumbai ‘terror attacks’ and their aftermath, including ensuing debates about counter-terrorism in India. It explores the perspectives of a range of actors who participated in very different ways in the social construction of the attacks, including media consumers and producers, key participants in public debates, and even the masterminds of the attacks. Important insights into the planning and implementation of the attacks are drawn from phone conversations intercepted by Indian intelligence, between the gunmen and their ‘controllers’. The Mumbai attacks were scripted and staged in a conscious effort to obtain maximum media coverage, which also made the masterminds dependent on the media. The war story created by the media featured violence simply as a means of ‘fighting a battle’, obscuring the significant role of violence as a display of force by both security forces and ‘terrorists’.

Post-Secondary Students’ Relationship to People They Consider to Be Scientific Experts

This article is situated in contemporary debates about the ways to achieve a scientific literacy that encourages a greater lay participation in public debates and political decision making. Drawing on the notion of “relationship to scientific experts” (in French, “rapport aux experts scientifiques”), I explore the ways in which a group of 3 Quebec post-secondary students describe the relationships they hold toward people whom they consider to be scientific experts, as revealed during a project in which they investigated the controversy surrounding cellular telephone use. To this end, I scrutinize how the members of the group go about describing scientific experts and picture a prospective face-to-face discussion with a scientific expert. The data come from a case study (conducted over a 15-week period). The findings show that the group maintains a relationship of intimidation by scientific experts, in which the latter are depicted in terms of their knowledge and qualifications. Accordingly, the group was overawed not only by the accumulation of knowledge held and produced by scientific experts but also by the latter’s research experience and the high social recognition they occasionally enjoyed. Similarly, the group describes a prospective face-to-face discussion with a doctor or a researcher in terms of an impersonal, intimidating encounter during which its members’ learning and comprehension in relation to the controversy are assumed to be unequal to the task. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed.

Institutional challenges for mining and sustainability in Peru

Global consumption continues to generate growth in mining. In lesser developed economies, this growth offers the potential to generate new resources for development, but also creates challenges to sustainability in the regions in which extraction occurs. This context leads to debate on the institutional arrangements most likely to build synergies between mining, livelihoods, and development, and on the socio-political conditions under which such institutions can emerge. Building from a multiyear, three-country program of research projects, Peru, a global center of mining expansion, serves as an exemplar for analyzing the effects of extractive industry on livelihoods and the conditions under which arrangements favoring local sustainability might emerge. This program is guided by three emergent hypotheses in human-environmental sciences regarding the relationships among institutions, knowledge, learning, and sustainability. The research combines in-depth and comparative case study analysis, and uses mapping and spatial analysis, surveys, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and our own direct participation in public debates on the regulation of mining for development. The findings demonstrate the pressures that mining expansion has placed on water resources, livelihood assets, and social relationships. These pressures are a result of institutional conditions that separate the governance of mineral expansion, water resources, and local development, and of relationships of power that prioritize large scale investment over livelihood and environment. A further problem is the poor communication between mining sector knowledge systems and those of local populations. These results are consistent with themes recently elaborated in sustainability science.

Public Participation and Agency Discretion in Rulemaking at the Federal Communications Commission

In recent years, many practitioners, policymakers, and scholars have embraced participatory politics in communications policymaking at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the expectation that mass involvement by the public will—and should—influence regulatory outcomes. However, calls for participation may not be sufficient; a commitment to public-spirited decision making among agency officials is also needed alongside procedural safeguards for participation. The following analysis uses a Habermasian framework to move beyond participatory politics and advocates for a deliberative understanding of the role of the public and policymakers in producing legitimate outcomes. Looking at legal and legislative history of the Commission and of administrative procedure more generally, the article reconsiders the value of agency discretion and turns attention to the importance of public participation in debates about communications regulation outside the rulemaking system. If members of the public generate, circulate, and make audible their opinions in a public sphere and agency officials are open to and active listeners of a public sphere, agency discretion can guide officials towards public-spirited rather than narrowly interested decisions. Overall, Habermas's model suggests that policymakers and public coproduce legitimacy in a process that is doubly challenging but arguably more profound.

The Story of Us: Resolving the Face-Off between Autobiographical Speech and Information Privacy

Increasingly more “ordinary” Americans are choosing to share their life experiences with a public audience. In doing so, however, they are revealing more than their own personal stories, they are exposing private information about others as well. The face-off between autobiographical speech and information privacy is coming to a head, and our legal system is not prepared to handle it.In a prior article, I established that autobiographical speech is a unique and important category of speech that is at risk of being undervalued under current law. This article builds on my earlier work by addressing the emerging conflict between autobiographical speech and information privacy. Both interests foster personal autonomy and encourage participation in public debate, and both interests seek to give individuals the power to control if, when and how their personal information is shared with the world. The conflict between speech and privacy has proven to be a pervasive and especially difficult problem, and prior attempts to balance the two interests - through the lens of property or contract law - have failed. In this article, I propose a new, workable framework to resolve the conflict by reexamining the tort of public disclosure of private facts. This analysis reveals that the current over-emphasis on whether the information disclosed was “newsworthy” is misplaced and likely unconstitutional. The tort’s protection of individual privacy, however, can be reconciled with the First Amendment by interpreting the “offensiveness” element to include an examination of the purpose of the disclosure. A number of courts have implicitly adopted this view and, in doing so, are reflecting community norms that disclosures made for sufficient justifications - such as sharing newsworthy information or, I submit, engaging in autobiographical speech - are not highly offensive. Disclosures made for purely voyeuristic reasons, however, are highly offensive. This “justified disclosure” approach encompasses community norms and expectations in a way that is more predictable and fair than other proposed frameworks. It further promises to be applicable not just to the conflict between autobiographical speech and information privacy but to broader disputes involving privacy and speech.

Using Computational Argumentation to Support E-participation

Internet-based tools that encourage public participation in debates concerning policy issues have been recognized as a good way to engage the electorate with political issues. In addition, such systems for e-participation can gather, make available, and analyze the public's contributions to political debate. In this article we discuss a system called Parmenides, which we designed to exploit technological developments to bring democratic processes into the online world. Parmenides is primarily a forum by which government bodies can present policy proposals to the public so that users can submit their opinions on the justification presented for the particular policy. Within Parmenides, the justification for action is structured to exploit a specific representation of persuasive argument based on the use of argumentation schemes and critical questions.

Uncertain citizenship and public deliberation in post‐apartheid South Africa

The post‐repressive‐regime South African government has actively convened a public sphere bristling with institutions and policies designed to facilitate public deliberation. However, certain apartheid legacies and contemporary political compromises facilitate the reach of power into the convened public sphere, leading to the corralling of public deliberation and the attempted silencing of critical voices. By the end of the Mbeki presidency, a cacophony of public dissent erupted, some of it insisting on the importance of open public critique and some of it seeking to limit and shape dissent itself. The article discusses ongoing contests over the meaning of publicness, locating the roots of these different ideas of publicness in different political and intellectual traditions, each with different understandings of the deliberative citizen. It suggests that participation in public debate is increasingly confined to the exertion of a narrowly defined notion of national democratic citizenship. Arguing that the formation of counterpublic spheres in South Africa is inhibited, the article considers the role of what it terms ‘capillaries’ of public deliberation, in which various kinds of radical critiques of cultural values, norms, identities and the fragmentation of historical consciousness take place.

Norwegian neurology: present status and future trends

Diseases of the nervous system constitute a major cause of morbidity and mortality. The chronic nature of many neurological diseases demands long-term follow-up and good communicative skills. Financial conditions and compensation is closely linked to modern health care and may limit the availability of new therapeutic options. An ageing population and modern lifestyle represent challenges for neurology in the future. The participation in public debate and strategic planning of health services are crucial to improve neurological services on a national and global level. Our focus should be the promotion of special needs of patients with neurological disease.