Can Deliberative Governance Become Inclusive?
Cyril Velikanov · 2017
In a series of our earlier papers [1-4] we have developed a concept and a model of large-scale online deliberation, which could accommodate any number of participants who deliberate on a given issue altogether as one undivided body, in one common "virtual room", rather than divided into several small groups. This approach indeed requires a rather specific procedural framework, and an ICT-system to support and enforce those procedures. It provides for a meaningful participation of any size, open to any citizen in a given constituency, therefore preserving their equal political rights. Rights, however, do not imply capabilities; a person may be authorized to do something, but not being able of doing that thing. Both the representative model and the referendum-based direct model of democratic governance provide every citizen with a very basic right---that of casting their vote. This basic right is indeed inclusive, for, the act of voting can be performed even by the least prepared and least capable person; yet, one can ask how meaningful is the act of such an unprepared vote. The deliberative model, in contrast, is rather demanding; it requires from those who decide to participate in a deliberation a high level of factual preparedness and of argumentative and rhetoric capabilities. It is somehow elitist, in comparison with e.g. the representative model. A question therefore remains---can we make our deliberative model inclusive, and what this inclusiveness should mean with regard to different levels of personal capabilities?