Deliberative Democracy Lab - Critics of Deliberation

Critics of Deliberation

Abstract

Critics of deliberative processes argue that societal inequalities make genuine, balanced discussion among diverse groups challenging. They contend that factors such as gender, race, education, and economic status heavily influence one’s ability to participate effectively in deliberations. Critics believe that more privileged individuals—often white, educated, and male—are better equipped to articulate their views, potentially dominating less experienced speakers. Despite mechanisms like moderators ensuring equal speaking time, the impact of eloquence and persuasion remains disproportionate. These critiques highlight fundamental challenges in ensuring fairness and equality in deliberative settings, questioning the viability of such methods in addressing complex societal issues.

Transcript​​

Now, let’s talk about critics of deliberation.

Think about it.

We are inviting strangers often together to have discussions about really important public policy issues. Take something like immigration. It is often a very divisive issue. How can strangers really come together and have these types of civil and structured discussions? Critics say that it’s not possible and the reasons are plenty. And here are a few.

There are so many societal inequalities that you can’t just shut the door and say, “Hey, you are male. You’re female. Just leave that at the door and come in the room and pretend that you’re neither male or female and pretend that you don’t make a certain amount of money or that you’re educated or something and just be just neutral in a room.” That’s not possible.

A lot of people say people that are more privileged are more capable of having deliberations. And let’s just be clear what privileged means. That generally means you are white, you’re male, and you’re educated, or you make more money, and that this type of person will be more practiced in having these types of discussions.

And if we think about it, it’s probably true. People that have a college degree probably are more able to express themselves because they’ve had classes that have asked them to speak publicly and engage in these types of discussions. Whereas folks that are not as educated or never been to college may not feel as comfortable talking about their own opinions. Critics just say that there are so many societal inequalities that surround us. It’s impossible to bring people into a room and expect that people will treat each other equally and allow people to talk the same amount of time.

But let’s say, you know, we have a moderator and the moderator can control how much time each person talks. Then in theory, we can have each person talk equally. That could potentially solve the problem. But unfortunately, that’s not good enough for a lot of critics still. They argue that even if we spoke the same amount of time, the influence that someone has, that is more eloquent, that has more convincing arguments, would be unfair to someone who is less eloquent or less practiced. So they claim that those that are more eloquent are more influential over people that are less so. And sometimes that’s just hard to prove if someone is more influential because if I’m listening to somebody who is more privileged or maybe they’re deemed more privileged, it’s hard to say whether someone is more influential over me or if I change my opinions over somebody else.

Some people are just not willing to talk and you can’t force anybody to talk unfortunately. It’s a democracy. We can’t force someone to share their opinions if they don’t want to. So therein lies a lot of problems with just thinking about deliberation.

Is it really possible to have people in a room and have them talk equally and be influential in the same way? Can we actually have these discussions and ensure that people will be comfortable sharing their own opinions?

With all of these problems that critics raise, many of them say that we should just do away with deliberation and focus on other things, like getting people out to vote where that is done confidentially, or getting people to think about things individually and be more retrospective and thoughtful on their own. Everyone has their own thoughts.

And you know, we know where I stand on this. I am part of a center that studies deliberation. And here, we need to have everyone else think about what are the pros and what are the cons of deliberation. In the next lesson, we’re gonna talk about all the evidence that our center has found that debunks many of the issues that the critics have shared about deliberation.


Watch the Full Series on Deliberative Polling by the Stanford Democracy Lab x Rustic Pathways

For current climate action educational programming, please check the Climate Leaders Fellowship.