Journal Article•
Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy
About: This article is published in Review of Metaphysics.The article was published on 1997-02-01 and is currently open access. It has received 2568 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Democracy.
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01 Jan 2006
2,797 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation, including who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action.
Abstract: The multifaceted challenges of contemporary governance demand a complex account of the ways in which those who are subject to laws and policies should participate in making them. This article develops a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation. Mechanisms of participation vary along three important dimensions: who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action. These three dimensions constitute a space in which any particular mechanism of participation can be located. Different regions of this institutional design space are more and less suited to addressing important problems of democratic governance such as legitimacy, justice, and effective administration.
1,526 citations
01 Dec 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the current debate about the nature of democracy and discuss the main theses of the approach called "deliberative democracy" in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forth by Jurgen Habermas.
Abstract: This article examines the current debate about the nature of democracy and discusses the main theses of the approach called 'deliberative democracy' in its two main versions, the one put forward by John Rawls, and the other one put forwardby Jurgen Habermas. While agreeing with them as regards to the need to develop a more of democracy than the one offered by the 'aggregative' model, I submit that they do not provide an adequate understanding of the main task of democracy. No doubt, by stating that democracy cannot be reduced to a question of procedures to mediate among conflicting interests, deliberative democrats defend a conception of democracy that presents a richer conception of politics. But, albeit in a different way thanthe view they criticize, their vision is also a rationalist one which leaves aside the crucial role played by 'passions' and collective forms of identifications in the field of politics. Moreover, in their attempt to reconcile the liberal tradition with the democratic one, deliberative democrats tend to erase the tension that exist between liberalism and democracy and they are therefore unable to come to terms with the conflictual nature of democratic politics. The main thesis that I put forward in this article is that democratic theory needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of 'agonistic pluralism' can help us to better envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today: how to create democratic forms of identifications that will contribute to mobilize passions towards democratic designs.;
1,338 citations
TL;DR: Public diplomacy, as the diplomacy of the public, not of the government, intervenes in this global public sphere, laying the ground for traditional forms of diplomacy to act beyond the strict negotiation of power relationships by building on shared... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The public sphere is the space of communication of ideas and projects that emerge from society and are addressed to the decision makers in the institutions of society. The global civil society is the organized expression of the values and interests of society. The relationships between government and civil society and their interaction via the public sphere define the polity of society. The process of globalization has shifted the debate from the national domain to the global debate, prompting the emergence of a global civil society and of ad hoc forms of global governance. Accordingly, the public sphere as the space of debate on public affairs has also shifted from the national to the global and is increasingly constructed around global communication networks. Public diplomacy, as the diplomacy of the public, not of the government, intervenes in this global public sphere, laying the ground for traditional forms of diplomacy to act beyond the strict negotiation of power relationships by building on shared...
936 citations
Book•
05 Oct 2012
TL;DR: Tweets and the Streets as mentioned in this paper examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest, arguing that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality.
Abstract: Tweets and the Streets analyses the culture of the new protest movements of the 21st century. From the Arab Spring to the "indignados" protests in Spain and the Occupy movement, Paolo Gerbaudo examines the relationship between the rise of social media and the emergence of new forms of protest. Gerbaudo argues that activists' use of Twitter and Facebook does not fit with the image of a "cyberspace" detached from physical reality. Instead, social media is used as part of a project of re-appropriation of public space, which involves the assembling of different groups around "occupied" places such as Cairo's Tahrir Square or New York's Zuccotti Park. An exciting and invigorating journey through the new politics of dissent, Tweets and the Streets points both to the creative possibilities and to the risks of political evanescence which new media brings to the contemporary protest experience.
911 citations
References
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30 Nov 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify the paradoxes, conflicts, and contradictions within free culture discourse and demonstrate that conflicts between and within these sandboxes create a democratic process that permits the constant transformation of the free and open source discourse, and is therefore something that should be embraced and neither resisted for substituted for a universal approach to cultural production.
Abstract: In partial response to the inability of intellectual property laws to adapt to data-sharing over computer networks, several initiatives have proposed techno-legal alternatives to encourage the free circulation and transformation of digital works. These alternatives have shaped part of contemporary digital culture for more than three decades and are today often associated with the "free culture" movement. The different strands of this movement are essentially derived from a narrower concept of software freedom developed in the nineteen-eighties, and which is enforced within free and open source software communities. This principle was the first significant effort to articulate a reusable techno-legal template to work around the limitations of intellectual property laws. It also offered a vision of network culture where community participation and sharing was structural.
From alternate tools and workflow systems, artist-run servers, network publishing experiments, open date and design lobbies. cooperative and collaborative frameworks, but also novel copyright licensing used by both non-profit organisations and for-profit corporations, the impact on cultural production of practices developed in relation to the ideas of free and open source software has been both influential and broadly applied. However, if it is true that free and open source software has indeed succeeded in becoming a theoretical and practical model for the transformation of art and culture, the question remains at which ways it has provided such a model, how it has been effectively appropriated across different groups and contexts and in what ways these overlap or differ.
Using the image of the sandbox, where code becomes a constituent device for different communities to experience varying ideologies and practices, this dissertation aims to map the consequent levels of divergence in interpreting and appropriating the free and open source techno-legal template. This thesis identifies the paradoxes, conflicts, and contradictions within free culture discourse. It explores the tensions between the wish to provide a theoretical universal definition of cultural freedom, and the disorderly reality of its practice and diffusion, appropriation, misunderstanding and miscommunication that together form the fabric of free culture. This dissertation argues that, even though feared, fought, and criticized, these issues are not signs of dysfunctionality but are instead the evidence of cultural diversity within free culture. This dissertation will also demonstrate that conflicts between and within these sandboxes create a democratic process that permits the constant transformation of the free and open source discourse, and is therefore something that should be embraced and neither resisted for substituted for a universal approach to cultural production.
24 citations
TL;DR: Results indicate that YouTube provided a space in which alternative views on the Stokes Croft riot were seen and heard but the views of many commentators still appeared to be influenced by the news media.
Abstract: On 21 April 2011, violence flared in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol following a police raid on a squat Media coverage suggested that this riot was a manifestation of the campaign against the opening of a Tesco supermarket in the area Footage later emerged on YouTube, which appeared to support claims by local residents that the violence was caused by heavy-handed police tactics rather than the anti-Tesco campaign This study uses a critical thematic analysis to explore the comments left by those who viewed these acts of ‘inverse surveillance’, or sousveillance Results indicate that YouTube provided a space in which alternative views on the Stokes Croft riot were seen and heard but the views of many commentators still appeared to be influenced by the news media
24 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a particular silent protest and affirms it as a tactic employed by an emergent political collectivity to make itself perceptible, declare an injustice and challenge institutional power.
Abstract: ‘Keeping silent’ can be a meaningful political event, a form of political activism that generates new political subjectivities and alters existing realities by reconfiguring power relations To flesh out this argument, this paper attends to a particular silent protest and affirms it as a tactic employed by an emergent political collectivity to make itself perceptible, declare an injustice and challenge institutional power As such, the silent event under scrutiny does not merely invite a turning of our attention to a practice that breaks the association of the political subject with the speaking subject; it also invites a reconsideration of what we are accustomed to accept as political activism ‘Keeping silent’ is a critical practice, indeed, because it manifests an alternative possibility of being and acting; in so doing, it disrupts established patterns of thought and practice, and more specifically the rigid distinction between speech and silence
23 citations
TL;DR: This essay summarizes the problem of cancer drug resistance in the context of the larger political economic problem of escalating health care costs in both the EU and the US and places it within an ethical context.
Abstract: Personalized medicine has been presented in public and professional contexts in excessively optimistic tones. In the area of cancer what has become clear is the extraordinary heterogeneity and resilience of tumors in the face of numerous targeted therapies. This is the problem of cancer drug resistance. I summarize this problem in the first part of this essay. I then place this problem in the context of the larger political economic problem of escalating health care costs in both the EU and the US. In turn, that needs to be placed within an ethical context: How should we fairly distribute access to needed health care for an enormous range of health care needs when we have only limited resources (money) to meet virtually unlimited health care needs (cancer and everything else)? This is the problem of health care rationing. It is inescapable as a moral problem and requires a just resolution. Ultimately that resolution must be forged through a process of rational democratic deliberation.
23 citations
TL;DR: The 2010-13 Icelandic constitutional process offers a unique opportunity to test the predictions of epistemic deliberative democrats (as well as some constitutional scholars) that more inclusive processes lead to better outcomes as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The 2010–13 Icelandic constitutional process offers a unique opportunity to test the predictions of epistemic deliberative democrats (as well as some constitutional scholars) that more inclusive processes lead to better outcomes. After briefly retracing the religious history of Iceland and the steps of the recent constitutional process, the article thus compares three constitutional proposals drafted at about the same time to replace the 1944 Icelandic constitution. Two of these drafts were written by seven government experts; the third one was written by a group of 25 lay citizens, who further crowdsourced their successive drafts to the larger public. The article suggests that on the question of religious rights the crowdsourced constitutional proposal indeed led to a marginally “better” (more sophisticated and more liberal) constitutional document.
23 citations