Do you find the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy persuasive?

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To appreciate the intricacies of the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy it is useful to begin with an exploration of the themes which underpin Habermas's work. This essay begins with such an exploration, focusing particularly on the role that communication plays as the leitmotif of his oeuvre. With an understanding of this crucial aspect of his work, one is better equipped to delve into a critical analysis of deliberative democracy. In order to fully appreciate the thesis of communicative rationality, it is important to discuss the context of Habermas's work, positioning it historically within the wider tradition of critical theory.

After identifying Habermas's conception of communication as central to the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy, the essay moves on to address the challenges that learning disabled citizens pose to this theory, drawing particularly on the work of Weinberg (2007). Beginning with a brief exploration of some of the practical difficulties associated with the necessity of inclusion, I outline the Habermasian response to practical empirical questions in which he instead points to the power and usefulness of the ideal. This leads to the main investigative and analytical question of this essay: whether such an ideal can in fact be upheld in the face of the challenges presented by learning disabled citizens.

Turning to the work of theorists such as Young (1996), Benhabib (1992) and Clifford (2009), the essay addresses the role of the body within communication and assesses whether a sufficiently large understanding of communication could resolve some of these tensions while remaining within the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy.

Finally, through an investigation into what can be understood as 'communication' within the Habermasian ideal, I argue that such an endeavour invites a post-structuralist critique of the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy. This critique, combined with the necessity of inclusion of the learning disabled citizen, unmasks and destabilises the assumptions at the heart of the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy. With this in mind, the essay concludes that Habermas's condition of universal inclusion contradicts the very possibility of a utopia based on communication and that his ideal, therefore, is compromised at its very foundation.

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1994) Max Weber illuminated the paradoxical problem of modernity: that its tool of progress, rationalisation (and its logical development into bureaucratisation), also leads inevitably to alienation. He presented the famous metaphor of modernity's iron cage, the result of rational means becoming dislocated from substantive ends and becoming ends in themselves, trapping modern man inside a prison of his own making. Weber was one of the key influences on a group of scholars who formed the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt during the 1930s. The ideas and motivations of these academics – loosely termed the Frankfurt School – are exemplified in Adorno and Horkheimer's The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1972), which argues that reason and rationality is in fact a new kind of bondage rather than the path to freedom. They suggest that the lack of critical engagement with ideas of scientific progress and technology has allowed this form of rationality to become dominant, creating a society in which “the masses...[are] mere objects of the administered life” (pg. 38), in a world in which “thought has lost the element of self-reflection” (pg. 37). Following on from this, Habermas, who is often described as embodying or belonging to the second generation of the Frankfurt School, attempts to rescue the potential of reason and rationality to liberate with an innovative theory designed to wed scientific rationality to substantive human demands.

In The Theory of Communicative Action (1984; 1989) Habermas establishes the premises upon which he means to save the Enlightenment project. Rationality, he argues, can be split into two types: instrumental rationality and communicative rationality. Instrumental rationality takes the form of rationality as we often know it, in which a subject-object world-view dominates. The aim of instrumental rationality is the domination of other objects. He maintains that this is useful for the “material reproduction of society” (Finalyson, 2005:54). The idea of instrumental rationality relates to what Habermas identifies as the system, that is “sedimented structures and established patterns of instrumental rationality” (ibid, pg. 53), i.e. money and power (Habermas, 1996b; 1996c).

The other type of rationality that Habermas identifies, and which is particularly useful in the context of deliberative democracy, is that of communicative rationality. Through an attention to Speech Act Theory, Habermas argues that “understanding is the inherent telos of human speech” (Habermas, 1996f:162). Whenever a subject performs a speech act, they are, according to Habermas, engaging in a series of validity-claims about the world (a claim to truth, rightness and truthfulness). These validity-claims occur against the “background” of the lifeworld (Habermas, 1984:337). The lifeworld can be best understood as the amalgamation of norms, personalities and culture which forms shared understandings and presumptions. This lifeworld is both created by and gradually challenged by communicative action (ibid; Habermas, 1989). When we challenge or dispute norms in the lifeworld, Habermas argues that we are entering into discourse, in which claims to truth are tested through communicative rationality. We are forced to justify our position (or belief) through reason, in which the aim is to convince others of the merits of our position through “the forceless force of the better argument” (Habermas, 2008:157). In doing so, other people become ends in themselves (as opposed to a means to an end), and Habermas is able to move to an intersubjective understanding of rationality.

In order for the “forceless force of the better argument” to prevail, Habermas states that discourse needs to occur within the Ideal Speech Situation (ISS), a term he later discarded (Chambers, 1996:155). When consensus is reached within the ISS, Habermas judges these outcomes to be both legitimate and rational. For ISS to be reached, several factors must be in place: everybody who is affected is included (equally) in the discourse, free from coercion to say what they want, and sincere in their communication (Habermas, 1984;1989). This is an attempt to construct a theoretical ideal in which discourse is facilitated outside of the distortions of power imbalances.

Habermas's Discourse Ethics (1996d) then, is the theory that morality and normative validity can be established through the combination of communicative rationality and the ISS. It is discourse ethics which provides the link between Habermas's theory of communicative action and his later works on deliberative democracy.

In Between Facts and Norms (1996a) Habermas establishes this link, arguing that the legitimacy of laws can be derived from the Kantian notion of the 'public use of reason'. As normative validity is an outcome of discourse, laws must derive from rational discourse among citizens. Habermas argues that as well as our respect for legitimately derived law, the law also provides a function in society: “in liberal democracies the legitimacy of the rule of law depends on its appeal to subjectless procedures of discursive interaction aimed at building rational solidarity between strangers” (Johnson, my italics, 2006:85; Habermas, 1996e).

A Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy is therefore rooted in the theory of communicative rationality, and through the ideal that he identifies in the ISS. A theory of rationality based on communication may pose significant problems and challenges for citizens with disabilities affecting communication and cognitive understanding, presenting important questions about the role they play in deliberative democracies, both at a practical empirical level and at a theoretical level. While it is possible to state that communication may pose a challenge to those with certain impairments, insights from the social model of disability (Barnes, 1991; Oliver, 1990, 1996; Barnes and Oliver, 1993) encourage the suggestion that it may in fact be more appropriate to declare that the existence and definition of the disabled citizen presents a challenge to the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy, shedding light on its internal contradictions.

While recognising the importance of the social model when discussing definitions of disability and impairment, for the purposes of this essay I will use the term 'disabled citizen' to refer to individuals who may be viewed as having impairments affecting their ability to communicate with others¹. As the social model suggests, this 'disability' is often constructed by the society or community itself, as will be explored further in relation to Habermas's ideal of deliberative democracy.

Taking the example of Ackerman and Fishkin's Deliberation Day (2002) we see that a Habermasian approach may be ill-equipped to include the disabled citizen. They state that “the morning session consists of a roundtable discussion... by the fifteen deliberators... each deliberator will be guaranteed five minutes of floor time” (2002:137). Clearly, a citizen who may take longer to speak or who uses aids to speak, or perhaps who cannot speak at all, would be severely disadvantaged by the five minutes allocated, and indeed if any longer amount of time were given it would upset the intricate timings of the day.

In response to the myriad of practical issues which are brought to light in any practical implementation of a Habermasian deliberative democracy, Habermas maintains the power of the ideal. He asserts that there is a distinction to be upheld between theory and practice, but that theory must have a “practical intent” (Blaug, 1999:31). “The requirement that practice be normatively valid means that, though the goal is practical, the method is theoretical” (ibid, pg. 35). However the usefulness of the ideal as a measure is found in its capacity to be realised, at the very least in theory (Weinberg, 2007). In order to not simply legitimise a process which is not necessarily an improvement, the theory must have emancipatory potential at the level of the ideal. It is for this reason that disability poses a potentially devastating challenge to the Habermasian ideal of deliberative democracy. Disability calls into question the fundamental presuppositions upon which this ideal rests, namely those of communicative action. This challenge not only highlights the potential of deliberative democracy to exclude, but also to continue the societal production of disability through the construction of the rational subject. For citizens whose power of communication (as conceptualised within Habermas's ISS) is limited, what potential is left for them as 'rational' beings?

Weinberg points out that within the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy our rights are conferred upon us at the moment that we participate in the democratic legislative process which produces rational consensus, normative validity and their legal counterparts (2007:79). For anyone who is not able to engage in such a discourse, Weinberg highlights the 'unpalatable' theoretical choice we are left with:

either (1) excluding as ineligible for rights bearing all whose learning disabilities render them incapable of effectively participating in the deliberative democratic process through which those rights are forged in positive law, or, on the other hand, (2) departing from the Habermasian conviction that legitimate law requires the un-coerced rational assent of all who are subject to it (ibid.).

Although this critique may appear to be insurmountable, an expansion of our conception of communication may provide the means to overcome this dilemma. It is useful here to turn to the work of Iris Marion Young.

Young argues that the focus within a Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy on critical argument is a form of cultural bias which undervalues (or even silences) other groups and their contributions (1996:120). Specifically she identifies greetings, rhetoric and storytelling as equally useful forms of communication. She highlights that Habermas, Dryzek (1994) and Cohen (1989) base the concept of deliberative democracy on the “ideal of discourse that aims to reach understanding” (ibid, pg. 122). She claims that “articulateness” is a culturally learned act, and that it is also a sign of social privilege (ibid.). By broadening the scope of communicative action, Young hints at the incorporation of the body into communicative rationality, calling instead for a model of communicative democracy as opposed to deliberative. However she ultimately still maintains an emphasis on the role of speech within this process. Her call for “the entrance of the body into speech – in wide gestures, movements of nervousness or body experiences of emotion” (ibid, pg. 124) provides an interesting window of opportunity in response to the dilemma posed by the disabled citizen. For Young, a sufficiently wide understanding of communication may be able to include those who are unable to communicate in the 'standard' ways, re-grounding rationality in a wider experience of communication.

Seyla Benhabib (1992) has argued that speech-less groups are able to contest the boundaries of 'legitimate speech' through their embodied presence. Clifford (2009) draws from Benhabibs's position in order to approach the issue of disability within Habermasian deliberative democracy from a more sympathetic angle than that of Weinberg. She agrees that Habermas “idealizes language as the single method of communication because only “linguistic expressions have identical meanings for different users” ” (Habermas cited in Clifford, 2009:5). Through a further expansion of the concept of communication, she calls for the publicity of bodies in deliberative democracy (1996:2). In an attempt to save the emancipatory power of deliberative democracy for citizens with learning disabilities, Clifford highlights that “people with cognitive disabilities also offer important embodied participatory information in deliberative settings by compelling additional attentiveness of nondisabled participants” (ibid, pg. 15). She states that the implicit exclusion of speech-less populations in Habermasian theory is an error, and that just and legitimate outcomes can be achieved by restructuring the core of Habermasian deliberative democracy to be that of relational reciprocity, in which the focus is less on intersubjective communication, but intersubjective relationships:

Embodied participation transforms deliberative democracy from a rationalist procedure into a vital venue of recognizing the interdependency of all citizens. Embodied participation reveals the multiple ways participants transmit and understand meanings in deliberative spaces. It offers a new foundation of equal status, moving away from requirements of communicative competence and capability, and towards recognition of shared vulnerability and dependence (ibid, pg. 27).

However, Clifford also points out that “at a theoretical level, Habermas distrusts nonverbal speech because its murkiness jeopardizes listeners’ ability to coherently understand each others’ arguments” (ibid, pg. 6). Although there is perhaps room to expand our understanding of communication, in the same vein as Young and Clifford, it seems also problematic in that it may lead to the paradoxical position of diluting the concept of communication to the point of eliminating all meaning and sense of the word. This expansion brings with it an ambiguity about what actions may be perceived of as communication. If all our actions become an attempt to communicate, such as facial expressions, gesture, song, art, interaction (etc.), the distinction between the lifeworld and communication becomes blurred, undermining the potential for communication to challenge and shape the lifeworld. This contests the very premises on which Habermasian deliberative democracy is built. Indeed such an interrogation of the concept of communication, and the ramifications of its possible expansion, leads one almost inevitably into a post-structuralist critique of Habermas.

Post-structuralists such as Derrida present a powerful critique of Habermas which extends to the heart of the Habermasian theoretical construction. For Derrida, meanings can never be truly inferred through language as “the ties between words, concepts, and things, truth and reference, are not absolutely and purely guaranteed by some metacontextuality or metadiscursivity” (1988:151). The instability of words and their meanings is exemplified in the perhaps paradoxical necessity within Habermasian theory to expand the concept of communication to include the disabled citizen. In fact, in a radically different approach to the question of language and meaning, Derrida holds that it is precisely the opacity of language that makes communication possible. He asks, “without this tension or without this apparent contradiction, would anything ever be done?” (1988:152). Due to the inherent discord between language and reality, discussion is imperfect and could never, in a Derridian sense, lead to mutual understanding and the rational consensus required by Habermasian deliberative democracy. Expanding the definition of communication merely exacerbates the problem that this discord presents for the ISS.

Foucault (1977) presents a reformulation of the conception of power as fluid, pervasive and productive. The ability of power to produce is exemplified in the discourse on the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy, which through its creation and delineation of the rational subject, also produces and demarcates the boundaries of the irrational subject, thus (re)producing the concept of the disabled citizen.

Weinberg notes that even if the necessary communication 'skills' of the disabled citizen could be established (or as argued above, incorporated or expanded) - he concedes that it is “certainly appropriate to err on the side of imputing too much rationality rather than too little rationality to those with whom we would hope to build a viable working relationship and inclusive moral community” (2007:82) - that Habermasian theory still relies on what Anderson (2001) termed ‘need interpretive competence’. That is to say, one must be capable of seeing “the force of the better argument regarding my own needs whether or not that argument is proffered by me” (Weinberg, italics original 2007:83). Though Habermas is not explicit in this requirement, Weinberg and Anderson (2001) argue that this it is an implicit necessity. Further to the necessity of a conception of communication which includes people of all abilities (if this is indeed even possible without too much dilution), a certain level of cognitivism must also be established. Weinberg concludes, rather worryingly for Habermas,

Habermas cannot give even the slightest legitimacy to the notion of a benevolent paternalism in any of the state’s activities nor to the idea that some citizens might have a right to special care precisely because they cannot provide rational consent (2007:85).

In conclusion, it is clear that the consideration of disability in relation to the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy unmasks an irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of Habermas's theory. While Habermas's condition of inclusion in the decision-making process for all those affected by a given decision necessitates a conception of communication broad enough to achieve this, the potential for communication to challenge the lifeworld rests upon selecting and privileging certain conceptions of communication as distinct from the lifeworld. This contradiction illuminates the failure of Habermas's attempt to rescue the enlightenment project, bringing us to the post-structuralist recognition of the inherent relationship between rationality, exclusion and production.

Habermas's insistence on centrality of the rational subject (albeit with a more holistic definition of rationality) not only excludes those unable to meet the qualifications for rationality, but also cannot fail to simultaneously produce the irrational subject. In the context of the social model of disability this becomes particularly pertinent – Habermas's deliberative democracy not only excludes disabled individuals but reproduces the very category of disability.

As discussed above,the Habermasian defence of deliberative democracy is rooted in the validity of communicative rationality and the usefulness of the ideal speech situation at the very least as a theoretical yardstick by which to measure our progress.

Assessing these claims in relation to the learning disabled citizen, Weinberg has shown that Habermasian theory fails to fully include the disabled citizen in the model of deliberative democracy.

Although writers such as Young (1996), Benhabib (1992) and Clifford (2009) have suggested that Habermas's theory can be modified or broadened to include other forms of communication, it is clear that this presents insurmountable challenges to the potential for a conception of communication that is distinct from, and therefore able to, challenge the lifeworld.

Furthermore, any expansion of the conception of communication only serves to deepen the inherent discord between language and meaning identified by post-structuralists such as Derrida. Far from rescuing the enlightenment project from a new kind of barbarism, it seems that Habermas has arrived at the very same problem confronted by the Frankfurt school: an inability to reconcile rationality and emancipation. In failing to address the very problem it sets out to solve, Habermas's defence of deliberative democracy appears to be not very persuasive at all.

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