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Proquest Dissertations Democracy after Deliberation: Bridging the Constitutional Economics/Deliberative Democracy Divide Shane Jesse Ralston Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Ph.D. degree in Philosophy Philosophy Department Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Shane Jesse Ralston, Ottawa, Canada 2007 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49392-2 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49392-2 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada mn u Ottawa 1,'Umvcrsitc canndicnnc Cfinadn's univcrsily FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES 1=1 FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'Universnttf eanadienne Canndn's university Shane Jesse Ralston AUTEUR DE LA THESE /AUTHOR OF THESIS py?.:. (?M?.?.9phy).. GRADE/DEGREE Department of Philosophy "FMlTirS0lE7b!PARTE"MEN^^ Democracy after Deliberation: Bridging the Constitutional Economics/Deliberative Democracy Divide TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Hilliard Aronovitch T5iRl"ctFuR"pw^^^ CO-DIRl"cTEURlCOMECTRicIT^ EXAMINATEURS (EXAMINATRICES) DE LA THESE / THESIS EXAMINERS David Weinstock David Raynor Daniel Kofman Daniel Tanguay Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE# I. INTRODUCTION 1 THE DEBATE AND THE DIVIDE 5 THREE FAULTY BRIDGES 14 VISION OF A TRANSACTIONAL "VIA MEDIA" 42 OUTLINE OF THE PROJECT 44 II. DEWEY AND BENTLEY'S TRANSACTIONAL APPROACH 46 WHAT IS THE TRANSACTIONAL VIEW? 48 SELF-ACTION, INTER-ACTION, TRANSACTION 51 INQUIRY 55 COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS 70 APPLICATION OF THE TRANSACTIONAL APPROACH TO POLITICS 76 TAKING TRANSACTION SERIOUSLY 84 III. THREE VIEWS OF DELIBERATIVE DECISION-MAKING 88 WHAT IS DELIBERATIVE DECISION-MAKING? 88 FIRST VIEW: HABERMAS 89 SECOND VIEW: GUTMANN-THOMPSON 102 THIRD VIEW: ACKERMAN-FISHKIN 122 THE SIX CORE COMMITMENTS OF DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY 141 IV. THE CONSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS CRITIQUE OF DELIBERATIVE DECISION-MAKING 154 THE PUBLIC CHOICE RESEARCH PROGRAMME 155 CONSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS 162 li CRITICISMS OF DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING 169 SUMMARY 203 V. DEWEY ON DEMOCRATIC DELIBERATION AND PUBLIC SPIRIT 207 RECONSTRUCTING THE DEWEY-LIPPMANN DEBATE 207 DEWEY AS A PROTO-DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRAT 216 WHY PUBLIC SPIRIT MATTERS 220 VI. TRANSACTIONAL MEDIATIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL CHOICES 230 FIVE OPPOSITIONS 231 FIVE MEDIATIONS 241 INSTITUTIONALIZING A TRANSACTIONAL MIDDLE WAY 275 SEEING DELIBERATIVE CHOICE TRANSACTIONALLY 290 VII. CONCLUSION 296 VIII. ENDNOTES 307 IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 iii LIST OF FIGURES #-NAME CHAPTER-PAGE # 1-DEWEY'S CIRCLE OF INQUIRY 2-61 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization. In charting a transactional middle way between the two programmes, deliberative institutional designers should be empowered to achieve two objectives: (i) to integrate deliberative practices into new and existing democratic institutions and (ii) to heed the critical insights and caveats of constitutional economists, who have identified genuine limitations to realizing the deliberative ideal in modern constitutional democracies. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This doctoral dissertation began as something quite different than I had ever predicted it would become. Based on a simple idea about John Dewey's legacy for deliberative democratic theory, it has since developed into a work that explores how Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley's transactional approach, as formulated in their collaborative work Knowing and the Known, can mediate a recent debate between deliberative democrats and constitutional economists. Since its modest beginnings, many people have influenced the genesis of the work and for this they deserve thanks. These people include the students in my two seminar courses in spring 2006 at Western State College, Scott R. Bowman at California State University Los Angeles, Frank X. Ryan at Kent State University, Elias Khalil at Monash University and Dan Palmer, a scholar of the transactional approach in New Zealand. I owe a great debt to my dissertation advisor, Hilliard Aronovitch, who has patiently guided me along a sometimes bumpy road to this eventual destination. I would also like to express my gratitude for the generous financial and research support provided by the University of Ottawa's Graduate Student Association, the American Institute for Economic Research, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and the Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University. Last but not least, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: David Raynor, Daniel Tanguay, Daniel Kofman, and the outside examiner, Daniel Weinstock. I, of course, take full responsibility for all errors in the final version. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse two starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. They address questions of leading importance in democratic theory and, more generally, political philosophy,1 such as: Should a theory of democracy justify existing institutional arrangements? And ought it rule out primafacie non-democratic practices and institutions? Conversely, should the design of stable political institutions reflect the tenets of a particular democratic theory? Or is any form of democracy, as Sheldon Wolin (1996:37) claims, "inherently
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