Enclave deliberation and social movement mobilization: the DDays in Occupy Central

ABSTRACT

Scholars have called for a synergy between studies of deliberative democracy and social movements for their mutual enhancement. The existing literature generally applies the principle of deliberation to evaluate social movements, but few studies have examined the corresponding practice of deliberative democracy within a movement. The Occupy Central (OCLP) campaign in Hong Kong is a rare case in which the organizers incorporated Deliberation Days into a social movement; however, participant self-selection turned it into an instance of ‘enclave deliberation’. This paper studies the impact of enclave deliberation on social movements based on the case of the OCLP campaign and argues that enclave deliberation can be a powerful tool for mobilization, particularly for gaining public support and for recruiting core participants. However, the coherence and support of the movement can decline when enclave deliberation is used to make decisions for the general public, because enclave deliberation incorporates only a small spectrum of like-minded participants who might not seriously engage with opposing views. The findings of this study imply that enclave deliberation could facilitate mobilization, but it has its inherent limitations for decision-making in a movement. Given the selective nature of social movements, deliberation within social movements is likely to be enclave deliberation in most cases. This study thus has significant implications for the practice of deliberation in social movements in other contexts.     

Beyond the Disposition and Deliberation Dichotomy: The Interrelation of Teacher Habit and Intention in the Adoption of Student Advisories*

Using the example of teachers implementing student advisories as part of a larger school reform effort, this article proposes a rethinking of the dichotomous relationship between disposition and deliberation posited by much of the sociological literature. Running student advisories may be a challenge for teachers if they lack the dispositions necessary for providing students with social–emotional support and guidance. Current sociological theory, however, is at odds with our cognitive understandings of how dispositions and deliberation interrelate in situations like the one described in this article where actors are tasked with changing their habits. To address this shortcoming, I draw on a qualitative analysis of observations, interviews, and focus groups of 21 teachers and administrators to develop a typology of the ways teachers use deliberative action to deal with such situations: traditionalists, who engage in deliberative action to maintain existing dispositions; transposers, who deliberatively apply existing alternative dispositions to the situation; and cultivators, who do not possess the dispositions needed to succeed but engage in a deliberative process to develop them.     

Strengthening Citizenship Through Deliberative Polling

This article describes the experience and results of a deliberative poll on transportation priorities and funding, with particular attention to the power of the process to foster citizenship learning and engagement. Evidence from predeliberation and postdeliberation surveys, as well as direct observation of the deliberation day event, indicated that the process could be instituted as a regular means to expand the voice of citizens in public policy debates and to strengthen the formation of citizens in the moral and political habits of democratic self-governance.     

Reaching a consensus

This paper explores some aspects of the relation between aggregation and deliberation as ways of achieving a consensus amongst a group of indviduals on some set of issues. I argue firstly that the framing of an aggregation problem itself generates information about the judgements of others that individuals are rationally obliged to take into account. And secondly that the constraints which aggregation theories typically place on consensual or collective judgements need not be consistent with the outcomes of rational deliberative processes driven by individuals’ attempts to update on this information. The paper focuses on the particular case of allocation problems, for which there are established results both in aggregation theory and deliberation theory, to make this claim.     

Book Reviews and Notes

Although student deliberation of public issues is recognized as a vital component of democratic education, little research focuses on the range of perspectives available to students during such deliberation. Social justice and legitimacy demand a wide range of inclusion, choices, and perspectives during student deliberation. This article contrasts soft versus deliberative democratic education, where the range of perspectives is correspondingly narrow or broad. Unfortunately, research shows that social studies textbooks promote soft democratic education by privileging dominant cultural representations, ideologies, and metanarratives of American exceptionality. This article presents content analysis as a method for identifying the range of civic and cultural perspectives in curricula. Once these perspectives are identified, social studies educators can revise curricula to increase inclusion and strengthen student deliberation. To illustrate this method, the author examines two sets of instructional materials. While on opposite opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, the sets are similar in their narrow range of perspectives concerning controversial public issues.     

Uncertain citizenship and public deliberation in post‐apartheid South Africa

The post‐repressive‐regime South African government has actively convened a public sphere bristling with institutions and policies designed to facilitate public deliberation. However, certain apartheid legacies and contemporary political compromises facilitate the reach of power into the convened public sphere, leading to the corralling of public deliberation and the attempted silencing of critical voices. By the end of the Mbeki presidency, a cacophony of public dissent erupted, some of it insisting on the importance of open public critique and some of it seeking to limit and shape dissent itself. The article discusses ongoing contests over the meaning of publicness, locating the roots of these different ideas of publicness in different political and intellectual traditions, each with different understandings of the deliberative citizen. It suggests that participation in public debate is increasingly confined to the exertion of a narrowly defined notion of national democratic citizenship. Arguing that the formation of counterpublic spheres in South Africa is inhibited, the article considers the role of what it terms ‘capillaries’ of public deliberation, in which various kinds of radical critiques of cultural values, norms, identities and the fragmentation of historical consciousness take place.     

Deliberation and Ethnicity

Scholars typically suggest that deliberation, defined as communication guided by reason‐giving and inclusion, works best behind a veil of ignorance or when personal differences are bracketed. In this article we explore deliberation within ethnically diverse groups. We operationalize ethnicity in three ways: as an aspect of individual identity, as an identity that is made salient through priming, and as an enactment relative to interactions in particular situations. In this way, we can explore the applicability of our previous experimental results to ethnically diverse groups. We find similar results: within ethnically diverse groups, deliberation matters; participants are more likely to reconsider their positions when deliberating than when simply talking about politics. Ethnicity has no adverse effects on the quality of deliberation, indicating that bracketing has no significant impact. On the contrary, when conceptualized as a relational enactment, ethnicity is correlated with increased levels of reason‐giving and inclusion, and hence higher quality deliberation. This suggests deliberation works in multiethnic groups in much the same way as—if not better than—it does in homogeneous groups. Deliberation is a robust form of political communication that not only helps manage, but also embraces diverse subjective experiences as a part of the political process.     

CONVERGENCE,POLARIZATION, OR WHAT?

Wilson (1978, 1987) argues that since the 1960s, race has become a less important determinant of the life chances and outlooks of individual blacks than has sociocconomic status; moreover, he suggests that as race has declined in its significance, the black community has become more socioeconomically differentiated and polarized. Using data from the 1964 through 1984 American National Election Surveys, this article examines hypotheses derived from both Wilson's "declining significance of race" thesis and his "polarization" thesis. The results show that (1) race declined in its significance to a limited degree, but continued to be an important determinant of attitudes and outlooks; (2) blacks at all income levels continued to be more similar to other blacks with different incomes than to nonblacks with incomes similar to their own; (3) the black community did not undergo social, political, and economic polarization; and (4) socioeconomic standing did not become more important than race as a determinant of the social, political, and economic attitudes and outlooks examined.     

Inequality and Deliberative Development: Revisiting Bolivia's Experience with the PRSP

The deliberative‐development approach to policy‐making has gained popularity in both academic and policy circles. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the requirements necessary for deliberation to have beneficial effects on policy, some of which are detailed in this article, in particular the need for equality among deliberators. The article examines Bolivia's 2000 National Dialogue and demonstrates the effects of inequality — not between elites and non‐elites, but between groups within civil society — on the legitimacy of the outcome. Its findings have important implications for the design of deliberative‐development institutions.     

Just deliberation: Can communicative rationality support socially just environmental conservation in rural Africa?

This article evaluates the use of deliberative methods for filling the democratic deficit arising from the shift to management through partnerships in conservation in developing countries. We ask whether deliberative approaches are feasible in a rural African context and the extent to which they can form a basis for socially just environmental decision making. In answering these questions we focus on two main concerns: the possibility of achieving satisfactory representation and the possibility of constructing counter-factual spaces of deliberation in which identity-based bias is suspended in favour of reasoned argument. Our survey data suggests that participants are themselves satisfied that representation is fair, and that the consensus attained at the end of deliberative events is not the result of domination of more powerful interests. Nevertheless, our more qualitative observations of individuals involved in deliberative events provide stronger cause for caution. It is not possible to leave power and prejudice out of deliberative processes, though well managed spaces of deliberation can temporarily mitigate these and in doing so provide some empowerment to normally marginalised participants.     

Transparent space: Law,technology and deliberative democracy in the information society

Abstract

The resuscitation of deliberative democracy in the Information Age requires the construction of transparent public spaces ‐ public arenas where power relationships between speakers are discernible and debate ensues according to the rules of civility and reason (conversational transparency). The metaphor of transparency, in the sense of legal accountability, also connects the role of communications regulation to the development of democratic political culture (legal transparency). Finally, transparency suggests the power of technology to obscure and hinder as well as help the progress of deliberative democracy (technological transparency).     

Who Wants a Deliberative Public Sphere?1

Democratic theorists and social scientists suggest that a deliberative public sphere would be good for democracy by maximizing emancipatory possibilities and providing broad legitimacy to political decision making. But do ordinary Americans actually want a deliberative public sphere? I examine this question in the context of four contentious “religion and science” debates. Through a multidimensional evaluation exercise with 62 ordinary respondents, I find that evaluation of public representatives in these debates tends to favor open‐mindedness and ongoing debate. Further, respondents explicitly discount elected representatives who participate in public debate precisely because they are seen as violating deliberative norms through their affiliation with electoral politics. Respondents want a deliberative public sphere. However, this desire reflects an understanding of the public sphere and institutional politics as disconnected arenas with incompatible rules and objectives, raising multiple questions for democratic theory and for political sociology.     

Public Support for International Human Rights Institutions: A Cross‐National and Multilevel Analysis

The expansion of international human rights institutions has drawn much attention. Bringing together theories from sociology, political science, and international law, this article examines what factors promote public support for international human rights institutions, using the recent wave of the World Values Survey data (2005–2008). The level of public support displays both cross‐national and cross‐individual variations, so I conceptualize it as a two‐level process and employ the multilevel modeling. At the individual level, it is found that men, younger people, and individuals with more education and income show a higher level of support. At the country level, national affluence, political change (de‐democratization), and linkage to the world society are associated with more support. I further integrate individual‐level characteristics and country‐level social contexts, and pay special attention to education. Education is the institutional link between macro‐level social influences and micro‐level individual attitudes. I find that the support‐promoting effect of education is contingent on social contexts. It is more salient in wealthy countries and countries with strong ties to the world society.     

'Learning Difficulties', the Social Model of Disability and Impairment: Challenging epistemologies

Critical researchers enter into an investigation with their assumptions on the table, so no one is confused concerning the epistemological and political baggage they bring with them to the research site (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1998, p. 265). A theory of disability as oppression recognises and, in the present context, emphasies the social origins of impairment. (Abberley, 1987, in Barton and Oliver, 1997, p176, my emphasis.) Identification with the label of 'learning difficulties' has contradictory personal and political implications for people so-labelled. While this identification has allowed people to organise collectively through the self-advocacy movement, pervasive understandings of 'learning difficulties' that permeate many societal settings tend to be framed in ways that directly confirm a personal tragedy model of disability and impairment. This paper argues for a reconsideration of impairment in relation to 'learning difficulties', to challenge pervasive assumptions in relation to 'learning difficulties' - at the level of epistemology - and to construct four inclusive epistemological foundations . The first, deconstructing impairment , draws upon a body of literature that has exposed the social nature of diagnostic criteria and destabilised naturalised notions of 'learning difficulties'. The second, impairment, as storied , brings in the accounts of people with 'learning difficulties' that locate impairment in, and as, personal and social narratives. Thirdly, reculturising impairment highlights emergent resilient cultures of people with 'learning difficulties' that re-culturise impairment. Fourthly, epistemological impacts , grounds the analysis by calling for an attention to the ways in which assumptions about the origins of 'learning difficulties' impact upon the treatment of people so-labelled.     

Catholic Versus Communist: An Ongoing Issue—The Role of Organizational Affiliation in Accessing the Policy Arena

This article analyses the role of organizations’ ideological affiliation in shaping information networks within civil society and in granting access to the political sphere. It investigates whether the Catholic and Leftist affiliation of organizations impacts in the city of Turin (Italy) and Kielce (Poland). Applying different social network analysis techniques, the article finds that in both cities there is a tendency towards preferring similar partners. However, while the influence of affiliation is relevant to predict the access to policy making in Turin, in Kielce, this influence is mediated by the actor’s centrality in the social sphere. In both cities, networks are characterized by the higher centrality of Catholic organizations, which also translate in a greater involvement in the political sphere. Twenty-five years after the end of the cold war, past-affiliation is still a strong predictor of political involvement and impacts on the shape of local governance structure.     

Double disenchantment of politics: A systems theory approach to post‐socialist transformation

Many social scientists argue that the precarious future of post‐socialist societies is determined by cultural constraints to which the actors of transformation are exposed. In contrast to this approach, the paper focuses on those developmental obstacles which are inherent to the structure of post‐socialist societies. The analysis draws primarily on social systems theory, especially on the theory of functional differentiation. In the first part, the changing role of political actors is dealt with. The competitive nature of the democratic political process have forced the new and old political actors to adopt a pragmatic and professional attitude towards their activity. Not all of them, however, have been able to adapt to the new rules of the political game. Adaptation problems are mostly faced by those political actors who played a decisive role in the initial stages of democratization on the basis of their informal political influence. The second part of the paper focuses on the changes related to the societal functions of the democratic political system. Irrespective of the ambitions of political actors, democratic politics is inherently ‘unsuitable’ for the extensive regulation of society. A democratic political system presupposes a relatively high ability of other societal subsystems to rely on self‐regulation. The absence of this ability is an important source of systemic tensions in post‐socialist societies. These two sets of changes can be characterized as the double disenchantment of politics. Both on the systemic level and on the level of actors politics has lost many attributes of a ‘privileged’ societal activity. But the process of disenchantment can give rise to demands for a revival of the politics of ‘great deeds’.     

The Attitude Toward Voluntary Childlessness in Europe: Cultural and Institutional Explanations

The prevalence and social acceptance of childlessness have increased in recent decades. Still, little is known about how this social acceptance is shaped, the extent to which approval of childlessness differs across Europe, and what factors cause potential cross‐national variation. The authors used data from the European Social Survey 2006 (N = 36,187) to examine the attitude toward voluntary childlessness in 20 countries. Results from multilevel models were largely in line with expectations derived from Second Demographic Transition theory concerning traditional orientation, age, religiousness, education, and stage of Second Demographic Transition in a country. The results also corroborated individual‐level expectations on the role of gender and socioeconomic status based on New Home Economics theory. One country‐level indicator, child‐care availability, was not related to the attitude toward childlessness. The current study provides new insights into explaining cross‐national differences in the attitude toward childlessness and more generally into the process of fertility decision making.     

Social media and political discussion: when online presence silences offline conversation

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship between the use of social media, attitudinal strength, perceived opinion agreement with social ties, and willingness to discuss a political issue in different online and offline contexts. Unlike the anonymous environment of some Internet forums, social media are closely tied to the relationships and activities of everyday life. Social media increasingly make ties from offline contexts persistent online, and, because of the ambient nature of these technologies, awareness of the opinions, interests, and activities of social ties has become pervasive. As such, the use of social media is likely to affect everyday conversation about political issues in on- and offline contexts, including the home, workplace, social gatherings with friends, community meetings, and on social network sites (SNSs). Based on a national probability survey, we find that the use of SNSs (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) has a direct, negative relationship to deliberation in many offline settings. Some uses of these platforms are associated with having a lower, perceived opinion agreement with social ties. As part of a spiral of silence, this further reduces the willingness of social media users to join political conversations in some offline settings. Only those with the strongest attitudes on an issue are immune.     

Social media use and democratic engagement: a comparative study of Hong Kong,Taiwan, and China

Recent studies in political communication have found a generally positive role of social media in democratic engagement. However, most research on youth’s social media use in relation to their political engagement has been conducted in the context of American and European democracies. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the effects of the uses and structural features of social media on democratic engagement in three different Asian political systems: Taiwan (young liberal democracy); Hong Kong (partial democracy); and China (one-party state). The findings showed that sharing political information and connections with public actors consistently predicted offline participation (i.e., civic and political participation) and online participation (i.e., online political expression and online activism) in the three political systems. Although social media use for news, network size, and network structure did not consistently predict political outcomes, they played significant roles in influencing different engagement in the three political systems. The comparative approach used in this study helped to demonstrate the role of social media in the democratic engagement of youth in three places with similar cultures but different political contexts.