Browsing by Subject "Deliberation"
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Item Open Access A case study analysis of a participatory process in fisheries management(2008-12-05T18:29:57Z) Vasquez, MelissaThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the experiences of participants in a participatory process in environmental management and to examine relative contributions of process features and the achievement of social goals to participants perceptions of their experience. I examined the case of the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission Sea Turtle Advisory Committee, an ad-hoc advisory committee composed of scientists, fishermen, and managers convened to develop solutions to reduce sea turtle-fishery interactions in North Carolina inshore waters. I conducted semi-structured interviews with participants about their experience on this committee. I recorded and transcribed audio of the interviews and coded participant responses using NVivo software. Most participants categorized their experience as positive overall, citing the achievement of social goals rather than the production of substantive recommendations. Participants were most satisfied by the level of motivation of their fellow participants, but least satisfied by the lack of responsiveness from the lead agency, the Marine Fisheries Commission. The committee’s achievement of its goals was further hampered by poor facilitation, which resulted in confusion about the goals and scope of the process. Despite significant setbacks, all committee members responded that they would consider participating in a participatory process again in the future.Item Open Access Non-Instrumental Value of Epistemic Democracy: A Republican Argument(2019) Cansu, UtkuProponents of epistemic democracy defend democracy’s capacity to harness people’s wisdom and produce better results than its rivals (Cohen 1986; Goodin and Spiekermann 2018; Landemore 2012). Yet contemporary democracies are non-ideal systems, marked by exclusion and epistemic marginalization (Anderson 2006; Fricker 2007; Shklar 1990). By implication, certain groups’ ideas and values might be systematically misunderstood and denied acknowledgment by the political process. In the long run, epistemic injustice might undermine the system’s legitimacy, fostering discontent even against a competent epistemic authority (Estlund 2008). Addressing this problem, this paper outlines a non-instrumental defense of epistemic democracy, as a complement to now-established instrumental accounts. Exploring the relation of what one knows to individuals’ freedom and dignity, the paper draws on the neo-republican conception of liberty and offers a theory of epistemic nondomination. The paper has two aims. First, strengthening the argument for epistemic democracy by focusing on the intrinsic value of knowledge sharing and its value beyond the realm of electoral politics. Second, demonstrating that a neo-republican approach to political epistemology offers better tools to address epistemic injustice and helps pick out institutional remedies.
Item Open Access Pathologies of Political Judgment and Democratic Deliberation(2015) Mercado, RaymondTheorists of deliberative democracy maintain that genuine dialogue is premised on the mutual respect of participants, yet a great deal of what passes for civic discourse even in mature democracies takes place among political actors who avowedly do not respect one another. This dissertation investigates psychological obstacles to mutual respect, and mutual understanding, in an effort to enhance possibilities for democratic deliberation. It identifies two such obstacles in political narcissism and ressentiment, which it construes as pathologies of political judgment. More generally, the dissertation argues for a self-consciously hermeneutical and psychoanalytically informed approach to deliberation, one that seeks a deeper understanding of our interlocutors in deliberation so as to carry on a more fruitful dialogue with them. Accordingly, it argues that speech is distorted when it does not align with the subjective intent of the speaker, even when that intent is unconscious or unknown to him. It contends that a depth hermeneutical mode of deliberation is necessary to engage in genuine communicative action, and suggests a role for psychoanalytically informed rhetoric in deliberation. Finally, it offers a methodological sketch of what a depth hermeneutical approach might look like when applied not only toward understanding one’s interlocutor, but also toward offering justificatory arguments vis-à-vis the shared ethical traditions and discourses that give legitimacy to political action. It suggests we need to read between the lines of tradition to ensure that minority discourses are not overshadowed, just as we need to look beneath the explicit claims of our interlocutors if we wish to understand them.