Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:43:52.053Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Getting to agreement: mechanisms of deliberative decision-making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2018

Erik O. Eriksen*
Affiliation:
Professor, Director at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract

Deliberation has not only epistemic and moral value, it also has transformative value. Even if deliberation faces the problem of indeterminacy, it is assumed to have explanatory power. This article spells out why this is so and suggests a way to establish the causing effect of deliberation. It outlines a reason-based (RB) model of political decision-making applicable also to international affairs. By specifying a theory of argumentation on collective decision-making, we get to the nuts and bolts of deliberative decision-making, which, when supported by institutional powers, ensures a justified and well-grounded decision. The model contains a set of rules of inference and offers ‘mechanismic’ accounts of social events. It allows for explanations, but not predictions. The RB model conceives of decision-making as consisting of three sequences: claims-making, justification, and learning, each containing a set of explanatory mechanisms: values referring to conceptions of the common good, mandatory norms concerning the right thing to do, and evidence to the fact that non-compliance is wrong. The explanatory potential of this scheme is exemplified with reference to agreement making in the European Union. Some actors changed opinion voluntarily with regard to empowering the European parliament.

Type
Original Papers
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alter, Karen J. 2001. Establishing the Supremacy of European Law: The Making of an International Rule of Law in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Argyris, Chris, and Schön, Donald A.. 1999. On Organizational Learning. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bächtiger, André, Niemeyer, Simon., Neblo, Michael., Steenbergen, Marco R., and Steiner, Jürg. 2010. “Disentangling Diversity in Deliberative Democracy: Competing Theories, Their Blind Spots and Complementarities.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 18(1):3263.Google Scholar
Benedetto, Giacomo, and Hix, Simon. 2007. “Explaining the European Parliament’s Gains in the EU Constitution.” The Review of International Organizations 2:115129.Google Scholar
Bodin, Jean [1577] 1992. On Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bohman, James, and Regh, William, eds. 1997. Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boltanski, Luc, and Thévenot, Laurent. 1999. “The Sociology of Critical Capacity.” European Journal of Social Theory 2(3):359377.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. 1994. Making it Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bühler, Karl 1934. Sprachtheorie: Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Fischer.Google Scholar
Bunge, Mario. 2004. “How Does it Work? The Search for Explanatory Mechanisms.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34(2):188210.Google Scholar
Christiano, T. 2012. “Rational Deliberation Among Experts and Citizens.” In Deliberative Systems, edited by John Parkinson and Jane Mansbridge, 2751. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua. 1997. “Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy.” In Deliberative Democracy, edited by James Bohman and William Rehg, 407438. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Joshua, and Sabel, Charles F.. 2003. “Sovereignty and Solidarity: EU and US.” In Governing Work and Welfare in the New Economy: European and American Experiments, edited by Jonathan Zeitlin and David M. Trubek, 345375. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conway, Gerard. 2012. The Limits of Legal Reasoning and the European Court of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Curato, Nicole. 2012. “A Sequential Analysis of Democratic Deliberation.” Acta Politica 47(4):423442.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1980. Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Day, Stephen, and Shaw, Jo. 2003. “The Evolution of Europe’s Transnational Political Parties in the Era of European Citizenship.” In The State of the European Union, Vol. 6: Law, Politics, and Society, edited by Tanja Börzel and Rachel Cichowski, 149169. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deitelhoff, Nicole. 2006. Überzeugung in der Politik. Grundzüge einer Diskurstheorie internationalen Regierens. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Deitelhoff, Nicole. 2009. “The Discursive Process of Legalization: Charting Islands of Persuasion in the ICC Case.” International Organization 63(1):3365.Google Scholar
Deitelhoff, Nicole. and Müller, Harald 2005. “Theoretical Paradise – Empirically Lost? Arguing with Habermas.” Review of International Studies 31(1):167179.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1927. The Public and its Problems. Chicago, IL: Gateways Books.Google Scholar
Diez, Thomas, and Steans, Jill. 2005. “A Useful Dialogue? Habermas and International Relations.” Review of International Studies 31(1):127140.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John. 2006. Deliberative Global Politics. London: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John, and List, Christian. 2003. “Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation.” British Journal of Political Science 33(1):128.Google Scholar
Dunoff, Jeffrey L., and Trachtman, Joel P., eds. 2009. Ruling the World?: Constitutionalism, International Law, and Global Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2011. Justice for Hedgehogs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2013. “A New Philosophy of International Law.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 41(1):230.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1998. “Introduction.” In Deliberative Democracy, edited by Jon Elster, 118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon 2007. Explaining Social Behavior. More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O. 2009. The Unfinished Democratization of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O. 2014a. The Normativity of the European Union. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O. 2014b. “‘Gründe als Explanans’: Über Deliberation und das Problem der Unbestimmtheit.” In Deliberative Demokratie in der Diskussion, edited by Claudia Landwehr and Rainer Schmalz-Bruns, 103–140. Baden-Baden: Nomos.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O. 2018. “Political differentiation and the problem of dominance.” European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12263.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O., and Fossum, John E., eds. 2000. Democracy in the European Union: Integration Through Deliberation? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O., and Fossum, John E.. 2012. “Representation Through Deliberation: The European Case.” Constellations 19(2):325339.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O., and Fossum, John E., forthcoming. “Deliberation in a Segmenting Europe.” In Handbook of Deliberative Democracy, edited by André Bächtiger, John S. Dryzek, Jane Mansbridge, and Mark E. Warren, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Erik O., and Weigård, Jarle. 2003. Understanding Habermas. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Estlund, David. 2008. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
European Council. 2012. Treaty on the Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union [TSCG or The Fiscal Compact], T/SCG. Accessed May 10, 2017. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/european-council/pdf/Treaty-on-Stability-Coordination-and-Governance-TSCG/.Google Scholar
Falk, Richard. 2002. “Revisiting Westphalia, Discovering Post-Westphalia.” Journal of Ethics 6(4):311352.Google Scholar
Fishkin, James S. 2009. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democratic Theory and Empirical Political Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Forst, Robert. 2011. The Right to Justification: Elements of Constructivist Theory of Justice. New York NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Gambetta, Diego. 1998. “Claro! An Essay on Discursive Machismo.” In Deliberative Democracy, edited by Jon Elster, 1943. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gehring, Thomas, and Kerler, Michael. 2008. “Institutional Stimulation of Deliberative Decision‐Making: Division of Labour, Deliberative Legitimacy and Technical Regulation in the European Single Market.” Journal of Common Market Studies 46(5):10011023.Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert E. 2008. Innovating Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Günther, Klaus. 1988. The Sense of Appropriateness: Application Discourses in Morality and Law. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis F.. 1996. Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy, and Thompson, Dennis F.. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. [1973] 2009. “Wahrheitstheorien.” In Cursive, Vol. 2, 208–269. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume One. Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1988. The Pragmatics of Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen 2005. “Concluding Comments on Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Approaches to Deliberative Politics.” Acta Politica 40(3):384392.Google Scholar
Haroche, Pierre. 2018. “The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance: How National Parliaments Empowered the European Parliament.” Journal of European Public Policy 25(7):10101028.Google Scholar
Harré, Rom. 1999. “Nagel’s Challenge and the Mind-Body Problem.” Philosophy 74(288):247270.Google Scholar
Hart, Herbert L. A. 1961. The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hedström, Peter 2005. Dissecting the Social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1986. “The Concept of Interest: From Euphemism to Tautology.” In Rival Views of Market Society and Other Recent Essays, edited by Albert O. Hirschmann, 3555. New York, NY: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John, and Kupchan, Charles. 1990. “Socialization and Hegemonic Power.” International Organization 44(3):283315.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert H. 1990. Quasi‐States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Joerges, Christian, and Neyer, Jürgen. 1997. “From Intergovernmental Bargaining to Deliberative Political Processes: The Constitutionalisation of Comitology.” European Law Journal 3(3):273299.Google Scholar
Keohane, Robert O., Moravcsik, Andrew, and Slaugther, Anne-Marie. 2002. “Legalized Dispute Resolution: Interstate and Transnational.” International Organization 54(3):457488.Google Scholar
King, Loren A. 2003. “Deliberation, Legitimacy, and Multilateral Democracy.” Governance 16(1):2350.Google Scholar
Knops, Andrew. 2006. “‘Delivering Deliberation’s Emancipatory Potential.” Political Theory 34(5):594623.Google Scholar
Koskenniemi, Martti. [1989] 2005. From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 1989. Rules, Norms and Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, Friedrich. 2001. Sovereignty: Myth, Organized Hypocrisy, or Generative Grammar? The Case for a Conceptual Approach. Munich: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.Google Scholar
Kuyper, Jonathan W. 2014. “The Democratic Potential of Systemic Pluralism.” Global Constitutionalism 3(2):170199.Google Scholar
Laden, Anthony S. 2005. “Evaluating Social Reasons, Hobbes Versus Hegel.” The Journal of Philosophy CII(7):327356.Google Scholar
Landemore, Helene E. 2012. Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Landwehr, Claudia. 2010. “Discourse and Coordination: Modes of Interaction and their Roles in Political Decision-Making.” Journal of Political Philosophy 18(1):101122.Google Scholar
Larmore, Charles. 2008. The Autonomy of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Manin, Bernard. 1997. The Principles of Representative Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
March, James G. 1991. “Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning.” Organization Science 2(1):7187.Google Scholar
March, James G. 1994. A Primer on Decision-Making: How Decisions Happen. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
March, James G. 2010. The Ambiguities of Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl., and Friedrich Engels [1932] 1970. “The German Ideology”, edited by Christopher. J. Arthur. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Google Scholar
McDowell, John. 1998. Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McKeon, Richard. 1948. “The Philosophic Bases and Material Circumstances of the Rights of Man.” Ethics 58(3):180187.Google Scholar
Mearsheimer, John. 2011. Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mercier, Hugo, and Sperber, Dan. 2011. “Why do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(2):5774.Google Scholar
Mill, John S. [1861] 1984. Considerations on Representative Government. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Milward, Alan S. 1984. The Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-51. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mitzen, Jennifer. 2005. “Reading Habermas in Anarchy: Multilateral Diplomacy and Global Public Spheres.” American Political Science Review 99(3):401417.Google Scholar
Molander, Anders. 2016. Discretion in the Welfare State: Social Rights and Professional Judgment. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Morgenthau, Joachim H. 1993. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Müller, Harald. 2004. “Arguing, Bargaining and All That: Communicative Action, Rationalist Theory and the Logic of Appropriateness in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 10(3):395435.Google Scholar
Neblo, Michael. 2005. “Thinking Through Democracy: Between the Theory and Practice of Deliberative Politics.” Acta Politica 40(2):169181.Google Scholar
Neblo, Michael. 2015. Deliberative Democracy Between Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Neyer, Jürgen. 2012. The Justification of Europe: A Political Theory of Supranational Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Niemeyer, Simon, and Dryzek, John S.. 2007. “The Ends of Deliberation: Meta-Consensus and Inter-Subjective Rationality as Ideal Outcomes.” Swiss Political Science Review 13(4):497526.Google Scholar
Official Journal of the European Union. 2012. The consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). 2012/C 326. Accessed February 10, 2017. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A12012M%2FTXT.Google Scholar
Parkinson, John, and Mansbridge, Jane, eds. 2012. Deliberative Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Anne. 2005. “Global Constitutionalism Revisited.” International Legal Theory 11:3968.Google Scholar
Pincione, Guido, and Tesón, Fernando R.. 2011. Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pollack, Mark A. 2003. The Engines of European Integration: Delegation, Agency and Agenda Setting in the EU. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph. 1975. Practical Reason and Norms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ripstein, Arthur 2009. Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 1999. “International Norms and Domestic Change: Arguing and Communicative Behavior in the Human Rights Area.” Politics and Society 27(4):529559.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 2000. “Let’s Argue! Communicative Action in World Politics.” International Organization 54(1):139.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas. 2004. “European Institutions and Identity Change: What Have We Learned?In Transnational Identities, edited by Richard K. Herrmann, Thomas Risse, and Marilynn B. Brewer, 271274. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Rittberger, Berthold. 2005. Building Europe’s Parliament. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rittberger, Berthold., and Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2006. “Explaining the Constitutionalization of the European Union.” Journal of European Public Policy 13(8):11481167.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John G. 1993. “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.” International Organization 47(1):139174.Google Scholar
Sabel, Charles F., and Zeitlin, Jonathan. 2010. Experimentalist Governance in the European Union: Towards a New Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Saretzki, Thomas. 2007. “Argumentieren, Verhandeln und Strategie. Theoretische Referenzen, begriffliche Unterscheidungen und empirische Studien zu arguing und bargaining in der internationalen Politik.” In Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit. Jürgen Habermas und die Theorie der internationalen Politik, edited by Peter Niesen and Benjamin Herborth, 111146. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas M. 1998. What we Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas M. 2014. Being Realistic About Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schimmelfennig, Frank. 2001. “The Community Trap: Liberal Norms, Rhetorical Action, and the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union.” International Organization 55(1):4780.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. [1926] 1992. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Carl. [1950] 2003. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. New York, NY: Telos Press.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 2005. “What is an Institution?Journal of Institutional Economics 1(1):122.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 2007. Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1999. “Democracy as a Universal Value.” Journal of Democracy 10(3):317.Google Scholar
Sjursen, Helene. ed. 2006. Questioning EU Enlargement: Europe in Search of Identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2004. A New World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Strange, Susan. 1996. The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sulkin, Tracy., and Simon, Adam F.. 2001. “Habermas in the Lab: A Study of Deliberation in an Experimental Setting.” Political Psychology 22(4):809826.Google Scholar
Thompson, Dennis F. 2008. “Deliberative Democratic Theory and Empirical Political Science.” Annual Review of Political Science 11:497520.Google Scholar
Toulmin, S. E. [1958] 2003. The Uses of Argument. Updated version. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel. 1974. “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.” Science, New Series 185(4157):11241131.Google Scholar
Valadez, J. 2001. Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Von Wright, Georg H. 1963. Norm and Action. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1977. Just and Unjust Wars. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H. 1994. “A Quiet Revolution: The European Court of Justice and its Interlocutors.” Comparative Political Studies 26(4):510534.Google Scholar
Weiler, Joseph H. H., Haltern, Ulrich, and Mayer, Franz. 1995. “European Democracy and its Critique.” In The Crisis of Representation in Europe, edited by Jack Hayward, 439. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1992. “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46(2):391425.Google Scholar
Zürn, Michael. 2018. A Theory of Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar