Deliberative disabilities

1.  Describing political poverty2.  Capability failure as an experience3.  Demophobic participation4.  Deliberative “dys-abilities”

4.1. thematization4.2. virtualization

- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

4.3. disintegration

Mathieu Berger

1 Describing political

poverty

« Political poverty designates a failure of capacity in public deliberation : a group-related inability to make effective use of opportunities to influence the deliberative process in favor of concerns of the group’s members » (Bohman, 1996 : 110).« In order to be minimally effective in deliberation, a deliberator must be able to initiate public dialogue about an issue or a theme, in which his or her reasons may receive deliberative uptake » (Ibid. : 125).

4 criteria :-  collectiveness-  effectiveness-  autonomy-  uptake

Poli%cal  poverty  (capability  failure)  

Ins%tu%onal  reform  Collec%ve  ac%on  

Poli%cal  exclusion  Unequal  social    condi%ons  

Poli%cal  poverty  (capability  failure)  

Ins$tu$onal  reform  Collec$ve  ac$on  

Poli$cal  exclusion  Unequal  social    condi$ons  

2 Capability failure as an

experience

« You guys are awesome ! »

3Demophobic participation

2

6 5

3

7 8

4

1

4Deliberative dys-abilities

“I will use the term adequate public functioning to mean the capacities for full and effective use of political rights and liberties in deliberation – capacities that are evident when citizens successfully initiate deliberation, introduce new themes into public debate, and influence the outcome” (Bohman, 1996 : 110).

Then, I will call inadequate public functioning (or “deliberative dys-abilities”) the capacities for a truncated and (communicatively) ineffective use of political rights and liberties in deliberation.

« All habits are demands for certain kinds of activities (…). They form our effective desires and they furnish us with our working capacities (…). We may think of habits as means, waiting, like tools in a box (…). But they are more than that. They are active means, means that project themselves, energetic and dominating ways of acting.

(…)

A man who does not stand properly forms a habit of standing improperly, a positive, forceful habit. The common implication that his mistake is merely negative, that he is simply failing to do the right thing, and that the failure can be made good by an order of will is absurd. One might as well suppose that the man who is a slave of whiskey-drinking is merely one who fails to drink water. »

J. Dewey, 1922, p.22 ; p.25-26.

Accommodationist preferences : “psychological adjustments to conditions of subordination in which individuals are not recognized as having the capacity for self-government” (J. Cohen, 1997 : 77)

Deliberative dys-abilities :

-  Thematization-  Virtualization-  Disintegration

4.1. Thematization

4.2. Virtualization- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

4.2. Virtualization- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

4.2. Virtualization- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

« You guys are awesome! »

4.2. Virtualization- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

4.2. Virtualization- make-believe- ceremonials- redoings- minorizing

4.3. Disintegration

5Conclusion