Dividing Deliberative and Participatory Democracy through JohnDewey

Abstract:

This article challenges the prevalent interpretation of John

Dewey as a forefather of deliberative democracy, and shows how

Dewey’s theory can help turn democratic theory toward

participatory democracy, which is widely seen as having been

incorporated by deliberative democracy. I argue that Dewey would

find deliberative principles to be abstracting from our unequal

social conditions by attempting to bracket the unequal social

statuses that individuals bring with them to the deliberation.

Dewey traces the deficiencies of current political debate to

these unequal social conditions, and he thus claims that

democratic theorizing should focus on enacting effective plans

for overcoming social inequality, plans which may require non-

deliberative practices that compel concessions from advantaged

social interests. Deliberative democrats have increasingly aimed

to account for such practices, but I claim that participatory

democrats can draw on Dewey to illustrate how their theory can

1

more comfortably accommodate these practices that directly attack

inequality than can deliberative democracy.

Keywords: deliberation, Dewey, inequality, participation,

pragmatism, workplace

Over the past two to three decades, deliberative democracy has

ascended to preeminent status within democratic theory, and

perhaps no thinker has been more frequently cited as a forefather

of the deliberative paradigm than John Dewey. In this article,

however, I will argue that Dewey should not be considered a

forefather of deliberative democracy. Instead, I will show that

Dewey’s democratic theory can help demonstrate the unique value

of the tradition of participatory democracy to contemporary

democratic thought. Rather than being a pillar of deliberative

democracy, therefore, Dewey’s theory helps illustrate why

(contrary to popular belief) deliberative democracy has not

subsumed the principles of participatory democracy.

Dewey claims that “If democracy is possible it is because

every individual has a degree of power to govern himself” (LW6:

2

431).1 For Dewey, democracy exists to the extent that individuals

exercise control over their lives, and he insists that, while it

is important for individuals to have the formal opportunity to

influence typical institutions of government, democracy is

hindered when individuals are excluded from self-government in

everyday social spheres (e.g., the workplace). I will argue that

this conception of interrelated political and social factors in

achieving self-government exhibits Dewey’s divergence from the

principles of deliberative democracy. Deliberative principles

call on deliberators to all equally abide by deliberative norms,

and to debate policy by using reasons that others can

“reasonably” be expected to endorse, regardless of the social

statuses that the deliberators bring with them to the

deliberative forum. Dewey holds that individuals are inevitably

heavily influenced by their social circumstances and the quality

of their social relations, and that it is senseless to expect

that those holding advantaged social status will not enjoy a

privileged position within political institutions—whether that

status is determined by “dynastic” or “economic” attributes

(Dewey 1954: 77, 107-108, 161)—unless measures are taken to

3

ameliorate that social inequality. Dewey’s position is thus that

the inequalities that exist within the social spheres of the

workplace, family, religion, etc. directly obstruct the

opportunities for individuals to exercise control over their

lives, and also concurrently corrupt attempts to institute fair

debate over public policy.

It is true that Dewey wishes there could be honest,

cooperative deliberation over policy, and he could agree with

deliberative democrats about how political debate would ideally

proceed under democratized social conditions. But his pragmatism

requires that our ideas and practices be attuned to the

conditions we currently confront, and that focusing on an ideal

in abstraction from those conditions can prevent us from

achieving the ideal. For Dewey, policy debate is corrupted by

social inequality, and he states that under unequal social

conditions, improving policy debate should not be the central

issue in our plan for achieving democracy. He instead

demonstrates the need for non-deliberative modes of participation—

non-deliberative because such modes (e.g., marches, protests,

strikes) differ from deliberative modes by holding social 4

inequality to be so pervasive that it cannot be bracketed by

certain rules of discourse. More recent accounts of deliberative

democracy have increasingly attempted to accommodate such

alternative forms of participation, either by allowing

deliberators to use reasons that are not strictly oriented toward

the common good, or by conceding that non-ideal social conditions

require practices that stray widely from reason-giving before the

deliberative ideal can be attained. But while this can be seen

as progress within deliberative theory, I will argue that the

Deweyan-pragmatist case for non-deliberative practices provides

useful tools for participatory democrats to preserve the autonomy

of their theory from deliberative democracy, and to even elevate

their theory over deliberative democracy. Participatory

theorists primarily advocate the concurrent democratization of

both governmental and non-governmental authority structures,2 without

committing to any specific mode of participation, and I claim

that these thinkers can productively draw upon Dewey’s analysis

to show their lack of commitment to deliberation in particular to

be a virtue of their theory. Dewey articulates the pragmatist

case for non-deliberative modes of participation that

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specifically aim at overcoming the social threats to individuals’

capacity to exercise control over their lives, thus illuminating

the modes that are consistent with participatory theory’s

emphasis on the extension of democracy throughout society.

Deliberative theorists have increasingly sought to account for

the necessity of such modes, but in so doing they must also

progressively diminish the democratic validity of the central

attribute of their theory: deliberation.

This article will proceed in four sections. The first

section will briefly review the literature which has connected

Dewey with deliberative democracy, and will also discuss the

primary principles of deliberative thought, with emphasis on how

this tradition has recently aimed to evolve beyond a strict

commitment to impartial reason-giving. The second section will

then demonstrate why Dewey should not be considered a forefather

of deliberative democracy. In the third section, I will discuss

participatory democracy, and address the common claim that

deliberative democracy has effectively incorporated participatory

democracy. The fourth section will then show why Dewey’s

democratic theory should lead democratic theorists to challenge 6

the preeminent status of deliberative democracy, and to treat

participatory theory as a serious alternative, rather than as a

minor supplement, to deliberative theory.

Connecting Dewey and Deliberative Democracy

Jason Kosnoski reports that “A consensus appears to be forming

among political theorists that John Dewey’s political thought can

be subsumed under the rubric of deliberative democracy” (2005:

654). Indeed, over the past decade and a half there have been an

increasing number of democratic theorists and Dewey scholars who

have classified Dewey as a forefather of deliberative democracy.

James Bohman (1999), John Dryzek (2000), William Caspary (2000),

Richard Posner (2003), Alison Kadlec (2007), Noelle McAfee

(2008), Melvin Rogers (2009), and Jack Knight and James Johnson

(2011) have all interpreted Dewey in this way. For my purposes,

which will be to use Dewey to demonstrate the value of

participatory democracy independent of deliberative democracy,

the evolving position of Dewey scholar Robert Westbrook is

significant: in his 1991 intellectual biography of Dewey,

Westbrook labels Dewey a “most important advocate of

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participatory democracy” (1991: xiv-xv, 164); in 2005, though, he

contends that “Dewey was anticipating an ideal that contemporary

democratic theorists have dubbed ‘deliberative democracy’” (2005:

187). I will show that Westbrook was correct the first time.

The theory of deliberative democracy bears distinct

influence from John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas,3 and especially

important to its origins are Rawls’s notion of “public reason”

(1993: 253) and Habermas’s description of “opinion-formation in a

mobilized public sphere” (1996: 306, 360). As the theory

developed in the 1990s, then, its principles primarily held that

deliberators should argue for their various policy positions in

terms of reasons that others can be reasonably expected to

endorse, and that the outcome of deliberations should be

determined simply by the most convincing such arguments within

the deliberative forum; this deliberation was meant to produce

policies that could be reasonably endorsed by all, to allow equal

opportunity to influence policies, to prevent broader power

structures from determining policy, to lead deliberators to

consider the common good, and to minimize the intensity of

disagreement between deliberators (Bohman 1996, 1998; Knight and 8

Johnson 1997; Cohen 1997; Elster 1998; Gutmann and Thompson

2004).

More recently, deliberative theory has evolved beyond the

narrow focus on an exchange of reasons that are each strictly

oriented toward the common good. Seyla Benhabib represents the

early deliberative view that policies must be articulated “in

discursive language that appeals to commonly shared and accepted

public reasons,” and she denies the deliberative validity of

“greeting, storytelling, and rhetoric” (1996: 83). On this view,

the kind of reasoned argument which impartially seeks the common

good is necessary to achieve deliberative democracy. Dryzek, on

the other hand, allows “argument, rhetoric, humour, emotion,

testimony or storytelling, and gossip,” with the only requirement

being “that communication induce reflection upon preferences in

non-coercive fashion” (2000: 1-2). This view is supported by

Simone Chambers (2009), who argues that rhetoric can be genuinely

deliberative, and by Jane Mansbridge et al. (2010), who seek to

incorporate self-interested policy proposals within the

deliberative model. Even more significantly, Archon Fung (2005)

resolves that under non-ideal social conditions, deliberative 9

democrats cannot maintain an unqualified commitment to

deliberation, and he establishes a correlation between the non-

ideal extent of social conditions and the extent to which

deliberative democrats may turn toward coercive, non-deliberative

forms of participation. For Fung, the more unequal our

conditions are, the more we must make use of non-deliberative

practices, and this contention reveals the lengths deliberative

democrats have more recently gone to take account of the apparent

unsuitability of deliberative principles to unequal social

conditions, and to allow for recourse to practices that do not

strictly adhere to deliberative norms.

I will return to this evolution in deliberative democracy

further below. At this point I will just note that while this

evolution does evince a broadened perspective among deliberative

theorists, it also signifies how deliberative principles must

diminish in importance in order to build a theory that recognizes

the threat to democracy represented by social inequality. I will

argue that this provides room for participatory democrats to show

their lack of commitment to deliberative practices to be a virtue

for democratic theory under unequal conditions, and that Dewey’s 10

pragmatism can be useful to these thinkers in demonstrating their

superior capacity to accommodate practices that are suited to the

non-ideal conditions we currently confront.

A Deweyan Critique of Deliberative Democracy

Dewey’s book, The Public and its Problems, is often taken as the

definitive statement of Dewey’s political theory, and his

argument in this book for “improvement of the methods and

conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion” (1954: 208) can

be seen as a forerunner to deliberative democracy. However,

Dewey’s argument in this book is not that the shortcomings of

current debate are rooted specifically within the forums

established for debate, nor that these shortcomings can be

rectified by setting better standards for what takes place in

such forums. His argument is rather that the power of wealth is

such under current conditions that it corrupts our debates over

policy, and precludes the possibility of honest inquiry into

different policy proposals. He asserts, “The forms of associated

action characteristic of the present economic order are so

massive and extensive that they determine the most significant

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constituents of the public and the residence of power.

Inevitably they reach out to grasp the agencies of government;

they are controlling factors in legislation and administration…

the new forms of combined action due to the modern economic

regime control present politics, much as dynastic interests

controlled those of two centuries ago” (1954: 107-108). Dewey’s

point, then, is that undemocratic social interests are exercising

disproportionate influence over political, policymaking forums,

and are thus standing in the way of honest debate over competing

policy options. If we are to improve “the methods and conditions

of debate, discussion and persuasion,” we must effectively

account for the impact on debate of the inequalities (e.g., those

of wealth) prevailing in the broader society.

Elsewhere, Dewey makes it clear that, in the face of such

inequalities, the issue of achieving better debate should fade to

the background in our plans to bring democracy further into

existence: “I would not minimize the advance scored in

substitution of methods of discussion and conference for the

method of arbitrary rule. But the better is too often the enemy

of the still better…discussion and dialectic, however 12

indispensable they are to the elaboration of ideas and policies

after ideas are once put forth, are weak reeds to depend upon for

systematic origination of comprehensive plans, the plans that are

required if the problem of social organization is to be met”

(1935: 70). For Dewey, under social conditions rife with

structural inequality, we cannot presume progress in a democratic

direction will necessarily result from giving political actors

“the demand for greater honesty and impartiality”; in fact,

within such unequal social conditions, “invention and projection

of far-reaching social plans is demanded” (1935: 73). In other

words, our efforts to achieve democracy must center on enacting

broad plans for overcoming the undemocratic aspects of current

society, which means the manner in which policy debaters interact

diminishes in significance as an aspect of democratization.

Dewey’s own projection of far-reaching social plans is

displayed in his efforts during the 1930s (in the midst of the

Great Depression) to form a new radical political party in the

United States. He describes the attempts of his group (the

League for Independent Political Action) toward forming a new

party as arising from the “realization that our existing 13

political parties in the conduct of government are more concerned

to serve the selfish and financial interests of the few than the

human needs of the many” (LW6: 149). He wishes to avoid the use

of violence to solve this problem, but he also declares that “The

usurpation of functions of government by an economic group in its

own interests gives the opportunity for aggressive attack; and a

sense of conflict and battle is a necessary part of any movement

which enlists the imagination and the emotions” (LW6: 176).

Bracketing for the moment the recent evolution in deliberative

theory toward accommodating coercive, non-deliberative practices,

these statements convey Dewey’s divergence from the initial

principles of deliberative democracy. He does not advocate

exchanging reasons with the wealthy that can be endorsed by all,

but rather inspiring mass support for programs which will reduce

the structural advantages possessed by the wealthy, and thus

compelling concessions from the wealthy. He claims “the financial

and industrial leaders of the nation…will not, except under

compulsion, surrender their most profitable share of a system

which has concentrated four-fifths of the nation’s wealth in the

hands of one twenty-fifth of the people” (LW6: 386).

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Dewey’s democratic thinking stresses the interconnection of

political and social—the idea that interactions within political,

policymaking forums cannot be isolated from the quality of the

broader relations existing in society. Dewey affirms that

“political democracy is not the whole of democracy. On the

contrary, experience has proved that it cannot stand in

isolation. It can be effectively maintained only where democracy

is social…A social democracy signifies, most obviously, a state

of social life where there is a wide and varied distribution of

opportunities; where there is social mobility or scope for change

of position and station” (MW10: 138). When society is ridden

with vast economic inequality, though, political forums cannot be

isolated from the effects of that inequality: “As long as

interests of pecuniary profit are powerful…those who have this

interest will have an unresisted motive for tampering with the

springs of political action in all that affects them” (Dewey

1954: 182). For Dewey, political debate cannot be improved in

isolation from the impact of unequal social conditions, and the

effort to move democracy forward under such conditions must

involve action that is directly aimed at overcoming the social

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inequality.

From the Deweyan perspective, the early deliberative

theorists must isolate political and social when they indicate

that the effects of unequal social status can be neutralized

within the deliberative forum, as long as deliberators are

equally willing to give reasons that can be accepted by others,

and are all given an equal opportunity to speak. Joshua Cohen

establishes that all deliberators are equally bound to “find

reasons that are compelling to others” (1996: 100), and he

maintains that the conditions of equality are met because “the

existing distribution of power and resources” does not determine

who gets to speak (1997: 74). A Deweyan thinker cannot find this

to hold sufficient recognition of the possibility that such

apparent equality within the political forum will bear influence

from the effects of social and economic inequality experienced by

deliberators outside the forum. Rawls attempts to address this

issue with his “original position”, in which the deliberators’

ignorance of their social status ensures that deliberation will

“not be affected by the contingencies of the social world” (1993:

23). But while the original position is an interesting abstract 16

thought experiment, it provides little guidance for coping with

the unequal social conditions we actually confront, and the ways

these conditions can affect political deliberations, which for

Dewey must be central to our democratic analysis.

For example, in a debate between business interests and

labor unions over collective bargaining rights, each side can

likely make its case in terms the other side could “reasonably”

be expected to endorse. The business side can appeal to reasons

based on freedom, equality, the public good, etc., by claiming

that too much money and benefits are guaranteed to workers and

that society as a whole will benefit from decreasing unions’

bargaining power; the labor side can also appeal to reasons based

on freedom, equality, the public good, etc., by arguing that

society has a greater interest in protecting economically

vulnerable families than in ensuring the unfettered advance of

business dealings. When deliberative theory calls for these two

sides to exchange reasons, and for the outcome of deliberation to

be determined by the most convincing argument, it does not

effectively account for Dewey’s emphasis on the structural and

discursive privileges enjoyed by the business side, privileges 17

which have their root in the broader social context. Dewey can

indeed be aligned with contemporary critics of early deliberative

theory, such as Lynn Sanders (1997), Iris Young (1996, 2001),

John Medearis (2005), and Tali Mendelberg and John Oleske (2000),

who have each argued that deliberation cannot be isolated from

the power structures within the broader society. Like these

critics, Dewey holds that the greater social resources available

to certain individuals rather than others, and the greater impact

that socially advantaged individuals can exercise over the common

discourse surrounding pressing policy issues, cannot be prevented

from prejudicing policy debate from the outset.

All the same, there are deliberative theorists who insist

that significant reduction of social and economic inequality is

essential to deliberative democracy, while others do not. Bohman

states that some “social conditions will have to be corrected”

for deliberative democracy to be achieved, and that “large social

inequalities are inconsistent with public forms of deliberation

in egalitarian institutions” (1996: 21). Knight and Johnson

endorse “redistribution of income and wealth” because “citizens

must possess a certain level of income and resources” in order to18

be effective deliberators (1997: 307). Dryzek is on the other

side of this discussion, worrying that “if we regard effective

distribution as a necessary prerequisite for deliberation we may

be in for a long wait” (2000: 172). Similarly, Gutmann and

Thompson assert that “disadvantaged groups usually manage to find

representatives from within their own ranks who are…effective at

articulating their interests and ideals,” thus implying that

those disadvantaged by social inequality are usually not at a

disadvantage within a proper deliberative forum (2004: 50-51).

But, even if we focus only on Bohman, Knight, and Johnson’s

position (that the reduction of social inequality is encompassed

by deliberative democracy), deliberative theory still cannot

address the Deweyan concern regarding social inequality without

compromising its commitment to deliberation. Once we agree that

such inequality represents a democratic problem in its own right,

deliberative theorists must give up their commitment to equal

reason-giving, one way or another. On the one hand, if the

reduction in inequality is supposed to be the result of

deliberation, then the principles of deliberation are

discredited. The outcome of deliberation is supposed to be 19

indeterminate, and if we insist that deliberation result in

reducing social and economic inequality (e.g., by deciding to

redistribute wealth), we would clearly be determining the outcome

ahead of time—an outcome that real-life deliberation under

present circumstances may not likely achieve. Thus, if

deliberation itself is meant to ameliorate this inequality,

deliberative theorists must privilege some reasons (i.e., those

of the disadvantaged) over others, which negates the democratic

validity of an equal exchange of reasons. On the other hand, if

the reduction in inequality is meant merely to be a necessary

prerequisite to genuine deliberation, then it is recognized that

we must look to something besides deliberation to achieve

democracy. Under our current unequal conditions, democratization

could not be equated with the achievement of deliberation, for it

must be conceded that deliberation now is going to be corrupted

by the inequality, and so we must instead focus on reducing

inequality through other means so that deliberation can actually

be democratic. Deliberative democrats cannot then simply require

that social inequality be taken care of before we can start

deliberating, since they must admit that deliberation itself

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cannot solve this democratic problem, and that deliberation will

be undemocratic so long as this problem still exists. Dewey

argues that the effort to achieve democratization under unequal

social conditions should not focus mainly on improving policy

debate, but rather on far-reaching social plans for overcoming

the social inequality that corrupts debate. This indicates his

distinction from thinkers who must effectively concede that the

central feature of their theory (deliberation) cannot address a

(perhaps the) fundamental democratic problem brought by our

current social conditions.

During its emergence as the predominant model of democratic

theory in the 1990s, deliberative democracy was defined by an

equal exchange of reasons between individuals with competing

viewpoints, and Dewey was and continues to be deemed a forefather

of this type of democratic thinking. His emphasis on the

omnipresence of social inequality, and his critique of a focus on

improved policy debate under unequal social conditions,

demonstrate that this portrayal of Dewey is flawed. His efforts

to form a radical political party also exhibit his commitment to

taking direct action toward overcoming inequality in order to 21

democratize society. His party sought to help stimulate a broad

social movement based on a sense of “conflict and battle” with

entrenched power, and thus aimed at highlighting and directly

attacking the current social inequality, which aligns with his

principle that seeking a fair policy debate is a way of

abstracting from this inequality.

Participatory and Deliberative Democracy

Participatory democracy, which was a prominent model of

democratic thought in the 1960s and 70s, has been widely regarded

as effectively incorporated, and improved, by deliberative

theory. Thompson (2008: 511-512) and Robert Goodin (2008: 266)

each see deliberative democracy as inheriting and expanding

participatory principles. Fung (2007: 169) sees both theories as

encouraging individuals to put the public good above their

private interests, and Fung and Erik Olin Wright describe

deliberative democracy as “participatory democratic regeneration”

(2003: 40). For Denise Vitale, deliberative democracy represents

an improvement on participatory democracy because the former

describes the specific forums for direct citizen involvement in

22

policy debate that the latter seems to endorse in merely general

terms (2006: 753-754).

The theory of participatory democracy has been outlined most

fully by Carole Pateman and C.B. Macpherson.4 Pateman explains

that “The theory of participatory democracy is built round the

central assertion that individuals and their institutions cannot

be considered in isolation from one another” (1970: 42). These

institutions are not political institutions alone, for the way in

which individuals experience the structures of power in the

broader society cannot but influence their capacity to influence

political decision-making structures: “democracy must take place

in other spheres in order that the necessary individual attitudes

and psychological qualities can be developed” (1970: 42).

Pateman thus emphasizes the importance of “a participatory

society,” and of recognizing that encouraging “the participatory

process in non-governmental authority structures requires…that

the structures should be democratised” (1970: 20, 45). She

places particular focus on the workplace, and provides empirical

evidence to show that “the development of a sense of political

efficacy does appear to depend on whether [an individual’s] work 23

situation allows him any scope to participate in decision-making”

(1970: 53). This workplace democratization requires concurrent

pursuit of “the substantive measure of economic equality required

to give the individual the independence and security necessary

for (equal) participation” (1970: 43). And, she stresses that

the point here is not to conceive of how such democratization can

be perfectly achieved, but to take present circumstances into

account and “modify…authority structures in a democratic

direction” (1970: 74-75). More recently, Pateman has reaffirmed

these tenets, stating that participatory democracy “is about

changes that will make our own social and political life more

democratic, that will provide opportunities for individuals to

participate in decision-making in their everyday lives as well as

in the wider political system,” and that we must focus on “making

substantive steps towards creating a participatory democracy”

(2012: 10, 15).

Macpherson similarly identifies participatory democracy with

the understanding “that the workability of any political system

depends largely on how all the other institutions, social and

economic, have shaped, or might shape, the people with whom and 24

by whom the political system must operate” (1977: 4). He points

to social inequality as the root of much of the apathy we see

within modern citizenries—because those who are socially

disadvantaged know they must exercise far greater effort than the

well-off to have an effect on political processes—and, like

Pateman, he highlights the democratization of work relations as a

crucial step toward reducing exclusive control of the political

system by powerful interests (1977: 88, 103-104). He also

identifies a “vicious circle” here, though, pointing out that

while we may need a reduction in social inequality to increase

democratic participation in politics, we may equally need an

increase in such democratic participation in order to reduce

social inequality (1977: 99-100). For a solution, he describes a

process in which a democratic change in either the social or

political dimension of this vicious circle will affect the other

dimension, and he explains how “we may look for loopholes

anywhere in the circle, that is, for changes already visible or

in prospect either in the amount of democratic participation or

in social inequality” (1977: 101). And, again like Pateman,

Macpherson rejects the attempt to “simply try to draw mechanical

25

blue-prints of the proposed political system,” and focuses on the

movement in the direction of participatory ideals by asking “what

roadblocks have to be removed, i.e. what changes in our present

society” are necessary to further democratize politics and

society (1977: 98-99).

Participatory democrats are not necessarily opposed to the

idea of reason-giving described by deliberative democrats, but

they also have not committed to such reason-giving as though this

practice were equivalent to democratization. Pateman explains

that participatory democracy works toward allowing individuals

“to exercise the maximum amount of control over their own lives

and environment” (1970: 43), and this idea of control cannot be

grasped simply as engagement in reason-giving on policy matters.

This participatory idea entails the greatest possible control

over one’s path in life—from one’s choice of work and family life

to one’s capacity to influence political institutions—and it

focuses our attention on transforming society in order to rectify

the prevalent social threats (e.g., structural inequality) to

such individual self-government. When deliberative thinkers like

Bohman, Knight, and Johnson insist on the reduction of social and26

economic inequality, they hit on an important anti-deliberative

point: under conditions of structural inequality, we move in the

direction of democracy by overcoming that inequality, not by

instituting a deliberative process with an indeterminate outcome.

In its advocacy of this type of social transformation,

participatory democracy has given no priority to the practice of

deliberation. Participatory theory continuously pursues

democracy, rather than continuously pursuing deliberation.

Participatory theorists’ endorsement of universal basic

income helps illustrate the distinction here between

participatory and deliberative democracy on the capacity to

account for social inequality. A universal basic income is

unconditionally guaranteed to all citizens by the government, and

is large enough on its own to ensure the citizens’ basic needs

are met. Such a policy would signify an attempt to remedy social

and economic inequality, and could also have a democratic impact

on the political realm, the other side of Macpherson’s “vicious

circle”; this policy can open opportunities to individuals who

were previously forced by poverty into alienating occupations,

while also avoiding, because it is universal, stigmatizing its 27

recipients in the way Medearis5 observes welfare policies often

do (Murray and Pateman 2012). Some deliberative theorists may

endorse such a policy, but they cannot do so without effectively

advocating something quite different from deliberative democracy—

either they must determine the policy outcome of deliberation

before deliberation has taken place, or they must concede that

the work of democratization must be done with non-deliberative

means.

Dewey and Participatory Democracy

The depictions of participatory democracy in the 1960s and 70s

contain little discussion of Dewey. This is perhaps a result of

the fact that, after Dewey’s death in 1952, his thought had

largely faded from view until Richard Rorty’s work in the late

70s and early 80s. Macpherson does provide an analysis of

Dewey’s principles, but his analysis is quite critical. He

claims that Dewey “was not interested in any analysis of

capitalism,” that he was unaware of the way government had become

unresponsive to those who do not belong to the economic elite,

and that he believed “everything would work out to the best

28

advantage of everybody” if citizens would simply make more

rational use of current political institutions (1977: 74-76).

To say that Dewey was unconcerned with the undemocratic

effects of capitalism is a great distance from the truth. He in

fact argues that “The idea of a pre-established harmony between

the existing so-called capitalistic regime and democracy is as

absurd a piece of metaphysical speculation as human history has

ever evolved” (1939: 72); that the exercise of power by “the

political state…is pale in contrast with that exercised by

concentrated and organized property interests” (1935: 64); and

that when one calls attention to “how inequitably [capitalism’s]

economic conditions are distributed,” too often it is “considered

an aspersion on our rugged individualism and an attempt to stir

up class feeling” (1962: 106-107). As we have seen, Dewey is

aware of how government is not currently “an instrument in the

service of the people,” because, “under the system of competition

for power and competition for command of power, [government is]

the tool and instrument of selfish acquisitive interests” (LW11:

280). And as we have also seen, Dewey does not simply call on

individuals to make more rational use of current political 29

institutions, because the workings of political institutions

cannot be isolated from the democratic or undemocratic quality of

broader social relations (1954: 143).

As with the participatory democrats, Dewey focuses on the

current “roadblocks” to the control individuals may exercise over

their development, and argues that democracy is further achieved

to the extent we overcome those obstacles. He identifies the

opportunity to influence political institutions as an important

aspect of such individual self-government, but he insists that

this political democracy cannot be achieved without the

concurrent development of social democracy. His theory thus

buttresses participatory theory’s advocacy of the transformation

of society through the democratization of non-governmental

authority structures and the reduction of social and economic

inequality. Dewey declares that “the relations which exist

between persons, outside of political institutions…deeply affect

the attitudes and habits expressed in government and rules of

law. If it is true that the political and legal react to shape

the other things, it is even more true that political

institutions are an effect, not a cause” (1939: 6). He 30

emphasizes the “interaction” between these political and social

relations, conceiving policy debate as in-severable from the

quality of broader social relations, which are themselves

influenced by policy outputs (1939: 23). He describes his

planned radical political party as being “opportunistic in

application” (LW6: 177), taking advantage of available

opportunities to achieve progress in both overcoming the

exclusive control of political institutions by powerful

interests, and overcoming social and economic inequality, while

holding, like Macpherson, that progress on one task could have a

democratic effect on the other. Contra Macpherson, therefore,

Dewey should be embraced by participatory theorists, for his

principles imply that participatory theory captures the

interrelated social and political elements of democracy’s

development.

Dewey’s own guidelines for overcoming current obstacles to

self-government and democratizing society closely resemble those

of the participatory democrats. He argues for ensuring “greater

ability on the part of the workers in any particular trade or

occupation to control that industry” (LW13: 313), and he 31

advocates “a basis of material security [that] will release the

powers of individuals” (1935: 91), which is similar to the

universal basic income policy described above. For Dewey, it is

necessary to enact plans like these toward overcoming current

threats to self-government, because democracy is a multi-faceted

ideal that is defined by its continuous development, rather than

by its full achievement: “Since things do not attain fulfillment

but are in actuality distracted and interfered with, democracy in

this sense is not a fact and never will be” (1954: 148). To

achieve democracy, in his view, we must be aware of the evolving,

interrelated social and political obstacles to self-government,

and enact effective plans for overcoming the current obstacles

and further actualizing the never-finished process of

democratization.

As noted above, Dewey could agree that proper deliberation

represents the ideal for the political element of democracy, but

his pragmatist philosophy specifically objects to a focus on an

ideal in abstraction from the conditions we currently confront.

He associates pragmatism with intelligent action, or, “doing

which has intelligent direction, which takes cognizance of 32

conditions, observes relations of sequence, and which plans and

executes in the light of this knowledge” (1929: 36). His

pragmatism primarily demands that our ideas and practices be

intelligently evolved in response to current conditions, and

while he does uphold the importance of guiding ideals for our

action, he warns that “plans of betterment are mere indulgences

unless they are based upon taking existing conditions into

account” (Dewey and Tufts 1932: 382), and that “an aim not framed

on the basis of a survey of those present conditions” will lead

us to “thrash about in a blind ineffectual way” (Dewey 1922:

233). This helps illustrate why Dewey states that the quality of

policy debate should not be our central concern under unequal

social conditions, for that issue could only be tackled through

transformation of those social conditions. He may agree with

deliberative democrats about how political debate would ideally

proceed if it were buttressed by a fully democratized society,

but his plans for achieving democracy focus on what is demanded

by our current conditions.

I claim this recognition of the unsuitability of the

deliberative ideal to our current social conditions leads us to 33

detect Dewey’s value to participatory democracy. Deliberative

democracy commits to a particular mode of participation (i.e.,

engaging in deliberative reason-giving), and participatory

democrats can draw on Dewey to demonstrate why democratic theory

should give greater attention to non-deliberative modes of

participation. The term “modes of participation” is borrowed

from Jeffrey Hilmer (2010), who also argues for a revival of

participatory democracy against deliberative democracy; Hilmer

finds the independence of participatory democracy from

deliberative democracy to lie in how the former does not define

itself only by a particular mode of participation, but by

democratizing “sectors of participation” (e.g., the workplace)

that are not given sufficient attention by deliberative

democrats. While Hilmer’s identification of the democratization

of such “sectors of participation” as a distinguishing feature of

participatory theory is correct, he does not consider whether

there might be “modes of participation” that are appropriate to

participatory theory, but are less comfortably accommodated by

deliberative theory. I argue that Dewey helps illuminate the

need, under unequal social conditions, for modes of participation

34

that differ greatly from deliberative reason-giving, and that

participatory democrats can coherently accommodate such modes and

thus distinguish their theory firmly from the defining feature of

deliberative theory.

As noted above, Dewey refers to “discussion and dialectic”

as “weak reeds” to depend upon “if the problem of social

organization is to be met,” and as also described above, Dewey

sought to create a radical political party during the Great

Depression that would be based on a sense of “conflict and

battle” with the socially advantaged (the economic elite, in

particular), and that would pursue and inspire support for

policies that counteract such advantage. In addition, Dewey

supported and participated in practices which took to the streets

to overcome social inequality; he himself marched in the streets

for women’s suffrage in the early 20th century, and during the

1894 Pullman workers’ strike in Chicago, he displayed strong

support for the workers and a belief that such strikes were

progressive conflicts (Westbrook 1991: 86, 167; Ryan 1995: 111,

161). These types of practices, or modes of participation, can

be more comfortably accommodated by participatory democracy than 35

by deliberative democracy. Participatory theory has focused on

the democratization of society, while deliberative theory has

promoted the notion that social inequality can be neutralized by

proper rules of discourse. By drawing on Dewey, participatory

theorists can show their capacity to accommodate modes of

participation that proceed on the basis that social inequality is

insuppressible and must be directly attacked and overcome, as

opposed to the deliberative mode of participation’s attempt to

bracket inequality.

Now, some deliberative democrats have implied that practices

such as protests and strikes are actually examples of

deliberative reason-giving.6 This claim, however, requires

jettisoning precisely what deliberative democrats hold to be

valuable about the reason-giving process they describe. Reason-

giving is meant to mitigate the intensity of moral disagreement,

encourage competing interests to make proposals that are

acceptable to their opponents, and produce policies that are

justified to all involved. Unlike reason-giving, these modes of

participation Dewey endorses do not require that socially

disadvantaged individuals argue only for policies that can be 36

acceptable to the advantaged, and they do not presume that

certain rules of discourse can assure equality between the

advantaged and the disadvantaged. These practices typically

carry the connotation that social inequality is so pervasive that

it cannot be merely bracketed—therefore, they aim more at

allowing socially disadvantaged individuals to take direct action

toward overcoming their unequal conditions, and to do so without

having to satisfy the advantaged individuals at each step of the

way. A workers’ strike, for example, is non-deliberative because

it is usually based on the problem of the discourse between

workers and management being intrinsically unfair and imbalanced.

The workers withhold their labor in order to disrupt the normal

workings of the enterprise, and in order to compel management to

concede through that active disruption—and this cannot be

considered “deliberative” behavior on the terms established by

deliberative democracy. Dewey’s pragmatism indicates that

practices which coerce the advantaged into conceding cannot

necessarily be deemed undemocratic under unequal social

conditions, and participatory democracy can draw on this insight

in distinguishing itself from deliberative democracy.

37

A more interesting deliberative objection would point to the

recent evolution in deliberative democracy toward acknowledging

the validity of practices that differ from ideal reason-giving.

This turn is exemplified by Fung (2005), who concedes that

unequal social conditions can effectively nullify the principles

and practices espoused by deliberative theory, and he attempts to

establish the types of non-deliberative action that deliberative

democrats may engage in while they are confronted with such

unequal conditions. For example, he references a 2001 occupation

of Harvard University’s administrative offices by students and

workers demanding a wage increase for the workers, and describes

how this non-deliberative form of participation was necessary to

effect the wage increase, given the virtual impossibility of a

fair deliberation with administrators who held vastly superior

decision-making power and who felt little motivation to take the

views of students and workers seriously. Such an increased focus

on non-deliberative action does indicate that deliberative

theorists have taken social inequality more seriously, but this

focus simultaneously diminishes the central category (i.e.,

deliberation) of their theory. The need to stray from

38

deliberation under the conditions we currently confront is just

the point that participatory democrats (particularly when infused

with Deweyan insights) can emphasize without having to contradict

their primary focus on the extension of democracy throughout

society. Deliberative democrats’ acceptance of non-deliberative

practices under unequal conditions must, by contrast,

uncomfortably hold that deliberation must be both central to our

democratic thought, and largely disregarded in coping with

current conditions. Participatory theory need not go through any

contortions to account for the point—emphasized by Dewey’s

pragmatism, and effectively conceded by this recent deliberative

theory—that our modes of participation must be suited to our

current conditions. If we agree that social inequality is

perhaps our most fundamental democratic problem, if we agree that

the conditions which effectively exclude vulnerable individuals

from exercising power (as in Fung’s example of the Harvard

dispute over wages) are prevalent in current society, then this

suggests that the non-deliberative practices necessary to address

that inequality should be given a central role in democratic

theory, and not discussed merely as an accessory to a focus on

39

deliberation.

There have been a few recent attempts to separate Dewey from

deliberative democracy and to link him with participatory

democracy, but they have not comprehended the significance of

non-deliberative, Deweyan modes of participation. R.W. Hildreth

(2012) contends that Dewey can be used to integrate participatory

and deliberative theory, but Hildreth’s analysis limits

participatory action to activists’ attempts to frame issues

before those issues are ultimately resolved within the

deliberative forum, and to the testing and assessing of the

policies that were decided upon through deliberation. Judith

Green (1999, 2008) uses Dewey to object to the limitation of

democracy to merely “formal” political institutions (though she

does not criticize deliberative democracy on this point), and

does associate him with the participatory tradition, but her

project mainly advocates the reinvigoration of local communities,

while also encouraging those communities to be respectful of

diversity and other communities. Shane Ralston (2010) does not

address participatory democracy but does challenge the

deliberative portrayal of Dewey, though his focus is primarily on40

the interpretive point that Dewey’s theory does not merely extend

moral argumentation into political discussion (as Ralston claims

deliberative democrats do), but rather considers social and

political issues to already be moral issues. My analysis shows

how Dewey’s work not only reinforces participatory principles

(with his emphasis on interrelated social and political threats

to self-government, and on the need to transform society in order

to democratize politics), but also how he can be used to show why

participatory theory deserves autonomy from, and perhaps

promotion above, deliberative theory because of its capacity to

accommodate practices suited to our current conditions without

compromising its central attributes.

If participatory theory has been unclear on any particular

point, it would be the specific practices it endorses for

effecting democratization of governmental and non-governmental

authority structures, and this has given room for some thinkers

(e.g., Vitale) to attest that deliberative theory’s commitment to

specific deliberative practices shows the superiority of

deliberative to participatory democracy. Jack Walker does

associate participatory democracy with broadly based social 41

movements (1966: 289, 293, 294), but Dewey’s analysis can be

useful to participatory democrats in conveying why exactly a

commitment to deliberation is not a virtue. By avoiding such a

commitment, participatory theory can make room for a mass

movement—as Dewey hoped to help stimulate with his political

party—which would be based on conflict with entrenched power and

on overcoming social inequality, without having to contradict any

principal emphasis on deliberative reason-giving. There is

something of an empty spot in participatory democracy regarding

its particular modes of participation, and it can be productively

filled with Dewey’s pragmatist idea of suiting our practices to

the unequal social conditions we currently confront.

Conclusion

This article has argued against the popular belief that Dewey

should be deemed a forefather of deliberative democracy, and has

argued instead that his theory can help turn democratic theory

toward participatory democracy. I have shown that, under unequal

social conditions, Dewey would hold deliberative democracy to

signify a displacement of our theoretical attention, for this

42

theory associates democracy with an exchange of reasons where

individuals are effectively assumed to already have equal status.

Dewey’s theory buttresses participatory democracy’s emphasis on

the threat to democratic self-government represented by social

inequality and undemocratic non-governmental authority

structures, and his pragmatism highlights the danger of focusing

on an ideal (e.g., deliberation) that is not suited to the

(unequal) conditions we currently confront. The main lesson

current thinkers take from Dewey’s pragmatism is that democracy

involves a debate between different views and the victory of the

most reasonable one, but this overlooks the pragmatist principle

that practices be suited to current conditions, and Dewey indeed

emphasizes that focusing on policy debate under unequal

conditions represents an abstraction from the inequality.

Deliberative democracy need not be completely rejected on Deweyan

terms, for it does capture the qualities of ideal policy

discussion and has increasingly conceded the necessity of non-

deliberative practices, but participatory democracy is the main

beneficiary of Dewey’s work through its capacity to accommodate

his pragmatist insights without contradicting its central tenets.

43

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48

1 Many references to Dewey’s works will be to The Collected Works of John

Dewey, cited by EW (Early Works), MW (Middle Works), or LW (Later Works),

and the page number.

2 This is simply to say, authority structures outside the typical

institutions of government, such as the workplace.

3 Rawls and Habermas do have their differences, but as they both

note, those differences are “familial”; see Habermas (1995) and Rawls

(1995).

4 Benjamin Barber (1984) calls himself a participatory theorist, but

his theory focuses on simply encouraging all citizens to transform

their private interests into public interests, and he says this issue

deserves primacy over economic democratization, which signifies a

wide divergence from the work of Pateman and Macpherson.

5 Medearis (2008) effectively critiques Gutmann and Thompson’s (1996)

view on welfare, showing how welfare policies can reinforce the

stigmatized social status of welfare recipients.

6 Gutmann and Thompson (2004: 50), for instance, claim that the

actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement

were examples of deliberative reason-giving.