Great piece! I would add that, sometimes, we have to build toward deliberative interaction—we might start with a focus on the relationship itself rather than the issues that can lead to conflict.
Another well written and interesting piece! Although I did a quick skim through the book by Helene Landemore yesterday morning and I think I've found a glaring self contradiction regarding something that might have a large impact on the book's broader thesis; see here on page 28 she writes:
"More fundamentally, we expect the majority of citizens’ preferences to be causal in the way laws and policies are determined. But in the United States, some time between 1981 and 2002, neither correspondence nor causation seems to have obtained (and it seems hard to believe that things were better before 1981"
But later in the book, on page 210 she writes:
"too much local sovereignty on, among other things, sanitary and health issues has been conceded, since the early 1980s, to international markets and the liberal mantra of free trade, division of labor, and minimization of costs. Expanding the scope of democracy on some things (like capital flow regulation, climate change, etc.) is compatible with relocalizing popular rule on other issues"
See, she contradicts herself there by acknowledging that a major shift toward ceding local sovereignty to international markets and neoliberal policies occurred in the early 1980s. If too much sovereignty was lost starting in that period, then by her own logic, there must have been more democratic control prior to it. In reality, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the view that things were demonstrably better before 1981. Before the neoliberal restructuring of the economy and governance, the USA had stronger regional decision-making, more robust capital flow regulations, and a decentralized political landscape that allowed for meaningful public input through mass-member parties and other participatory mechanisms. Economic policy was more responsive to the needs of workers and local communities, rather than being dictated by financialized globalization. The dismantling of these structures, particularly from the late 1970s onward, where she begins her time frame in those passages I shared, coincided with the very erosion of democratic causation in policy that she laments, proving that the earlier system, while very imperfect, was far more democratic than what followed.
And this opens up a possible large number of self contradictions that seem to be littered across the entire book, because she seems to regularly lament the products, functionings, and dynamics we're experiencing with "representative democracy", but we do not actually have representative democracy......
Great piece! I would add that, sometimes, we have to build toward deliberative interaction—we might start with a focus on the relationship itself rather than the issues that can lead to conflict.
Another well written and interesting piece! Although I did a quick skim through the book by Helene Landemore yesterday morning and I think I've found a glaring self contradiction regarding something that might have a large impact on the book's broader thesis; see here on page 28 she writes:
"More fundamentally, we expect the majority of citizens’ preferences to be causal in the way laws and policies are determined. But in the United States, some time between 1981 and 2002, neither correspondence nor causation seems to have obtained (and it seems hard to believe that things were better before 1981"
But later in the book, on page 210 she writes:
"too much local sovereignty on, among other things, sanitary and health issues has been conceded, since the early 1980s, to international markets and the liberal mantra of free trade, division of labor, and minimization of costs. Expanding the scope of democracy on some things (like capital flow regulation, climate change, etc.) is compatible with relocalizing popular rule on other issues"
See, she contradicts herself there by acknowledging that a major shift toward ceding local sovereignty to international markets and neoliberal policies occurred in the early 1980s. If too much sovereignty was lost starting in that period, then by her own logic, there must have been more democratic control prior to it. In reality, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the view that things were demonstrably better before 1981. Before the neoliberal restructuring of the economy and governance, the USA had stronger regional decision-making, more robust capital flow regulations, and a decentralized political landscape that allowed for meaningful public input through mass-member parties and other participatory mechanisms. Economic policy was more responsive to the needs of workers and local communities, rather than being dictated by financialized globalization. The dismantling of these structures, particularly from the late 1970s onward, where she begins her time frame in those passages I shared, coincided with the very erosion of democratic causation in policy that she laments, proving that the earlier system, while very imperfect, was far more democratic than what followed.
And this opens up a possible large number of self contradictions that seem to be littered across the entire book, because she seems to regularly lament the products, functionings, and dynamics we're experiencing with "representative democracy", but we do not actually have representative democracy......