Citizenship Theory

the institutions of constitutional freedom are worth only

as much as a population makes of them (Habermas)

Citizenship Theory and Deliberative Democracy

Rational

Citizen*

Reasonable
Sense of Fairness (Reciprocity)
Moral Powers

Individual Voting
(vote-centric)

Influence on
Policy Formation

Capacity for a Conception

of the Good

The Fact of
Pluralism**

Group Deliberating
(talk-centric)

E.g., Deliberative Poll

Influence on
Policy Formation

* of a liberal, constitutional democracy

** Derived from diverse visions of the good

the health and stability of a modern democracy depends, not only on the justice of its
basic institutions, but also on the qualities and attitudes of its citizens

What are the basic requirements of citizenship

and how should these be supported?
What are civic virtues and can - or should -these be taught?
Are civic virtues of intrinsic or instrumental
value -- or of any value at all?
Is there any meaning to the phrase citizen of
the world or cosmopolitan citizenship?

Virtues and Practices of Democratic Citizenship

T. H. Marshalls Citizenship and Social Class (1949)
o Citizenship Rights
Civil and Political Rights
o Expanding sphere of inclusiveness

Social rights
o Eg public education, healthcare, unemployment insurance and social
security

o for Marshall, the fullest expression of citizenship requires a liberal

democratic welfare state

Wm. Galstons notion of responsible citizenship

o General Virtues (law-abidingness, courage, loyalty)
o Social Virtues (independence, open-mindedness)
o Economic Virtues (work ethics, delay of self-gratification, adaptability to
economic and technological change)
o Political Virtues (capacity to discern and respect the rights of others,
willingness to demand only that which can somehow be paid for, ability to
evaluate those in office; willingness to engage in public discourse)
The virtue of public discourse also involves the willingness to engage in
conversation: to listen as well as to speak, to seek to understand what others
say, and to respond respectfully to the views of others, so as to continue the
conversation

Public Reasonableness and

the Regulatory Ideal of Deliberation
the only way in which a human being can
make some approach to knowing the whole of a
subject, is by hearing what can be said about it
by persons of every variety of opinion -- JS
Mill, On Liberty
An ideal of deliberationwould take us
ultimately to something like the ideal speech
situation of Jurgen Habermas -- a situation of
free and equal discussion, unlimited in its
duration, constrained only by the consensus
which would be arrived at by the force of the
better argument -- Jim Fishkin, Democracy
and Deliberation

the Interface between the State and

Civil Society*
Princes,
the Aristocracy and
the Emerging Nation-State

The State

Public
Opinion

Merchants/
Bourgeois

Public Sphere
Civil Society
Private Sphere
*Habermas:The Structural Transformation
Of the Public Sphere

The Problem of Public Opinion

The Old Problem: Platos critique and the ad populum fallacy

Changing the political meaning of opinion: the rise of 18th
Century opinion publique

o The opinion of the public that put its reason to use was no longer
just opinion: it did not arise from mere inclination but from private
reflection upon public affairs and from their public discussion
(Habermas summarizing Edmund Burke)

Bryce and Gallop

20th Century Communication Theory

o Bryce ascertained the importance of public opinion in American

politics and the mechanical difficulty of ascertaining it; he also
perceived the problem of opinion formation (The American
Commonwealth, 1888)
o Gallup solved the mechanical problem through random sampling
and repeated polling, but the problem of opinion formation
remains.
o Eugene Hently and Philip Converse
Empirical evidence for the fragility and superficiality of opinions
o Magnified by the mass media

Forums for Deliberative Democracy

National Coalition for

Dialogue and Deliberation

Civic Republicanism
Aristotelian Republicanism
o Intrinsic value of political participation (the liberty of the Ancients)
o Second Order Communitarian virtue: the common good to be promoted through
political participation is not some pre-political cultural practice or tradition, but the
intrinsic value of political participation itself
o The problem is one of transition: If deliberative democratic forums already in place,
then people would find it rewarding to participate in them
But the liberty of the Moderns has cultivated a rich private life (intimacy, love,
leisure, consumption, and work)
Further, the fact of pluralism defeats not only traditional communitarianism, but
also the revival of Aristotelian republicanism; people can disagree about the
intrinsic value of political participation itself

Liberal Citizenship
o Instrumental view of political participation (necessary for the stability of a democratic
society)
o Cultivation of civic virtues (toleration, civility, public reasonableness)
The problem of cultivation: disagreements over, for example, the curriculum of
civics classes
o no single institution can be relied upon as the exclusive seedbed of civic
virtue citizens learn an overlapping set of virtues from an overlapping set
of institutions

 We see a growing emphasis on the need for people

to be active citizens who participate in public
deliberation, at the same time, we see a trend
toward greater apathy, passivity, and withdrawal
into the private sphere of family, career and
personal projects (Kymlicka)
To make a democracy that works, we need citizens
who are engaged, communities that function, and
media that speak for us as well as about us. If we
pay attention to the conditions under which citizens
become reconnected to public life, we can create
a public worthy of public opinion and public
judgment. It would indeed be a magic town if we
brought such a spirit to the entire country (Fishkin)

Cosmopolitan Citizenship

Two Big Forces

Demographic
Explosion
1960: 3 Billion
1990: 5 Billion
2020: c. 8 Billion

Unprecedented
Stresses
E.g., Today almost 1/2 the population live
on $2 per day; 95% of the new
population will be in developing countries.

Unprecedented
Stresses
Technological
Revolution

Economic
Revolution

New World
Economy

Unprecedented
Opportunities
E.g., Earlier revolutions transformed
energy or materials; this one transforms
time and distance, cutting deeply into the
fabric of society (production and service
can cut across 5 or 6 countries).

The New Reality of Struggling Nation-States

Sovereignty Meter: 50%

Sovereignty Meter: 100%

Political
System

Economic System

Political
System

Economic System
Environmental System

The world is going this way

Environmental System