Deliberative Democracy, Chicago Style

1. The Strange Appearance of Deliberative Democracy Chicago's neighborhoods might strike both casual observers and the initiated as rather infertile ground for the seeds of deliberative democracy to take root and bear fruit. The city's tradition of machine politics—a reward system that delivers spoils in exchange for obedience—hardly seems conducive to a politics that relies upon fairness and reason. Progressive reformers concerned with the efficiency of municipal government responded to this systemic undue influence by attempting to insulate urban administration from its politics. By the second half of this century, they erected insular bureaucracies designed to run according to the internal logic of managerial and civil expertise whose personnel would be directed internally by the combined knowledge of their profession and bound by its codes of service and responsibility. While these arrangements partially liberated municipal departments such as the police force and the school system from political machine manipulations, this shield of bureaucratic autonomy would also deflect more democratic or deliberative public scrutiny, criticism, and influence. The city's formidable grassroots tradition—its civic and neighborhood associations—might seem a more promising point of departure for popular deliberation. But the very reasons that organizations like Saul Alinsky's The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) evoke admiration and imitation—their ability to win pitch battles against these political machines and overweening bureaucracies—suits them well for gladiatorial arenas even as it renders them suspicious of those who propose reason and discussion as a strategy for engaging powerful antagonists.