Deliberation and Inclusion: Framing Online Public Debate to Enlarge Participation. A Theoretical Proposal

Thanks to the work of J. Rawls, J. Cohen and J. Habermas, philosophy and political science have contributed to the elaboration of a political theory of deliberation which considers the relationship of legitimacy between citizens and politics from the perspective of procedure and discourse. These theoretical approaches configure a normative conception of deliberation which hardly engages with reality, and in fine, limits the scope of citizens’ participation to mere verbal expression. Starting with a criticism of Habermas’s conception of the role of language in the emergence of value preferences, this article aims to show that communication is embedded in a material and cultural framework which shapes—in a non deterministic fashion—one’s perception, knowledge, and norms. Therefore, deliberation can be reformulated as an inclusive democratic process in which expression, grounded in its material and technological environment, can be framed by the citizen in the way he chooses. * Professor, Political Communication Studies, Compiègne University of Technology, France (Costech Lab). Many thanks to John Stewart, a researcher in our Lab, for translating the original text in French. Habermas’s and Joas’s quotes are translated from their French version. Thanks also to Beth S. Noveck, Peter M. Shane, and David Lazer for their very useful comments on the first draft of this paper. The author can be contacted for further discussion at [email protected]. I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY FOR THE INFORMATION SOCIETY 88 I/S: A JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY [Vol. 5:1