This article intervenes in the debate on the place of religious arguments in public reason. I advance the debate not by asking whether something called " religious reasons " ought to be invoked in the justification of coercive laws, but by creating a typology of (a) different kinds and forms of religious arguments and, more importantly, (b) different areas of political and social life which coercive laws regulate or about which human political communities deliberate. Religious arguments are of many different kinds, are offered to others in a variety of ways, and the spheres of life about which communities deliberate pose distinct moral questions. Turning back to the public reason debate, I argue then that political liberals ought to be concerned primarily about the invocation of a certain subset of religious reasons in a certain subset of areas of human activity, but also that inclusivist arguments on behalf of religious contributions to public deliberation fail to justify the use of religious arguments in all areas of public deliberation.

This paper explores theoretical and practical distinctions between individual citizens ('citizens') and organized groups ('stakeholder representatives' or 'stakeholders' for short) in public participation processes convened by government as part of policy development. Distinctions between 'citizen' and 'stakeholder' involvement are commonplace in government discourse and practice; public involvement practitioners also sometimes rely on this distinction in designing processes and recruiting for them. Recognizing the complexity of the distinction, we examine both normative and practical reasons why practitioners may lean toward-or away from-recruiting citizens, stakeholders, or both to take part in deliberations, and how citizen and stakeholder roles can be separated or combined within a process. The article draws on a 2012 Canadian-Australian workshop of deliberation researchers and practitioners to identify key challenges and understandings associated with the categories of stakeholder and citizen and their application, and hopes to continue this conversation with the researcher-practitioner community.

Most analyses of public opinion polling focus on questions of bias or accuracy. In contrast, this study assumes the validity of polling and instead investigates polling data as a form of rhetorical argument. While ancient and modern traditions conceive of doxa as unstated collective opinion, modern opinion polling represents a transformation of the concept of doxa in deliberative democracies. By analyzing specific polls, polling data is shown to advance implicit claims about public policy and good governance. Thus, polling data do not embody an objective empirical artifact, but rather a form of deliberative argumentation that is at odds with democratic life. The study concludes by advocating a revitalization of the public culture of contestation and by discussing more indirect, intuitive means of assessing larger opinion trends.

At a time when democracy finds itself on the brink, between disaffection and disenchantment, in search of new forms of participation, the author rereads the work by two economists, James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, to draw useful ideas from, in order to face prevailing challenges. The novelty and the objective of The Calculus of Consent is that of formulating a theory that seeks to explain how democracies and collective choices effectively function, apart from “ideal” models. Through their contribution, Buchanan and Tullock dismantle the ascertained dichotomy of the market as a place of self-interest and of politics as a place for the common good (and of altruistic behaviour). A unified reading is, instead, proposed
of an individual’s behaviour: homo oeconomicus and homo politicus are cut from the same cloth, cooperation and personal advantage are found both in the economic field as in the political one. And in both fields a mutually advantageous cooperation may be pursued.

El giro empírico de la teoría deliberativa ha puesto de relieve las tensiones “prácticas” del ideal de democracia deliberativa, algunas de ellas ya señaladas en el debate teórico. Esto ha dado lugar a nuevas aproximaciones sociológicas orientadas a definir modelos complejos e impuros de democracia deliberativa y deliberación pública. Complejos, porque lo que se persigue es que un conjunto de instituciones o procesos sociales y políticos consigan, en su conjunto, satisfacer de manera razonable los estándares normativos asociados a la democracia deliberativa. Impuros, porque se acepta que las limitaciones que enfrenta la democracia deliberativa son tales, que se hace necesario, en la práctica, asociar nuevas expectativas a este ideal político (v.g. no perseguir el consenso, sino el meta-consenso) y buscar arreglos institucionales que puedan ser juzgados como realistas. El giro sistémico de la teoría deliberativa o los enfoques retóricos a la misma constituyen sendas respuestas a este reto. La teoría del aprendizaje colectivo de la sociología cognitiva habermasiana también ofrece una alternativa potencial a este desafío. La ponencia expone este panorama, explica brevemente en qué consiste cada una de las respuestas precitadas y, sobre todo, reconstruye esta teoría del aprendizaje colectivo y defiende su oportunidad y plausibilidad.

Comment l’Union européenne peut-elle parvenir à mieux informer et communiquer avec ses citoyens ? Quelles sont les initiatives participatives et délibératives qu’elle a promues à ces fins ? Peuvent-elles contribuer à atténuer sa crise de légitimité chronique ? Devraient-elles être institutionnalisées à l’intérieur du processus décisionnel européen?

Et si oui, comment procéder ? Autant de questions auxquelles cet ouvrage apporte des réponses concrètes, grâce à ses analyses – réalisées par des experts reconnus dans le domaine de la démocratie délibérative – des principales expériences participatives promues par l’Union européenne. En comparant les différentes tentatives d’accroître l’engagement des citoyens et en évaluant leur impact, cet ouvrage propose une contribution importante et originale sur le potentiel des innovations visant à renforcer la légitimité démocratique de l’Union européenne.

« L’Europe est à la croisée des chemins : soit elle développe la participation des citoyens en vue d’accroître sa légitimité politique, soit son existence sera menacée. Ce livre nous aide à mieux comprendre comment la première voie pourrait être crédible. »

Yves Sintomer, Université Paris 8, France

« Ce livre apporte une contribution opportune et originale sur l’efficacité des expériences délibératives au niveau européen. »

Lucy Hatton, Journal of Common Market Studies, 2014

This article argues that, given the current pervasive uncertainty about the reliability of jury deliberation, we ought to treat it with epistemic humility. I further argue that epistemic humility should be expressed and enforced by turning jury deliberation from a mandatory rule of the jury trial to a waivable right of the defendant. I consider two main objections to my argument: the first one concerns the putative self-defeatingness of humility attitudes; the second objection points to the burdensomeness of granting an unconditional jury deliberation waiver to the defendant.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide a network analysis of Twitter discussions about Myung-Bak Lee, a former president of South Korea, to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the public opinion exchange on Twitter.

Design/methodology/approach
– Opinion leaders in the discussion network were identified by considering the longitudinal distribution of tweets containing the former president’s name, and three types of messages (“followings,” “mentions,” and “retweets”) were analyzed using data collected from November 1, 2011, to April 20, 2012. The sample included 26,150 Twitter users and 892,034 relationships reflecting three types of messages.

Findings
– The results indicate that the discussion about President Myung-Bak Lee was dominated by liberal Twitter users who already had considerable influence both online and offline. In addition, Twitter users were unlikely to interact with other users with opposing political views.

Research limitations/implications
– Almost all of the opinion leaders identified in the study held liberal political views, and liberal Twitter users dominated the discussion network. In addition, the Korean Twitter network showed the presence of the homophily phenomenon, implying that opinion leaders’ influence within the Twitter network was limited to other users sharing the same political views. Further, political views of opinion leaders were skewed toward a particular political stance without necessarily representing the opinion of the general public, possibly hindering the democratic process.

Originality/value
– This study tests the homophily thesis in the context of Twitter users in Korea and contributes to the literature on Twitter-based political discourse by identifying opinion leaders in Korean Twitter networks and examining the phenomenon of homophily within those networks.

This paper shows how the two virtues of collective intelligence – cognitive diversity and large crowds – turn into perils in crowdsourced policymaking. That is because of a conflict between the logic of the crowds and the logic of policymaking. The crowd’s logic differs from that of traditional policymaking in several aspects. To mention some of those: In traditional
policymaking it is a small group of experts making proposals to the policy, whereas in crowdsourced policymaking, it is a large, anonymous crowd with a
mixed level of expertise. The crowd proposes atomic ideas, whereas traditional policymaking is used to dealing with holistic and synthesized proposals. By drawing on data from a crowdsourced law-making process in Finland, the paper shows how the logics of the crowds and policymaking collide in practice. The conflict prevents policymaking fully benefiting from the crowd’s input, and it also hinders governments from adopting crowdsourcing more widely as a practice for deploying open policymaking practices.

¿Cómo pensar el sorteo con eficacia? Mi propuesta es construir una teoría general del sorteo, abordándolo de forma comparativa, para averiguar cuáles son las constantes teóricas entre la gran diversidad empírica de sus usos particulares. En primer lugar, comparo el sorteo a los otros tres modos de selección: elección, nombramiento o cooptación y certificación. En segundo lugar, analizo los marcos deliberativos, es decir, “quién decide qué y cómo”. Tercero, distingo cuatro principios democráticos del sorteo: igualdad, imparcialidad, representatividad y legitimidad. Mi primera hipótesis es que el sorteo amplía considerablemente la igualdad, imparcialidad y representatividad. La segunda de mis hipótesis radica en que el sorteo es el único método de selección con una forma específica de humildad-legitimidad, mientras que los tres restantes modos de selección producen una superioridad-legitimidad que declara superior al representante por encima del representado a través del proceso de selección.

https://revistas.um.es/daimon/article/view/295921

In this chapter we show how a new type of political knowledge can be harnessed from everyday communication flows between citizens to support community and policy development processes. The emergence of this new knowledge will be enabled by an esupported deliberation process (SOWIT) that aims to improve political communication and deliberation between citizens, civil society organizations, Councillors and Council. To explain the SOWIT project and its innovative approach to political engagement we first outline its motivation with respect to political reform in Ireland. We then discuss the model's core features in functional terms. Finally, we explain how the model departs from the epistemic norms of current political paradigms particularly with respect to public opinion and the random selection as a basis for representativeness in deliberative fora. SOWIT is currently being developed as a pilot in collaboration with Fingal County Council in Dublin.

Cultural heritage is often seen as a tool for managing social change, as a mirror that society holds up to itself to make sense of change. In this paper I examine how heritage also mobilizes social change, framing cultural heritage as a persuasive tool in a public sphere of competing interests and claims. Rather than taking the circulation of heritage in the public sphere—across media outlets, social media, and expert networks—as epiphenomenal to its value, I suggest deliberation composes a critical function of cultural heritage, especially under social conditions of deep pluralism, divisive politics, and mass democracy that mark our contemporary era. The public discussions about Confederate commemorations that erupted following the events in Charlottesville in 2017 demonstrate the contests over meaning and proposed actions that reveal the persuasive character of heritage.

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.

O presente artigo busca problematizar a critica frequentemente endereçada às teorias delibera cionistas de democracia por não considerarem as profundas assimetrias sociais que marcam as discussões travadas na esfera pública. Defendemos que tais interlocuções requerem igualdade política, mas que esta não pode ser forjada com um simples "colocar entre parênteses" das diferenças. É na própria deliberação pública que grupos podem encetar a superação das desigualdades deliberativas. Exemplificamos os temas abordados com o caso das pessoas acometidas pela hanseníase e a luta por reconhecimento empreendida pelo Morhan (Movimento de Reintegração das Pessoas Atingidas pela Hanseníase).

Talking politics online is not exclusively reserved for those spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. However, past net-based public sphere research has focused mostly on political spaces thereby neglecting an array of other genres. The aim of this article is to move beyond politically oriented communicative spaces by investigating political talk within the British reality TV discussion forum Wife Swap. The purpose is to see whether a forum dedicated to reality TV provides the communicative space, content, and style for politics that extends the public sphere. The central question is whether it fulfils the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation. Moreover, the analysis moved beyond a formal notion by investigating how expressives influence the more traditional elements of deliberation. The findings revealed that Wife Swap participants engaged in political talk that was often deliberative. Moreover, it was a space where the use of expressives played a key role in enhancing such talk.

This article offers an argument of almost primitive simplicity: politics tends to promise too much and deliver too little. In order to substantiate this argument this article presents the results of the first attempt to analyse an experiment with participatory democracy through the lens of ‘gap analysis’. This approach focuses attention on the creation, management and fulfilment of public expectations vis-a`-vis products, services or experiences. In a historical period in which the fiscal and social resources of democratic politics are severely limited the argument and empirical research set out in this article offer valuable insights for scholars and practitioners of politics and public policy. Central amongst these is the suggestion that responding to unprecedented levels of anti-political sentiment is likely to demand that politicians pay more attention to the management of public expectations (i.e. demand) and less on how to maximise political outputs in terms of public services (i.e. supply).

This article discusses definitions and characteristics of deliberative democracy as a concept used in current public policy process worldwide. It presents the three well-known methods of public deliberation—Citizens Jury, Citizens Assemblies, and Town Meeting, and used them as case studies for considering a proper model of public deliberation that may apply to the Thai context. This article claims that the key principles required for making public deliberation success include: (1) a recruitment process that can assemble a large and diverse critical mass of citizens; (2) a combination of formats concerning a meaningful participation throughout the process; (3) a deliberative process that provides the participants with a great opportunity to consider a range of views and policy options; and (4) a result from the process that will be usefully applied to policy and planning decisions.

Une des promesses de la participation citoyenne est d’assurer à tous, de l’expert au citoyen ordinaire, voix au chapitre dans la définition des équipements, institutions et principes qui constituent notre monde commun. Depuis quelques années, cette ambition démocratique nourrit de plus en plus d’activités visant à mobiliser la participation citoyenne dans des ateliers de co-création. Ces activités, forums ouverts, living labs, science shops, etc., adoptent des structures méthodologiques souples et peu formalisées, empruntant à l’approche design, de manière à réduire les entraves qui interfèrent avec l’intégration des usagers finaux dans les dispositifs de consultation traditionnels. Or, un examen critique préalable des dynamiques et des résultats de tels ateliers tend à montrer que le lien entre la liberté de parole que favorise l’exercice créatif, et la réalisation des ambitions démocratiques est moins univoque que l’on pourrait le croire.



(...)

Cette communication tentera de mettre en lumière comment une absence de contraintes pose un risque pour la participation démocratique et comment, au contraire, la mise en place d’un certain type de cadrage des discussions peut être à même de limiter les charges qui pèsent sur la participation des citoyens ordinaires dans des activités de co-création.

Public argument refers to one way that citizens interact to shape their collective future through deliberation. With a few salient exceptions, theories of public argument and deliberation maintain a national character; historically, they are developed within and for a particular cultural context with little attention to cross-cultural and global interactions. This course takes the increase in global argumentation, spurred by networked media technologies, globalization, and supra-national organizations, as an opportunity to theorize “cosmopolitan public argument” and the “global public sphere.” A number of questions constellate around these two provocative concepts: Are there norms of argumentation that are, or should be, universal and transcendent of culture? What criteria ought to be used in judging cross-cultural argumentation, and how should those criteria be decided upon? What kinds of scholarly interventions are needed to thicken norms of public argument suitable enough for more cosmopolitan times? How portable is the concept of the “public sphere” to a global plane? Without a central, global governing structure, can a “global public sphere” even exist? What agent or agents does a global public sphere target? Is there a single global public sphere, or is there still a multiplicity of public spheres loosely interconnected through new connections forged by global media cultures?

To apprehend the contours of cosmopolitan public argument and the global public sphere requires careful study of national public spheres and contemporary argumentation theory. This course begins with a close reading of Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Habermas’ prolific engagement with the idea of publicity continues to resonate with contemporary conversations about the nature of publics and their problems in a global era. Indeed, the core concept of the “public sphere” continues to animate communication scholarship, especially late 20th century argumentation theory, featured in the second third of the course. Our engagement with historical and contemporary scholarship on public argument and deliberation will prepare us to consider the possibilities and characteristics of cosmopolitan public argument and a global public sphere in the last part of the course.

In recent years, the big data revolution has rapidly expanded from the private to the public sector. Today, government authorities at all levels analyze mass amounts of digital data produced by citizens and use it to inform their policy choices in such diverse areas as healthcare, education, transportation, and urban planning. Proponents of this trend assert that it not only yields better policies, but also facilitates political participation by allowing more people to influence governmental decisions at a low cost and with little effort.

This Article argues, however, that the political participation that big data analysis currently enables is flawed in two main respects. First, such participation is usually passive and unintentional, and does not leave room for public deliberation over contested issues. Second, the apparent neutrality of big data may obscure the systematic exclusion of socioeconomically disempowered groups who do not produce digital data that can affect public policy. To explicate these problems, the Article turns to the work of political philosopher Hannah Arendt, especially to her conception of political action and speech and to her idea of the “right to have rights.” It then demonstrates these problems in recent big data initiatives in the fields of healthcare and urban planning.

Finally, the Article asserts that in view of its participatory deficits, big data-based policymaking in its present form may be incompatible with constitutional norms. It argues that under an uncommon yet plausible interpretation, the First Amendment may be understood to establish the positive right of citizens to participate in governmental policymaking in a manner that allows them to express reasoned opinions and engage in public deliberation. It also argues that the Fourteenth Amendment may be understood to establish the right to equal
participation in policymaking of all segments of the population, including socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. The Article explains how exactly these alleged constitutional rights apply to big data analysis and discusses some
measures that government authorities can take to meet their corresponding obligations without giving up the efficiency advantages of big data-based policymaking.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

Deliberative politics should start from an adequate and differentiated image of our dialogical practices and their normative structures; the ideals that we eventually propose for deliberative politics should be tested against this background. In this article I will argue that equal respect, understood as respect a priori conferred on persons, is not and should not be counted as a constitutive normative ground of public discourse. Furthermore, requiring such respect, even if it might facilitate dialogue, could have negative effects and lead to fallacious paths of thought –as seems to happen on matters of deep disagreement such as the Colorado Fundamentalist/Gay HIV issue I discuss in paragraph 6. I will put forward this argument from the standpoint of argumentation or discourse theory, drawing consequences for dialogical theories of politics. Basing my argument on a pluralistic notion of public discourse – understood as a mixed discourse of persuasion, information-seeking and negotiation – I will argue that respect is a dynamic, situational phenomenon, and that the norm of equal respect for persons is contextually contingent in political deliberation: equal respect should be considered as a potential outcome, a discursive achievement – which I understand as a second order consensus achieved dynamically on a provisional basis – rather than as an universal condition for dialogue.

RÉSUMÉ. — Outre les constats sur la crise du gouvernement représentatif insistant sur la défiance des citoyens, la crise climatique est perçue comme révélant l’impuissance de cette forme politique basé sur l’élection. Des voix s’élèvent dans le champ académique, militant et politique, en faveur de l’utilisation de mini-publics tirés au sort pour résoudre divers enjeux politiques, en particulier le changement climatique. Si les assemblées citoyennes sur le climat se sont récemment multipliées, il convient d’examiner leur précurseur : l’assemblée citoyenne irlandaise (ACI). Ce dispositif délibératif a certes proposé la légalisation de l’avortement en 2017, approuvée par référendum, mais il a également traité du climat. Grâce à une longue étude de terrain, on analyse les délibérations de l’ACI sur le climat, et notamment la tension entre pouvoir des citoyens participants et contrôle par les organisateurs et experts. Puis, on comparera le cas irlandais à la Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat française, qui a également fait l’objet d’une étude de terrain intégrale.

MOTS-CLÉS. — Assemblée citoyenne – climat – délibération – démocratie – innovation démocratique – Irlande.

CITATIONS. — Courant D. (2020), « Des mini-publics délibératifs pour sauver le climat ? Analyses empiriques de l’Assemblée citoyenne irlandaise et de la Convention citoyenne française », Archives de Philosophie du Droit, vol. 62, p. 487-507.

One useful way to read Plato’s Gorgias is as a manual for conducting Socratic dialogues. In the three major sections of the dialogue (1. Socrates-Gorgias; 2. Socrates-Polus, 3. Socrates-Callicles), and especially in the transitions from one section to another, a number of rules governing Socratic dialogues emerge. In this summary, I discuss nine of those rules and provide textual evidenced for each.

This extensive unpublished paper, prepared in 2012 and not yet revised  since then, summarizes a series of my previously published papers on the same topic. On this page you can also find a pdf version, though it can only be downloaded and is not readable online, for some obscure conversion reasons.

Ces dernières années, dans le domaine de la participation citoyenne aux politiques de la ville, bon nombre de chercheurs en philosophie politique et en sciences sociales ont plaidé pour un décentrement du discours et de l’argumentation, pour une communication démocratique plus « inclusive », plus « sensible », davantage en prise sur les environnements, sur les dimensions expérientielle et matérielle des problèmes urbains. Le message semble avoir été reçu. Visites de groupes dans les quartiers, reportages vidéo ou photo, expositions de dessins, jeux de construction, fonds de cartes à recouvrir d’icônes et de gommettes autocollantes, ateliers visant à imaginer « la ville de ses rêves », activités de théâtre-action, jeux de rôle et jeux de plateau, etc., sont en effet devenus des incontournables de la « boîte à outils » des professionnels de la participation. Dans cet article, plutôt que de nous intéresser aux différents « outils » dans leurs spécificités, nous voudrions interroger plus généralement la prolifération des méthodes cadrant les contributions citoyennes dans le domaine de l’image ou de l’imagination, et repliant la parole ordinaire dans ses fonctions d’ostension et de figuration, c’est-à-dire dans ses fonctions « indexiques » et « iconiques » (Charles Sanders Peirce). L’hypothèse qui nous guide est celle-ci : en lieu et place d’un enrichissement des processus de communication, on assisterait plutôt à un véritable « tournant sémiotique » dans les pratiques de démocratie participative ; un tournant à travers lequel l’image profane en viendrait peu à peu à se substituer au discours citoyen et à éluder, avec lui, les prétentions d’articulation, de problématisation, de synthèse et de généralisation chez les « participants ordinaires ».

Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

This seminar examines social and political theories of public deliberation through critical communication studies. Deliberation, along with associated concepts of advocacy and civic engagement, as they appear in various globalized contexts, are at the center of a heated transdisciplinary controversy over the possibilities of a contemporary public sphere. At issue is the transformation from the traditional, deliberative public sphere to the emergent, digital, global, networked, and performative spaces of public culture. 
A goal of the seminar is to enable students to conduct critical studies of controversies, discourse, events, episodes, practices, and performances from cultural and rhetorical perspectives, and to gain fluency and sophistication with the attendant theoretical literature.  Students will be encouraged to develop their own ongoing interventions for class presentation and future publication as they reflect on the theories and cases discussed in class.
After exploring the foundational work of early Frankfurt School scholars such as Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, and Otto Kirchheimer, we will turn to the work of Jürgen Habermas, which emerged as a reaction both to the critical projects of these scholars as well as to intellectual currents that have come to be associated with post-modernism.  In putting forth his program, Habermas drew from both the German idealist tradition and the school of American pragmatism. 
After an overview of the Frankfurt School and the early work of Habermas, we will turn to reactions from the last 25 years that concern both the declinist thesis and the deliberative democracy tradition, particularly dwelling on the work of Nancy Fraser, considering criticism of the emancipatory norms of deliberative democracy in light of historical practices regarding gender, class, and race.  We then move to the neo-Marxist analysis of public movements by Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, before examining the agonist approach developed by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, drawing from the work of Carl Schmitt. These culminate in Michael Warner's counterpublics and the ironies of consumer politics. 
Having established a sufficiently robust theoretical framework for thinking about the public sphere and issues of truth, justification, deliberation, consensus, dissensus, and legitimation, we turn to the contemporary situation in the United States: the so-called ‘post-truth’ public sphere.  This leads us to consider the role of public intellectuals and the effects of technocratic discourses that circulate through our pathological lifeworld.
To further help us diagnose our contemporary public sphere, we examine the rhetorics of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, aided by Benedict Anderson’s analysis of the cultural imaginary and the new nationalism identified by Craig Calhoun.  From nationalism we move to the question of the transnational public sphere and globalized trajectories of post-colonial public culture, again taking up the work of Nancy Fraser and the reactions it has generated.  We then spend two weeks discussing populism: first, as a discursive formation, taking up the work of Ernesto Laclau and his debate with Slavoj Žižek; second, as an affective rhetorical movement, read through Ruth Wodak’s excellent critical discourse analysis of alt-right populism.  Finally, we consider the networked public sphere and digital cultures mediated through virtual spheres of engagement, focused around Damien Pfister’s recent study of the blogosphere as a deliberative space.

A partir d'une lecture de Behavior in Public Places, l'auteur revient sur les apports d'E. Goffman aux théories de l'espace public politique. Théoriser les pratiques démocratiques demande de les appréhender comme des interactions censées avoir lieu. La locution "avoir lieu" est prise comme le point de départ d'une réflexion en trois temps, l'auteur explorant différentes acceptions articulées dans l'oeuvre de Goffman ("to take place", "to be held", "to happen") et leurs implications pour une épistémologie de l'engagement public.

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

Læs mit blogindlæg, der kort dækker emnet politisk journalistik: https://mariebisgaard.dk/speciale-klar-til-valg

English resumé:
In the democracy we live in today, most citizens do not have direct contact with the politicians or access to all the details of the political process. When seeking information about politics most people therefore rely on the Press to provide the relevant news and updates. This raises the question of whether the press coverage of politics actually focuses on the parts of the political process that are relevant for citizens or simply seek out the most entertaining and sensational stories. Taking a normative and new rhetorical perspective on democracy and public deliberation, this master thesis investigates political commentary programmes’ portrayal of politics and analyses how these can aid citizens in their understanding of politics and their internal deliberative decision-making. In order to understand the dynamics of these programmes and the effect on the viewers, I draw on theories about deliberative citizenship and rhetoric, media studies, and the postmodern conception of the rhetorical situation.
Using the programmes “JERSILD minus SPIN” and “Tirsdagsanalysen” as cases, the episodes of week 36 and 37 in 2014 are chosen as data and transcribed for closer study. The set-up in the two programmes is similar because they both involve a host interviewing two political pundits about political affairs of the week past. I present Mette Bengtson’s heuristic for evaluation of the political commentary genre (2014) as the springboard for the analysis, but also expand her heuristic with an extra schema that takes the role of the journalist (host/editorial staff) into account. The analysis shows that while most of the journalists and political commentators’ framing and description of politics are characterised by a dramatic and strategic focus, they also offer insightful discussions and critical perspectives on e.g. the press, political statements and flaws in the political proposals.
It is argued that the programmes by prioritising differently and making few changes in their rhetoric could strengthen their contribution to citizens’ internal deliberation. The political commentators should spend less time on evaluating how the political situation looks from the politicians’ point of view and focus more on providing the viewers with relevant information and critical perspectives on political issues. The journalists should ensure a more balanced and neutral discussion by making sure different opinions on topics are represented and by questioning and labelling the political commentators’ arguments properly.