February, 2009

Dissensus on Consensus

by James Fishkin
The Conversation
February 24th, 2009

Henry Farrell misreads me. Reason-based collective will formation and consensus are not the same thing. Deliberative Polls self-consciously avoid any promotion of consensus. That is why the results are collected in confidential questionnaires, or secret ballots, to avoid the distorting social pressure of consensus-based forms of deliberation. And that is why I dispute the common [...]

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Deliberation and Dissensus

by Henry Farrell
The Conversation
February 20th, 2009

In principle, I’m happy to see that James Fishkin has found some common ground between advocates of deliberation and advocates of partisanship. This is a significant shift on his part — much of his previous work is not, to put it mildly, laudatory of partisans and partisanship. But in many ways I’m not. I’m [...]

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Partisanship and Deliberation: Can’t Have One Without the Other

by James Fishkin
The Conversation
February 19th, 2009

I think this dialogue has helped bridge some areas of discussion that rarely intersect — deliberative democracy and partisanship. Actually, the discussion makes clear that each needs the other. Consider two possibilities: deliberation without partisanship and partisanship without deliberation.
In a world of many partisans, deliberation without partisanship would be unrepresentative because it would leave [...]

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Partisanship in Everyday Life, and as an Organizing Principle of Democracy

by Nancy Rosenblum
The Conversation
February 19th, 2009

I picked up from correspondence with Jason Kuznicki and several of the comments an interest in pressing the uses and value of partisanship outside of political parties. The term “partisan” refers to advocates and activists in any cause, of course. We see these partisans everywhere. As I suggested earlier, partisans of social movements, activists in [...]

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