Tensions in deliberative practice : a view from civil society
By: DODGE, Jennifer
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Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Oxon : Routledge, dec. 2010Subject(s): Meio Ambiente | Legislação | Democracia | Participação Social | Sociedade CivilCritical Policy Studies 4, 4, p. 384-404Abstract: Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a 'view from civil society'. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its 'dual strategy' through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outside them. Analysis of this strategy reveals two tensions in deliberative practice that the Network had to manage in order to transmit its ideas: (1) doing policy advocacy in collaboration with policy elites while staying 'bottom-up', and (2) developing policy ideas 'relevant' to decision-makers while maintaining the autonomy to be critical. These findings suggest that transmission is a complex process with four dimensions - relational, linguistic, spatial and temporal - that interact to shift power dynamics and create new meanings about policy
Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a 'view from civil society'. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its 'dual strategy' through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outside them. Analysis of this strategy reveals two tensions in deliberative practice that the Network had to manage in order to transmit its ideas: (1) doing policy advocacy in collaboration with policy elites while staying 'bottom-up', and (2) developing policy ideas 'relevant' to decision-makers while maintaining the autonomy to be critical. These findings suggest that transmission is a complex process with four dimensions - relational, linguistic, spatial and temporal - that interact to shift power dynamics and create new meanings about policy
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