Public Consultation: Pluralism, Complexity and Democracy

Author: Bo Man
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: What is the sense in which democratic cooperation is rational? Broadly speaking, rationality in democratic cooperation involves not the content of beliefs but "the way actors use and acquire knowledge"①. This definition implies that when social practice can promote the acquisition and application of knowledge, it is rational. Various democratic theorists have tried to take a certain feature of political discourse or institutions as the core of rationality in democratic practice. However, political consultation is much more complex than this description suggests. Consultative politics does not have its own separate domain; it includes a variety of activities, such as forming and achieving collective goals, influencing the means and purposes of decision-making, resolving conflicts of interest and principles, and addressing issues that arise in social life. Therefore, public consultation must take multiple forms. Nevertheless, these activities are only democratic when they meet the conditions of equality, non-authoritarianism, and publicity.
The diversity of the political sphere makes the starting point of legitimacy very broad: decisions only need to be validated for part of public rationality. Consultation generally utilizes the resources of political institutions to address typical issues. The correctness of proceduralism lies in the fact that publicity cannot be the decisive standard for specific decisions. When consultation takes place in a problem situation, it acknowledges that social life is alive and sometimes fragile. One should not seek new consensus when cooperation breaks down, but rather treat public consultation itself as a collective and cooperative social activity. Viewing cooperative activities as the appropriate model for consultation not only clarifies how political issues are actually resolved—if they can be resolved at all—but also better clarifies the requirements of political consensus in complex and diverse societies. Consultation does not take actual conditions but another aspect of social activity as the basis of consensus: the intelligibility of activities to others, as well as the actors' reflective ability to extend responsibility to all and new situations, thereby continuing cooperation.②
When extended beyond routine situations, public responsibility is measured by its practical efficacy. Even in daily life, when expectations and cooperation break down, responsibility is still needed. When someone we know is indifferent to our greetings, if we want to repair the future relationship, we need an explanation.