¿Deliberación narrativa? Acerca de la necesidad de contar historias en la deliberación pública

  1. Marcos Engelken-Jorge 1
  1. 1 Humboldt University of Berlin
    info

    Humboldt University of Berlin

    Berlín, Alemania

    ROR https://ror.org/01hcx6992

Journal:
Política y sociedad

ISSN: 1130-8001,  1988-3129

Year of publication: 2016

Issue Title: Retos y respuestas actuales de la democracia

Volume: 53

Issue: 1

Pages: 79-99

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5209/REV_POSO.2016.V53.N1.48460 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Política y sociedad

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

This paper deals with the place of narrative, that is, storytelling, in public deliberation. A distinction is made between weak and strong conceptions of narrative. According to the weak one, storytelling is but one rhetorical device among others with which social actors produce and convey meaning. In contrast, the strong conception holds that narrative is necessary to communicate, and argue, about topics such as the human experience of time, collective identities and the moral and ethical validity of values. The upshot of this idea is that storytelling should be a necessary component of any ideal of public deliberation. Contrary to recent work by deliberative theorists, who tend to adopt the weak conception of narrative, the author argues for embracing the strong one. The main contention of this article is that stories not only have a legitimate place in deliberation, but are even necessary to formulate certain arguments in the first place; for instance, arguments drawing on historical experience. This claim, namely that narrative is constitutive of certain arguments, in the sense that, without it, said reasons cannot be articulated, is illustrated by deliberative theory’s own narrative underpinnings. Finally, certain possible objections against the strong conception of narrative are dispelled.

€ View funding

Funding information

This paper is part of the LearningDemoi project, supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme.

Funders

Bibliographic References

  • Abizadeh, Arash. 2007. “On the Philosophy/ Rhetoric Binaries: Or, Is Habermasian Discourse Motivationally Impotent?”, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 33(4): 445-472.
  • Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2002. “On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The ‘Holocaust’ from War Crime to Trauma Drama”, European Journal of Social Theory, 5(1): 5-85.
  • Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2004. “Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance Between Ritual and Strategy”, Sociological Theory, 22(4): 527-573.
  • Apel, Karl-Otto. 2000. “Globalization and the Need for Universal Ethics”, European Journal of Social Theory, 3(2): 137-155.
  • Bächtiger, André, Simon Niemeyer, Michael Neblo, Marco R. Steenbergen and Jürg Steiner. 2010. “Disentangling Diversity in Deliberative Democracy: Competing Theories, Their Blind Spots and Complementarities”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18(1): 32-63.
  • Bailin, Sharon. 2003. “Is Argument for Conservatives? or Where Do Sparkling New Ideas Come From?”, Informal Logics, 23(1): 3-17.
  • Bohman, James. 2007. “Political Communication and the Epistemic Value of Diversity: Deliberation and Legitimation in Media Societies”, Communication Theory, 17: 348-355.
  • Bohman, James and William Rehg. 2014. “Jürgen Habermas”, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/habermas/ [last accessed: 09.09.2014].
  • Boswell, John. 2013. “Why and How Narrative Matters in Deliberative Systems”, Political Studies, 61(3): 620-636.
  • Chambers, Simone. 2003. “Deliberative Democratic Theory”, Annual Review of Political Science, 6: 307-326.
  • Chambers, Simone. 2009. “Rhetoric and the Public Sphere: Has Deliberative Democracy Abandoned Mass Democracy?”, Political Theory, 37(3): 323-350.
  • Dryzek, John S. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dryzek, John S. 2010. “Rhetoric in Democracy: A Systemic Appreciation”, Political Theory, 38(3): 319-339.
  • Dryzek, John and Simon Niemeyer. 2006. “Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals”, American Journal of Political Science, 50(3): 634-649.
  • Eder, Klaus. 1991. Geschichte als Lernprozeß? Zur Pathogenese politischer Modernität in Deutschland. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  • Eder, Klaus. 1999. “Societies Learn and yet the World is Hard to Change”, European Journal of Social Theory, 2(2): 195-215.
  • Eder, Klaus. 2006. “Europe's Borders: The Narrative Constructions of the Boundaries of Europe”, European Journal of Social Theory, 9(2): 255-271.
  • Eder, Klaus. 2009. “A Theory of Collective Identity: Making Sense of the Debate on a ‘European Identity’”, European Journal of Social Theory, 12(4): 427-447.
  • Engelken-Jorge, Marcos. 2012. “Un balance de los giros empírico, sistémico y retórico de la teoría deliberativa”, Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas, 11(4): 13-30.
  • Engelken-Jorge, Marcos. 2014. “Ignorancia política y saber práctico: el valor de la opinión pública”, in S. Gallego Trijueque and E. Díaz Cano (coords.), XII Premio de Ensayo Breve de la Asociación Castellano-Manchega de Sociología “Fermín Caballero”. Toledo: Asociación Castellano-Manchega de Sociología.
  • Estlund, David M. 2009. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Finlayson, Alan. 2012. “Rhetoric and the Political Theory of Ideologies”, Political Studies, 60(4): 751-767.
  • Fisher, Walter E. 1984. “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument”, Communication Monographs, 51(1): 1-22.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1981 [2003]. Teoría de la acción comunicativa, II. Crítica de la razón funcionalista. Madrid: Taurus.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1992 [1994]. Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Die Einbeziehung des Anderen. Studien zur politischen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1999 [2003]. Truth and Justification. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 2006. “Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research”, Communication Theory, 16(4): 411-426.
  • Hatcher, Donald. 1994. “Critical Thinking, Postmodernism, and Rational Evaluation”, Informal Logics, 16(3): 197-208.
  • Ibarra Güell, Pedro. 2011. Democracia Relacional. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales.
  • Joas, Hans. 2008. “Value Generalization: Limitations and Possibilities of a Communication about Values”, Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik, 9(1): 88-96.
  • Joas, Hans. 2011. Die Sakralität der Person: Eine neue Genealogie der Menschenrechte. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
  • Kock, Christian. 2007. “Norms of Legitimate Dissensus”, Informal Logic, 27(2): 179-196.
  • Lafont, Cristina. 2006. “Is the Ideal of a Deliberative Democracy Coherent?”, in Samantha Besson and José Luis Martí (eds.), Deliberative Democracy and Its Discontents. Aldershot: Ashgate.
  • Luhmann, Niklas. 1998 [1984]. Sistemas sociales. Lineamientos para una teoría general. Barcelona: Anthropos.
  • MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2004 [1984]. Tras la virtud. Barcelona: Crítica.
  • Maiz, Ramón. 2011. “The Political Mind and Its Other: Rethinking the Non-Place of Passions in Modern Political Theory”, in M. Engelken-Jorge. P. Ibarra and C. Moreno (eds.), Politics and Emotions: The Obama Phenomenon. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
  • Mansbridge, Jane et al. 2010. “The Place of Self-Interest and the Role of Power in Deliberative Democracy”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18(1): 64-100.
  • Martí, José Luis. 2006. “The Epistemic Conception of Deliberative Democracy Defended: Reasons, Rightness and Equal Political Autonomy”, in Samantha Besson and José Luis Martí (eds.), Deliberative Democracy and Its Discontents. Aldershot: Ashgate.
  • Martin, John Levi. 2002. “Power, Authority, and the Constraint of Belief Systems”, American Journal of Sociology, 107(4): 861-904.
  • Miller, Max. 2006. Dissens: Zur Theorie diskursiven und systemischen Lernens. Bielefeld: Transcript.
  • Neblo, Michael A. 2007. “Family Disputes: Diversity in Defining and Measuring Deliberation”, Swiss Political Science Review, 13(4): 527-557.
  • Niemeyer, Simon. 2011. “The Emancipatory Effect of Deliberation: Empirical Lessons from Mini-Publics”, Politics & Society. 39(1): 103-140.
  • Oberheim, Eric. 2013. “The Incommensurability of Scientific Theories”, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition), available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/ [last accessed: 09.09.2014].
  • Parkinson, John and Jane Mansbridge (eds.). 2013. Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Polletta, Francesca and John Lee. 2006. “Is Telling Stories Good for Democracy? Rhetoric in Public Deliberation after 9/11”, American Sociological Review, 71(5): 699-723.
  • Ricoeur, Paul. 1979. “The Human Experience of Time and Narrative”, Research in Phenomenology, 9: 17-34.
  • Ricoeur, Paul. 1990 [1992]. Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contigency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rorty, Richard. 1990a. “Feminism and Pragmatism”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, delivered at University of Michigan, December 7, 1990, available at: http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/r/rorty92.pdf [last accessed: 09.09.2014].
  • Rorty, Richard. 1990b. “Truth and Freedom: A Reply to Thomas McCarthy”, Critical Inquiry, 16(3): 633-643.
  • Rorty, Richard. 2007. “Dewey and Posner on Pragmatism and Moral Progress”, The University of Chicago Law Review, 74: 915-927.
  • Roth, Amanda. 2012. “Ethical Progress as Problem-Resolving”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 20(4): 384-406
  • Sanders, Lynn M. 1997. “Against deliberation”, Political Theory, 25(3): 347-376.
  • Somers, Margaret R. 1994. “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A relational and network approach”, Theory and Society, 23(5): 605-649.
  • Somers, Margaret R. 1998. “‘We’re No Angels’: Realism, Rational Choice, and Relationality in Social Science”, American Journal of Sociology, 104(3): 722-784.
  • Sorrell, Kory. 2013. “Pragmatism and moral progress: John Dewey’s theory of social inquiry”, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 39(8): 809-824.
  • Stahl, Titus. 2013. “Habermas and the Project of Immanent Critique”, Constellations, 20(4): 533-552.
  • Steiner, Jürg. 2012. The Foundations of Deliberative Democracy: Empirical Research and Normative Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Talisse, Robert B. 2005. “Deliberativist responses to activist challenges. A continuation of Young’s dialectic”, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 31(4): 423-444.
  • Tilly, Charles. 2002. Stories, Identities, and Political Change. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Young, Iris Marion. 2001. “Activist challenges to deliberative democracy”, Political Theory, 29(5): 670-690.
  • Young, Iris Marion. 2002. “Inclusive Political Communication”, in I.M. Young, Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Data source: Dialnet