June 1, 2018
By John Gibbons
Democracy, said George Bernard Shaw (click here), “is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve”. For all its many strengths, democracy suffers some egregious flaws. The ability of powerful interest groups, be they political, economic or ideological to “capture” the democratic process and to drown out genuine deliberation in the white noise of spin and fake news represents a clear threat to the healthy functioning of any democracy.
This is where deliberative democracy comes in. The concept that underpins it is the notion that democracy cannot simply be the process of counting ballots after a shouting match. True democracy requires that people make informed decisions, guided by the best available evidence, freed as far as possible from the bullying and badgering of special interests.
It would be naive in the extreme to imagine that such a utopian democratic process could be applied to entire populations. The mob that howled and jeered throughout the recent Claire Byrne Live television debate would quickly dispel any notion that well informed, calm deliberation of complex and contentious issues occurs spontaneously, or is even easy to create.
Difficult, yes, but not impossible. Then taoiseach Enda Kenny in November 2015 made a fateful pre-election promise to convene a citizen’s convention to tease out a number of thorny social and political issues, and to bring forward recommendations for the Oireachtas to discuss and debate through its committee system....
