Many deliberative democrats would regard the institutions of the liberal state--its constitutional assemblies, legislatures, courts, public hearings--as the most significant venues for deliberation.
The Foucauldian critique of deliberative democracy would highlight the disciplinary function of democracy and its discourse.
The discourse of liberal democracy has its shared set of assumptions and capabilities, which enable its adherents to assemble bits of information about politics into a coherent whole, or organize them around coherent narratives. The discourse of liberal democracy is a hegemonic discourse rather than a partial one.
Focauldians, such as Barry Hindess, would argue that participation in Senate inquiries requires disciplined attendance, putting aside personal convictions, a degree of self-restraint, an ability to talk reasonably. This disciplinary self-control constructs our identities and comportment as willing participants in, and supporters of, liberal democracy.
That has to be conceded. The rules of the game in a Senate inquiry such as this one require the particpants to conduct themselves and to speak in a certain way. The form of communication is restrictive as it is required to be dispassionate, reasoned and logical. It is much more restrictive than this kind of public inquiry, in the public sphere of civil society, which would allow different forms of communication, such as testimony, rhetoric and storytelling. And we have to acknowleddge that some citizens are better than others at articulating their arguments in rational reasonable terms required in a Senate inquiry.
But that does not mean that citzens participating in the Senate's inquiry into different cancer treatments adopt a resigned acceptance of the status quo.
Participation in the proposed cancer inquiry by the Senate requires a citizen to work within the formal institutions of liberal democracy. This is a problem solving context with an emphasis on practical outcomes, as the state is still the political entity for making enforceable collective decisons in response to social problems. The senate inquiry allows citizens the space to question the bio-medical discourse about cancer, and to put a case that some allied health treatments of cancer are worthwhile. It provides a space for citizens to introduce the counter discourse of social medicine.
Does this not allow non oppressive moments?
Secondly, the setting up of the inquiry by Senator Cook was premised on the recognition of difference and the assumption that deliberation is premised on difference. As Senator Cook said:
The health debate is understandably dominated by doctors, heath-care professionals, health bureaucrats and academics, all with the apparent needs of the patient at heart but with transparent self-interests of their own. If this inquiry can stand in the shoes of patients and unambiguously take their point of view, it will be a breath of fresh air.
Not all parties to the disspute about the efficacy of the biomedical and allied health cancer treatments see themselves in competition and are concerned to win the win the argument. Some will operate in terms of this kind of strategic instrumental rationality (the AMA?) but others will operates in terms of dialogue that seeks some form of reasoned agreement though not necessarily a consensus. Agonistic difference is an aspect of the political and so we have deliberation across political difference.
What we will seen in the Senate inquiry is a contestation of discourses--a biomedical one and allied health one-- one that goes beyond the undemocratic contestation controlled by public relations experts, spin doctors and demagogues. And it may well represent a discursive shift in the way we understand cancer.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at February 15, 2005 12:07 PM | TrackBack