Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

accounts of democracy suggest that voting is meaningless if it is not
accompanied by deliberation. Participation is thus justified primarily
on its instrumental benefits: it brings about better governments and
better decisions.
This is because even if we disregard for the moment, the difference
between minimalists, for whom voting plays the crucial role, and
deliberative democrats, who argue that while its significance cannot
be denied, it should not be overstated, it seems that for both sides,
the decisive test of a democracy is participation, and participation
that is egalitarian. I reject the common argument that the divergence
between the two in terms of what constitutes egalitarian participation
is because one is pessimistic about citizens’ capacity while the
other is optimistic: there is enough evidence to suggest that the basis
for limiting participation by minimalist democrats is not necessarily
due to a suspicion of the competence of the masses; conversely,
many deliberative democrats seem to accept the unflattering picture
of citizens’ capabilities (and/or their democratic tendencies). Even if
this supposed disagreement on people’s capabilities is at the centre of
the two conceptions, finding ways to ‘prove’ either generalisation of
people’s competence is methodologically difficult and even if we can
find a way, the evidence will be subject to fluctuations across space
and time. It seems much more reasonable to regard the minimalist
versus deliberative accounts as being two different ways of interpreting
political equality rather than two different conceptions of humanity’s
‘goodness’. In other words, the division between minimalist
and deliberative democrats appears to be less about the quality of
citizens themselves and more about the optimum institutional design
to ensure equality. For minimalists, voting is less unequal than other
forms of participation; for deliberative democrats, voting that is not
preceded by deliberation is flawed.
It would appear then, on both minimalist and deliberative account,
the objective of democratic politics is one of influencing decision-making
with the aim of securing one’s interests. In other words, participation,
whether more or less, is valued because it is viewed as the optimum
means of achieving good government whether this is defined as legiti-
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DEMOCRATIC COMPROMISE
OR COMPROMISING
DEMOCRACY: RETHINKING
PARTICIPATION
Heidi Matisonn