Deliberation across deep divisions: Transformative moments

Abstract

Intro:This book aims to make deliberation relevant for the political practice. The basic assumption is that from the local level to international politics we need generally more deliberation, in particular to increase mutual understanding and trust and to arrive at political decisions of high epistemic value and legitimacy. This does not mean, however, that in our view a political system should consist only of deliberation; we also need competitive elections, bargaining, administrative rulings, street demonstrations and so on. If we want to learn how we can develop more deliberative behavior, we should investigate the group dynamic that helps to raise the level of deliberation and helps to prevent that its level drops again. To study these ups and downs of deliberation in group discussions, we have coined the concept of Deliberative Transformative Moments (DTM).(DTM). To have more deliberation is particularly important for countries with deep societal divisions; but these are precisely the countries, where deliberation is most difficult to be established. In our view, it is worthwhile to make an effort in this direction, since more deliberation may be the best hope to have more peaceful relations in these countries. They are critical cases for the deliberative enterprise.