Exploring The Agonistic Critique Of Deliberative Democratic Theory: The space of Passions and Rhetoric in Democratic Deliberation.

Abstract

In what ways can persons in a pluralistic democratic society confront, discuss and eventually solve their various political problems? Contemporary deliberative democratic theorists like Seyla Benhabib responds to this question by articulating a theory of democratic deliberation that appeals to reason and argumentation. Agonistic pluralists such as Chantal Mouffe, however, retort that the main problem with this response is its excessive rationalism that dismisses the passions. My main goal in this thesis is to show that this question cannot be addressed exclusively from either of these responses, and that a hybrid account of democratic deliberation provides a more balanced response to the question. The view I will defend here envisages democratic reason as a counterpart, and not the nemesis of democratic passion. Furthermore, I will show that such a view may eventually lead to an account democratic deliberation friendly to rhetoric. This account aims to solve the theoretical impasse in the deliberative rationalist model and its agonistic criticism. I will draw such an account from a reading of Aristotle's On Rhetoric, an important resource left unacknowledged by Benhabib's and Mouffe's contemporary responses to the question.