Iris Young's Communicative Democracy

Sammy Karon

15 March 2015

            In “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy,” Iris Young argues that deliberative democracy fails to address the challenges of difference, and thus communicative democracy should be considered as a better model. Deliberative democracy focuses on bringing people together through shared experience and creating political power through social unity. By promoting unity, however, deliberative democracy automatically turns against difference. Although deliberative democracy assumes public discussion creates unity for all, the model fails to acknowledge the background factors that lead people to become political speakers. Young notes that in reality, not all citizens are equal speakers, yet deliberative democracy assumes unity already exists between people and thus excludes quieter voices by denying them opportunities to be heard. Politics cannot make people equal speakers because politics cannot change the differences unique to each human life, and by trying to eliminate cultural differences to create unity, deliberative democracy ultimately fails to generate universal political power.  

            To correct the flaws in the deliberative democracy model, Young proposes the communicative democracy model. While deliberative democracy aims to generate political power through unity, communicative democracy aims to generate political power through differences. In order to use difference as a tool for good, discussion must focus on how speakers are different, not how the are the same. Only people are able to successfully understand another speaker’s different perspective will the polity be considered powerful. Young notes that comfort and unity are ultimately harmful to people because they fail to encourage “self-transcendence,” or the recognition of one’s own role as a problem and solution in social issues. Through greeting, rhetoric and storytelling, Young argues people can learn to understand not only how people differ in perspective, but why those differences are significant and potentially positive sources of change. Thus, Young addresses the challenges of difference in democratic theory by suggesting that people should solve the problems of the many by using the voices of the many, rather than seeking to find the voice of the whole.