S611 Studies in Rhetorical Theory

Fall 1997

Democratic Deliberation

Course Outline

"I shall use the words America and Democracy as convertible terms." Walt Whitman

"Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice." Harry S. Truman

I. General Information

Time and Place: Monday, 6:00-8:30 p.m., Speech Communication Bldg., Room 110

Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday, 2:00-3:30 p.m., and by appointment

E-mail: rivie@indiana.edu

Web Page: http://www.indiana.edu/~ivieweb

". . . democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill

This course focuses on problematic constructions of democracy in U.S. political culture and their relationship to exaggerated perceptions of national vulnerability. We will examine how a liberal republic attempts to contain democratic practice even as it promotes a vision of democratic peace. Readings and lectures compare liberal to radical democracy, discuss the relationship between democracy and war, and examine the ways in which participatory democracy has been diminished through association with demagoguery. Rational as well as rhetorical models of public deliberation are evaluated as vehicles of robust democracy.

"Only a country that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy." H.L. Mencken

III. Books for the Course

Joseph M. Bessette, The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy and American National Government (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1994). ISBN 0226044246

James Bohman, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996). ISBN 0262024101

Kenneth Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: CA: University of California Press, 1991). ISBN 0520074858

Thomas B. Farrell, Norms of Rhetorical Culture (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1993). ISBN 030065027

Russell L. Hanson, The Democratic Imagination in America: Conversations with Our Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). ISBN 0691022380

Tony Smith, America's Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). ISBN 069104466X

Jeffrey K. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988). ISBN 069102295X

"Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will. . . . It is the most humane, the most advanced and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

IV. Units of Instruction

A. The Rhetoric of American Democracy (4 weeks: 9/1 - 9/22)

1. Liberal Democracy (Hanson)

2. Democratic Eloquence (Cmiel)

3. Radical Democracy

"Our real disease . . . is Democracy." Alexander Hamilton

"Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve." George Bernard Shaw

B. Democracy and War (2 weeks: 9/29 - 10/6)

1. Democracy at War (Falk's essay)

2. Containing Democracy (Morris and Stuckey's essay)

3. Democratic Peace (Smith)

"The world must be made safe for democracy." Woodrow Wilson

"We must be the great arsenal of democracy." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

C. Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation (8 weeks: 10/13 - 11/17; 12/1 - 12/8)

1. The Rhetorical Republic (Tulis)

2. Deliberative and Discursive Democracy (Bessette; Bohman)

3. Deliberative Rhetoric (Farrell)

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." Reinhold Niebuhr

V. Assignments and Evaluation

1. Discussion Facilitation (10%)

Each student is responsible for leading the discussion of one of the required books for the course during one of our weekly class meetings. This responsibility entails preparing a set of discussion questions, initiating the discussion, keeping it relevant and provocative, and encouraging broad participation among the members of the class.

"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking." Clement Attlee

2. Review Essay on Liberal Democracy (40%)

This paper draws on the readings, discussions, and lectures of Units A and B to develop a critique of liberal democracy. It should be limited to 3,000 words. Your essay should advance an argument about liberalism's rhetorical constraints on the democratic imagination while demonstrating your command of the materials covered in the first two units of the course. Due October 10.

"Democracy is based on the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people." Harry Emerson Fosdick

"The tendencies of democracies are, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal." James Fenimore Cooper

3. Research Paper on Democratic Deliberation (50%)

This paper should be grounded in an original case study of your choice and written to take into account the assigned readings and other materials covered in Unit C on rhetoric and democratic deliberation. It should be limited to 5,000 words plus endnotes or sources cited. The aim of the research paper is to conceptualize the role of deliberative rhetoric in producing a robust democratic culture as illustrated in a particular case. Due December 15.

". . . the whole body of argument against 'democracy,' . . . the more consistently and better reasoned it is, will turn into an argument against the essentials of politics." Hannah Arendt

VI. Additional Resources

Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984).

Simone Chambers, Reasonable Democracy: Jürgen Habermas and the Politics of Discourse (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

John S. Dryzek, Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Political Science (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Richard Falk, "The Gulf War and the Death of Democracy," in The Multiverse of Democracy: Essays in Honour of Rajni Kothari, ed. D.L. Sheth and Ashis Nandy (London: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 116-135.

James S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions in Democratic Reform (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1991).

James S. Fishkin, The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1995).

Sue Golding, Gramsci's Democratic Theory: Contributions to a Post-Liberal Democracy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).

Philip Green, ed., Democracy (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993).

Gary L. Gregg II, The Presidential Republic: Executive Representation and Deliberative Democracy (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefiled Publishers, Inc., 1997).

Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1996).

Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996).

Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1955).

David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995).

David Held, Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987).

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Douglas Lummis, Radical Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

C. B. MacPherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).

Peter T. Manicas, War and Democracy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell, 1989).

Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).

Gerald M. Mara, Socrates' Discursive Democracy: Logos and Ergon in Platonic Political Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997).

Richard Morris and Mary E. Stuckey, "'More Rain and Less Thunder': Substitute Vocabularies, Richard Nixon, and the Construction of Political Reality," Communication Monographs 64 (1997): 140-60.

Carlos Santiago Nino, The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1996).

Thomas L. Pangle, The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).

Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Charles Arthur Willard, Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Marvin Zetterbaum, "Alexis De Tocqueville," in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, 3^rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 761-83.

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