Constituting Democracy in
Rhetorical Discourse
CMCL C612,
AMST G620, CULS C701
Robert Ivie, Professor
Monday, 4:00-6:30 p.m.
800 East
Seventh Street, Room 272
Course Outline
Spring
2010
The Problem Addressed
Democracy is a troubled term within the
context of U.S. political culture, where it is embedded in a discourse of
liberal democracy. The question before
us is: What does and can this troubled
term mean, and why does democracy matter as an expression of national
identity?
We will approach this compound question
by examining democracy as a rhetorical construction, i.e., as a cultural
persuasion with its own history and trajectory and a discursive formation
consisting of various commonplaces, tropes, myths, and rituals. The rhetorical formation of democracy is
relatively stable but subject to critical reflection and transformation.
As a term of national identity,
unfettered democracy signifies danger.
It is represented as both dangerous and endangered and therefore subject
to containment, which inclines the political culture toward a democratic
deficit. The standard depiction of
democracy as fragile, volatile, and distempered alienates citizens from
politics, rationalizes the rule of elites, and contributes to a culture of fear
and antagonism under conditions of pluralism exacerbated by globalization and
multiculturalism.
To address these tensions and the
problem of political alienation, we will focus on the subject of public
deliberation and interrelated considerations of citizenship, civil society, the
public sphere, and dissent. We cannot
cover all the issues of political culture related to democracy, but we can open
the discussion to a continuing investigation of its rhetorical dimensions and
implications.
Each of us should begin this course of
reading, discussion, and writing by identifying our critical interest in a
study of democracy and its rhetorical construction. My own guiding concern, for purposes of
cultural critique, is with confronting the caricature of democracy that haunts
U.S. political culture and assumes the face of the enemy. What is your critical interest in the
discourse of democracy?
To address the question of what
democracy means as an articulation of national identity, we will discuss a set
of common readings, review selected books, and (consistent with class members’
critical interests) write article-length papers on democracy as a rhetorical
discourse and cultural resource.
Schedule of Readings, Papers, and Presentations
Note: Please complete readings
prior to the class meeting for which they are designated.
1/11 Key
Terms and Tensions:
Zakaria, “The Democratic Age,” 13-27.
Barber, “Liberal
Democracy and the Cost of Consent,” 3-18.
Gutmann, “Democracy,” 411-421.
Ryan, “Liberalism,”
291-311.
Pennock, Democratic
Political Theory, 3-58.
Taylor, “Invoking Civil Society,” 66-77.
Habermas,
“The Public Sphere,” 105-108.
Aune, “Democratic Style and Ideological Containment,”
482-490.
Engels, “Democratic
Alienation,” 471-481.
Discussion leader: Ivie
1/18 Martin
Luther King, Jr. Day: no class
1/25
Hanson, The Democratic Imagination in America,
3-120.
Bentley, “Rhetorical
Democracy,” 115-134.
Discussion leaders:
2/1
Ivie, Democracy and
America’s War on Terror, 10-91.
Ivie, “Democratic Dissent and the Trick of Rhetorical
Critique,” 276-293.
Ivie, “Prologue to Democratic Dissent in America,” 19-35.
Ivie and Giner, “Hunting the
Devil: Democracy’s Rhetorical Impulse to
War,” 580-598.
Discussion leader: Ivie
Book Review Presentations:
2/8
Hauser, Vernacular Voices, 1-110.
Hauser, “Civil Society
and the Principle of the Public Sphere,” 19-40.
Hauser and Benoit-Barne, “Reflections on Rhetoric, Deliberative Democracy, Civil Society, and
Trust,” 261-275.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
2/15
Barber, Strong Democracy, 3-25, 117-138.
Walton,
“Criteria of Rationality for Evaluating Democratic Public Rhetoric,” 295-330.
Mouffe, “For an Agonistic Model of Democracy,” 113-130.
Mouffe, “Democracy, Power, and the ‘Political,’” 245-256.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
2/22
Bessett, The Mild Voice of
Reason, 1-66, 212-246.
Young, “Communication
and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy,”
120-135.
Kurtz, “’How is it that
ye do not discern this time?’: Public Faith, Moral Conflict, and the
Recovery of Rhetorical Democracy,” 111-134.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
3/1 Paper
proposals due
Habermas,
“Three Normative Models of Democracy,” 21-30.
Cohen, “Deliberation
and Democratic Legitimacy,” 143-155.
Murphy, “Deliberative
Democracy and the Public Sphere: Answer
or Anachronism?” 213-237.
Hicks, “The Promise(s)
of Deliberative Democracy,” 223-260.
Welsh,” Deliberative
Democracy and the Rhetorical Production of Political Culture,” 679-708.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
3/8
Dryzek, Deliberative
Democracy and Beyond, 1-56.
Polletta & Lee, “Is Telling Stories Good for Democracy: Rhetoric in Public Deliberation after 9/11,”
699-723.
Keith, “Democratic
Revival and the Promise of Cyberspace:
Lessons from the Forum Movement,” 311-326.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
3/15 Spring
Break: no class
3/22
McAfee, “Habermas on Citizens and Politics,” 81-101.
Habermas, “Popular Sovereignty as Procedure,” 35-65.
d’Entrèves, “Hannah Arendt and the Idea of Citizenship,” 145-168.
Villa, “Postmodernism
and the Public Sphere,” 227-248.
Asen, “A Discourse Theory of Citizenship,” 189-211.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
3/29
Sinekopova, “Building the Public Sphere: Bases and Biases,” 505-522.
Asen, “Imagining in the Public Sphere,” 345-367
Loehwing & Motter, “Publics, Counterpublics, and the Promise of Democracy,” 220-241.
Phillips, “The Spaces of Public Dissension: Reconsidering the Public Sphere,” 231- 248.
Splichal,
“In Search of a Strong European Public Sphere,” 695-714.
Discussion leaders:
Book Review Presentations:
4/5
Rawls,
“The Domain of the Political and Overlapping Consensus,” 273-287.
Rawls,
“The Idea of Public Reason,” 93-141.
Simonson,
“Dreams of Democratic Togetherness,,” 324-342.
Murphy, “Romantic Democracy and the Rhetoric of Heroic
Citizenship,” 192-208.
Walzer, “The Civil Society Argument,” 89-107.
Discussion leaders:
4/12
Wolin, “Fugitive Democracy,” 31-45.
Tabako, “Irony as a Pro-Democracy Trope: Europe’s Last Comic Revolution,” 23-53.
Murphy,
“Deliberative Civic Education and Civil Society,” 74-91.
Goldzwig,
“Demagoguery, Democratic Dissent, and ‘Re-visioning’ Democracy,” 471-478.
Doxtader, “Characters in the Middle of Public Life: Consensus, Dissent, and Ethos,” 336-369.
Crick,
“The Rhetorical Singularity,” 370-387.
Discussion leaders:
4/19 Final
Presentations (abstracts due 48 hours before class presentation; papers due day of
presentation)
4/26 Final
Presentations (abstracts due 48 hours before class presentation; papers due day of
presentation)
Assignments
1.
Weekly discussion
and discussion leadership. Three class
members will serve as discussion leaders for each class meeting, each class
member serving as a discussion leader twice during the semester (once by March
1 and once March 8 or after). A signup
sheet will be distributed in class. (25%)
2.
Written synopsis
(1,000 words) and written assessment (500 words) of a “book for individual
review” from course list: paper and
12-minute presentation. Each class
member will review a different book. A
sign-up sheet will be distributed in class.
Upload the synopsis to Oncourse 48 hours
before your presentation. The assessment
is due the day of your presentation. (25%)
3.
Term paper: proposal (500 words), abstract (200 words),
paper (7,000 words), and 12-minute presentation. This paper, which addresses your critical
interest in democracy, should draw thoroughly on the common readings and
selectively on the books for individual review.
It may also bring into the discussion additional writings on democracy
beyond the course bibliography, but those additional writings do not substitute
for the readings from the course bibliography. Upload the abstract to Oncourse 48 hours before your presentation. Turn in your paper the day of the
presentation. A signup sheet for
presentation dates will be distributed in class. (50%)
Common Readings on Democracy
Robert Asen,
“A Discourse Theory of Citizenship,” Quarterly
Journal of Speech 90.2 (May 2004):
189-211.
Robert Asen,
“Imagining in the Public Sphere,” Philosophy
and Rhetoric 34.4 (2002): 345-367.
James Arnt Aune, “Democratic Style and Ideological Containment,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 11.3 (Fall
2008): 482-490.
Benjamin R. Barber, “Liberal Democracy
and the Costs of Consent,” in A Passion for
Democracy: American Essays
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1998), 4-18.
Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory
Politics for a New Age (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1984), 3-25, 117-138.
Russell Bentley, “Rhetorical Democracy,”
in Talking Democracy: Historical
Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democracy, ed. Benedetto
Fontana, Cary J. Nederman, and Gary Remer (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2004), 115-134.
Joseph M. Bessett,
The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy and American National
Government (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 1-66, 212-246.
Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and
Democratic Legitimacy,” in Contemporary
Political Philosophy: An Anthology,
ed. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Malden,
Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1997),
143-155.
Nathan Crick, “The Rhetorical
Singularity,” Rhetoric Review 28.4
(2009): 370-387.
Maurizio Passerin
d’Entrèves, “Hannah Arendt and the Idea of
Citizenship,” in Dimensions of Radical
Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship,
Community, ed. Chantal Mouffe, (London: Verso, 1992), 145-168.
Erik W. Doxtader,
“Characters in the Middle of Public Life:
Consensus, Dissent, and Ethos,” Philosophy
and Rhetoric 33.4 (2000): 336-369.
John S. Dryzek,
Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
1-56.
Jeremy Engels, “Democratic Alienation,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 11.3 (Fall
2008): 471-481.
Steven R. Goldzwig,
“”Demagoguery, Democratic Dissent, and ‘Re-visioning’ Democracy,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 9.3 (Fall
2006): 471-478.
Amy Gutmann,
“Democracy,” in A Companion to
Contemporary Political Philosophy, ed. Robert E. Goodin
and Philip Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell,
1993), 411-421.
Jürgen Habermas, “Popular
Sovereignty as Procedure,” in Deliberative
Democracy: Essay on Reason and Politics,
ed. James Bohman and William Rehg
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1997), 35-65.
Jürgen Habermas, “The Public
Sphere,” in Contemporary Political
Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Robert
E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Malden,
Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1997),
105-108.
Jürgen Habermas, “Three Normative
Models of Democracy,” in Democracy and
Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of
the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib,
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1996), 21-30.
Russell L. Hanson, The Democratic Imagination in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 3-120.
Gerard Hauser, “Civil Society and the Principle
of the Public Sphere,” Philosophy and
Rhetoric 31.1 (1998): 19-40.
Gerard A. Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric
of Publics and Public Spheres (Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 1-110.
Gerard Hauser and Chantal Benoit-Barne, “Reflections on Rhetoric, Deliberative Democracy,
Civil Society, and Trust,” Rhetoric and
Public Affairs 5.2 (Summer 2002):
261-275.
Darrin Hicks, “The Promise(s) of
Deliberative Democracy,” Rhetoric and
Public Affairs 5.2 (Summer 2002): 223-260.
Robert L. Ivie,
Democracy and America’s War on Terror
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 2005), 10-91.
Robert L. Ivie,
“Democratic Dissent and the Trick of Rhetorical Critique,” Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies 5.3 (August 2005): 276-293.
Robert L. Ivie,
“Prologue to Democratic Dissent in America,” Javnost—The Public 11.2 (2004): 19-35.
Robert L. Ivie
and Oscar Giner, “Hunting the Devil: Democracy’s Rhetorical Impulse to War,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37.4
(December 2007): 580-598.
William Keith, “Democratic Revival and
the Promise of Cyberspace: Lessons from
the Forum Movement,” Rhetoric and Public
Affairs 5.2 (Summer 2002): 311-326.
Jeffrey B. Kurtz, “’How is it that ye do
not discern this time?’: Public Faith, Moral Conflict, and the
Recovery of Rhetorical Democracy,” Journal
of Communication and Religion 32.1 (March 2009): 111-134.
Melanie Loehwing
and Jeff Motter, “Publics, Counterpublics,
and the Promise of Democracy,” Philosophy
and Rhetoric 42.3 (2009): 220-241.
Noёlle McAfee, “Habermas on
Citizens and Politics,” Habermas, Kristeva, and
Citizenship (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press, 2000), 81-101.
Chantal Mouffe,
“For an Agonistic Model of Democracy,” in Political
Theory in Transition, ed. Noёl O’Sullivan
(London: Routledge,
2000), 113-130.
Chantal Mouffe,
“Democracy, Power, and the ‘Political,’” in Democracy
and Difference: Contesting the
Boundaries of the Political ,
ed. Seyla Benhabib
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1996), 245-256.
Thomas Murphy, “Deliberative Democracy
and the Public Sphere: Answer or
Anachronism?” in Talking Democracy:
Historical Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democracy, ed. Benedetto
Fontana, Cary J. Nederman, and Gary Remer (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2004), 213-237.
Troy A. Murphy, “Deliberative Civic
Education and Civil Society: A
Consideration of Ideals and Actualities in Democracy and Communication
Education,” Communication Education
53.1 (January 2004): 74-91.
Troy A. Murphy, “Romantic Democracy and
the Rhetoric of Heroic Citizenship,” Communication
Quarterly 51.2 (Spring 2003): 192-208.
J. Roland Pennock,
Democratic Political Theory
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1979), 3-120.
Kendall R. Phillips, “The Spaces of
Public Dissension: Reconsidering the
Public Sphere,” Communication Monographs
63.3 (September 1996): 231-248.
Francesca Polletta
and John Lee, “Is Telling Stories Good for Democracy: Rhetoric in Public Deliberation after 9/11,” American Sociological Review 71.5
(October 2006): 699-723.
John Rawls, “The Domain of the Political
and Overlapping Consensus,” in Contemporary
Political Philosophy: An Anthology,
ed. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Malden,
Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1997),
273-287.
John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason,”
in Deliberative Democracy: Essay on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehg
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1997), 93-141.
Alan Ryan, “Liberalism,” in A Companion to Contemporary Political
Philosophy, ed. Robert E. Goodin and Philip
Pettit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993),
291-311.
Peter Simonson, “Dreams of Democratic
Togetherness: Communication Hope from
Cooley to Katz,” Critical Studies in Mass
Communication 13.4 (1996): 324-342.
Galina V. Sinekopova,
“Building the Public Sphere: Bases and
Biases,” Journal of Communication
56.1 (September 2006): 505-522.
Slavko Splichal, “In Search of a
Strong European Public Sphere: Some
Critical Observations on Conceptualizations of Publicness
and the (European) Public Sphere,” Media,
Culture and Society 25.5 (2006):
695-714.
Charles Taylor, “Invoking Civil
Society,” in Contemporary Political
Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Robert
E. Goodin and Philip Pettit (Malden,
Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1997), 66-77.
Tomasz Tabako,
“Irony as a Pro-Democracy Trope:
Europe’s Last Comic Revolution,” Controversia 5.2 (Summer 2007): 23-53.
Dana R. Villa, “Postmodernism and the
Public Sphere,” in Rhetorical
Republic: Governing Representations in American
Polities, ed. Frederick M. Dolan and Thomas L. Dumm (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 227-248.
Douglas Walton, “Criteria of Rationality
for Evaluating Democratic Public Rhetoric,” in Talking Democracy: Historical Perspectives on Rhetoric and Democracy,
ed. Benedetto Fontana, Cary J. Nederman,
and Gary Remer (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004), 295-330.
Michael Walzer,
“The Civil Society Argument,” in Dimensions
of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship,
Community, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Verso, 1992), 89-107.
Scott Welsh,” Deliberative Democracy and
the Rhetorical Production of Political Culture,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 5.4 (Winter 2002): 679-708.
Sheldon Wolin,
“Fugitive Democracy,” in Democracy and
Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of
the Political ,
ed. Seyla Benhabib
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1996), 31-45.
Iris Marion Young, “Communication and
the Other: Beyond Deliberative
Democracy,” in Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political , ed. Seyla Benhabib (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996),
120-135.
Fareed Zakaria, “The Democratic
Age,” The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
(2003: New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 13-27.
Books for Individual Review
Danielle S. Allen, Talking to Strangers: Anxieties
of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Ronald Blieker,
Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
James Bohman, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press,
1996).
William R. Caspary,
Dewey on Democracy (Ithaca, New
York: Cornell University Press, 2000).
Jean L. Cohen and
Andrew Arato, Civil
Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992).
William E. Connolly, Pluralism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).
Peter Dahlgren, Media and Political Engagement:
Citizens, Communication, and Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Robert Danisch,
Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity
of Rhetoric (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 2007).
John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927; Athens, Ohio: Swallow Press/Ohio Univesity
Press, 1991).
John Ehrenberg, Civil Society: The Critical
History of an Idea (New York: New
York University Press, 1999).
Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1998).
Bryan Garsten,
Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 2009).
Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law
and Democracy, trans. William Rehg (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1996).
Bonnie Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2009).
William M. Keith, Democracy as Discussion: Civic
Education and the American Forum Movement (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
Ernesto Laclau
and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy:
Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd ed.
(London: Verso, 2001).
Kevin Mattson, Creating a Democratic
Public: The Struggle for Urban
Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1998).
Joshua L. Miller, Democratic Temperament: The
Legacy of William James (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1997).
Chantal Mouffe,
On the Political (London: Routledge, 2005).
Josiah Ober, Mass
and Elite in Democratic Athens:
Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1989).
Anne Phillips, Democracy and Difference (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1993).
John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993).
Michael J. Sandel,
Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1996).
Michael Schudson,
The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1998).
Steven Shiffrin,
The First Amendment, Democracy, and Romance
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990).
Alain Touraine, What is Democracy? Trans. David Macey (Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press, 1998).
Cornel West, Democracy Matters: Winning the
Fight against Imperialism (New York:
Penguin Press, 2004).
Robert H. Wiebe,
Self-Rule: A Cultural History of
American Democracy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2005).
Charles Arthur Willard, Liberalism
and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996).
Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000).