London; New York: Routledge, 2022. xiv, 226 pp. (Illustrations, figures, tables.) US$45.00, paper; US$45.00, ebook. ISBN 9781003102441.
An alternative title for this book could be “From Frankfurt to Beijing: Deliberation and Democracy.” This is a bit tongue in cheek but underlines the fact that this book represents a new research program on the use of deliberative institutions and practices which is some distance from the original normative agenda of the Frankfurt School. This is a research agenda on actually existing deliberative institutions in democratic and authoritarian states such as China. There is a focus here on the use of deliberative polling and institutional experiments such as citizen assemblies in helping to incorporate expertise and build legitimation to solve policy problems.
The work of Baogang He has been crucial in the consolidation of this research program. It is an energetic and innovative program on deliberative institutions that contains a distinctive mix of normative and analytical elements in the analysis of deliberation. His work has three distinct elements: a move away from broad-brush treatments of democracy and authoritarian regimes to focus on distinctive trajectories of deliberative institutions within authoritarian or so-called hybrid regime contexts; how deliberative institutions trigger awareness of rights and contestation within deliberative institutions; and the use of deliberative institutions as problem-solving institutions for the executive. The introductory chapter by Michael Breen and Baogang He discusses some aspects of this new agenda, but the authors could have been more comprehensive in articulating some of the key elements on deliberative institutions and in particular in discussing the pioneering work of He.
The chapter on village democracy by He, Huang Zhenhua, and Wu Jinjin provides an illustration of how village deliberation is being used in China to manage social conflict and build a deliberative consensus. However, their conclusion on the efficacy of such deliberative institutions is more guarded. The chapter on village democracy in Indonesia by Hans Antlöv and Anna Wetterberg provides a more cautious analysis of deliberative experiments in Indonesia by suggesting that the capacity of citizens to engage in the exercise of social accountability is limited by powerful actors. Not entirely persuaded by deliberative institutions Antlöv and Wetterberg argue for a more strategic approach to social accountability.
Breen’s work on deliberation on the Nepalese Constitution is one of the most rewarding papers in this volume. He has a detailed analysis of the deliberation within the process of the Constituent Assembly. He argues that “[t]he mandated inclusion of local level deliberations combined with the inclusive CA and sequenced processes prevented the elites from consolidating (too much) power in the new federal institutions” (82). Here, he shows how the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly was enhanced by deliberative institutions. It is rich in empirical detail and invites more comparison with recent efforts such as the Chilean Constitutional Assembly, whose proposal failed to muster popular support.
There are several chapters on the use of deliberative polls by policymakers and political elites in Asia. Yasunori Sone outlines the limited history of deliberative polling in Japan. Jieun Park’s chapter on Korea discusses four cases of deliberative polling experiments, and their use by the government. Park argues that Korea has certainly gone much further than other Asian countries in seeking to institutionalize deliberative polling to promote the use of expertise in public deliberation. Though Park notes that the question of “who participates” and the ability to set the agenda is a key issue in further enhancing deliberative processes in policy making, I would have liked to see a bit more on the political context of deliberative polling in Asia.
Mark Warren’s concluding chapter makes the point that “political elites value deliberative processes for the information they provide, and for the appearance (and often reality) of responsiveness. What they seek to avoid are processes that become unbounded or uncontrolled or threaten to provide venues for political organisations outside of the party-state” (215). This is a theme that is central to chapters by Nicole Curato and Garry Rodan on the Philippines and Singapore respectively. Rodan uses the framework of the mode of participation to elucidate how mechanisms of participation are used to manage and contain conflict rather than expand “democratic space.” His important contribution places such institutions in a political economy context that is missing from some of the other chapters. It would have been good to explore some of the tensions in the analysis of the politics of the deliberative institutions. Similarly, Curato notes how the ebb and flow of deliberative participation is shaped by the broader context of power relations. She notes that the “deliberative credentials of these historical moments are far from perfect. They are often thwarted by enduring structures of power that perpetuate elite rule” (132).
This question of power needs to be more emphatically foregrounded in the analysis of deliberative experiments, particularly in the chapters addressing deliberative polling. How does the broader structure and organization of political power shape patterns of deliberation? There are some interesting tensions in this book on this score, and it would have been useful to draw these tensions out to illuminate some of the key challenges of deliberative institutions.
The other perhaps more substantive issue here is this question: Are the kind of deliberative institutions examined in this volume, particularly in authoritarian settings, no longer viable given the shift towards more authoritarian and repressive forms of governance in Asia? This is particularly the case in China, where the era of technocratic authoritarianism seems to have well and truly faded under the leadership of President Xi.
This book is highly recommended. It provides insight into the operation of deliberative institutions in the authoritarian and hybrid contexts in Asia. It proceeds beyond simplistic dichotomies of authoritarianism and democracy to examine the often-fraught management and organization of social conflict by executive state agencies.
Kanishka Jayasuriya
Murdoch University, Perth