Hello Dos, how're you?

The artilce does not try to justify civil disobedience as such. It is, among other measure, a measure of last resort depending on the urgency of a piece of legislation we need. Obviously the article needs to be fleshed out for clarity. If you read through it, you'd know the emphasis was on public debate.

Both Rawls [A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism], one major root credited for one strand of deliberative democracy, and Habermas [esp. Between Facts and Norms] the other major source credited for yet another strand of DD (sometimes called 'discursive democracy') give room for civil disobedience as measures of last resort to bring about fundamentally important reforms. They are anything but anarchists.

Certain situations call for drastic actions such as civil disobedience. For instance, if the majority opposes a minority's fundamental right, provided other measures are exhausted, civil disobedience of some form may be justifiable. Civil disobedience is a consciencious breaking of an existing rule or law to effect a far more important reform or change.

Cohen's point about voting was to say that in DD voting is not to be avoided. The sort of rep. democracy we still have will be there, for consensus cannot always be the outcome of deliberation.

The idea of protests, demos, civil disobedience, etc. is to argue that the signals from the public sphere can be sent via different means depending on the urgency of an issue if we have an unresponsive legislative body. JS Dryzek in his DD and Beyond too argues for such possibilities for sending signals in a DD.

In short, DD as a theory is a fertile ground and has different voices.

Your friend,
Azim

Hello Azim. I'm doing good. I hope you are too.

I also hope that you understand that when I criticize the article I am targeting not you but the government you are serving. You are right about the need to flesh out the article. You've added clarity to it in this comment by stating that civil disobedience can only be justified 'if we have an unresponsive legislative body.'

A stubborn parliament does not necessarily indicate a weak legislature. They are just exercising the principles of representative democracy. Which is what Anni himself will be doing in the next 4 years and 3 months. Will an opposition majority hogtie Anni? Not in the case of major issues as long as the judiciary remains independent. Still it does not mean that Anni will get his way all the time. Is that not the reality of any democratic system?

Your friend,
DOS

I also don't see how the article advocates anarchy. There is nothing anarchist about civil disobedience.

CD is a very good way of bringing about change. Gandhi did it very successfully.

Since you quote John Stuart Mill about liberty, the very nature of democracy is against the concept of liberty. Democracy (whether representative/direct or deliberative) relies on the concept of the majority and Cohen suggests that.

Azim, you said in ur article
"Deliberative democracy is premised on the notion that collective policies should be justifiable to those to whom the policies are applied."

The problem is democratic form of governance by its very nature neglect the part 'whom the policies are NOT applied'. Which usually is the public. When a legislation is passed it goes in the favour of the ppl who lobby most or has majority. This is the case even for the very fundamental rights in our country. A policy by majority is not necessarily good as well.

Dos,
the link for Cohen quote is wrong. It links to this article.

meekaaku,

my apologies for the wrong link. Have just fixed it.

About civil disobedience, I termed it anarchy in a literal context.

meekaaku - Please read the article by Cohen linked with this blog post. That would answer your question.

More specifically Deliberative Democracy implies that policies are discussed in public bodies before they are implemented, and not between special interests and lobby groups.

anon above;
I was referring to the quote given by the blog author "'...voting, subject to some form of majority rule'" attributed to Cohen.

In the end, consensus is a difficult thing to achieve especially when it comes to socio-economic policies. Deliberation is good as a means of educating the public.

Just take an example, the social problem of drugs in Maldives. If it goes for public deliberation, there will be no agreement on how to proceed, ie no concensus. Some will favour Sharia Law, others very liberal legalisations, others somewhere in between such as decriminalisation. So in the end it goes to vote. It will educate the public on different viewpoints, true. But for setting
'best' policy depends on what you think is best.

Same goes for other issues such as religious divisions, media control etc.

meekaaku - Then the problem is not of special interest lobby groups, but of the difficulty of deliberation and forming consensus; which I believe have been addressed as well in the Cohen article.

propagandist articles? which part of "comment and opinion" do you not understand?

both articles you've brought up were opinion pieces. of course they're biased. it's somebody's OPINION.

but you somehow find that disconcerting? have you never seen op-ed pieces in international media?

don't you think it's unfair to accuse Minivan of spreading propaganda based on those two pieces? comment pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Minivan team.

Naish.

Naish....this here blogger is a little dim upstairs

Naish,

These last two posts are not the only occasions when I have accused Minivan News of being biased and/or sympathetic towards MDP or the current government. You can tell by reading this and this.

Yes. I know international media support op-ed pieces. However, there have been occasions when such articles have been turned down. Consider this one. No one publishes opinions which are downright silly, wishful or baseless. I did not say Azim's piece was such (in fact, it is well-written and clever), as it would be clear from the post.