A paper written by Robert C. Richards, Jr., has been accepted for the 106th annual National Communication Association Convention. Richards’ paper is called “Citizen Deliberation in Republican Democracy: Fostering Freedom and Legitimacy.”
The National Communication Association is planning to hold face-to-face and online sessions for its 2020 conference November 19-22. Face-to-face sessions will be held in Indianapolis, Ind.
Richards’ paper identifies gaps and under-specified aspects of the treatment of deliberation in Philip Pettit’s most recent theory of republican democracy. Specifically, that deliberation among citizens is neglected in Pettit’s account of citizens’ freedom, and in his account of legitimacy, Pettit posits a central role for a pervasively observed meta-norm of deliberative argument, but does not furnish an explanation of how that meta-norm could arise in the first place.
From the paper’s abstract:
To address these under- and unspecified aspects of the theory, this paper employs the goals-sense-making-justification (GSJ) model of citizens’ political communication. This application of the GSJ model shows how citizens’ informal deliberation fosters citizens’ political sense-making and empowerment and so plays a crucial role in preparing citizens to exercise their freedom of political decision making. Such deliberations are especially valuable to the many citizens who possess little political knowledge. Further, the model explains how a meta-norm of deliberative argument could arise organically out of citizens’ informal deliberations with family and friends during major elections.
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NCA publishes 11 academic journals that provide the latest research in the discipline and showcase diverse perspectives on a range of scholarly topics. In addition to the NCA Annual Convention, which attracts some 5,000 attendees each year, NCA hosts programs and other meetings that provide professional development opportunities for Communication scholars and advance the broader discipline.
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