Abandoning Consensus and Embracing Ambiguity

The deliberative account of democracy is closely associated with Jürgen Habermas, whose influential Theory of Communicative Action was at the forefront of this project. Central to Habermas’ ideal account is communicative rationality: that free and equal citizens operating in an “ideal speech situation” should engage in the exchange of reasons and, compelled only by the forceless force of the better argument, eventually reach consensus.^{Footnote 7} The appeal of communicative rationality is that it counters the power asymmetries that afflict democratic politics. The vision of an accountable, public, and inclusive forum sparked a proliferation of experimental innovations and a groundswell of enthusiasm about their potential to strengthen democratic politics.^{Footnote 8}

In early Habermasian terms, interlocutors would eventually—under the right conditions—converge on an agreed best answer. But even at the height of enthusiasm for the forum ideal, key deliberative theorists quickly abandoned consensus as a goal. Conceptual challenge and empirical critique suggested that even obtaining consensus on complex political problems would likely be symptomatic of hidden coercion.^{Footnote 9} Consensus, then, quickly softened to a form of contingent agreement—one that a sufficient number of actors sign up to (and which those who disagree in substance can accept the procedural legitimacy of) but which is liable to need continual reaffirmation or reconsideration.^{Footnote 10}

Yet there has been a significant relaxation in what constitutes a sufficiently robust agreement even of this sort. Though most agree that there is potential for multiple normatively just outcomes from deliberation,^{Footnote 11} the most influential work on this point remains Sunstein’s defense of “incompletely theorized agreements.” He argues that agreements almost never go “all the way down,” nor should they be expected to, as beliefs can be irreconcilable. Instead, Sunstein sees value in the inevitably loose and shallow nature of such agreements. He argues that agreements at the lowest level of specificity are more useful for facilitating constructive dialogue among actors and dealing with contentious issues—a contention that has largely been accepted and woven into deliberative theory.^{Footnote 12}

So deliberation is no longer bound up with notions of communicative rationality leading to a fully-worked-through consensus. It can feature only thinly-reasoned argumentation leading to a shallow and differentially understood agreement. This maneuver takes deliberative democracy away from its attempt to eradicate uncertainty and ambiguity, and instead recognizes them as ineliminable elements of political communication that must be accounted for. Equally, though, it draws attention to the inadequacy of the stylized distinction between will formation and will execution—something especially problematic when seen in conjunction with the next key move.

Abandoning the Forum by Distributing Deliberation

Where the move from consensus to ambiguity has been an incremental one, the move from single deliberative venue to networked multiplicity of venues has been rather more recent and radical. Deliberative democratic theorists have sought to adapt their ideas in the face of conceptual critique and empirical observation that proliferated in this booming literature through the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, the sharp concentration around an ideal forum embodying Habermasian communicative ethics has recently come to be seen as simplistic and naïve to the messy complexities and the pervasive power distortions that afflict contemporary democratic politics.

In fact, Habermas himself had been quick to step back from the ideal forum and retain his focus on the macro context of democratic contestation. His subsequent non-ideal account, Between Facts and Norms, sets out a dual-track model: public opinion, formed through citizen deliberation in the public sphere, is to be transferred via media and election campaigns to the legislature, where it becomes policy.^{Footnote 13} Prompted by a backlash to the micro focus of much empirical investigation in this field,^{Footnote 14} the most recent evolution in deliberative democratic thought has been to extend this dual-track model. A new orthodoxy is crystallizing around the idea of “deliberative systems.” This is an account of deliberation as an activity with a variety of different purposes and ends, and one that does and should occur in an iterative process across a complex system made up of a multiplicity of sites in democratic politics.^{Footnote 15}

There are nuanced differences among proponents of this view.^{Footnote 16} For some—especially those who draw directly on Habermas’ dual-track model for inspiration—the key to systemic deliberation is spatial disaggregation. Hendriks, for instance, speaks of deliberative democracy as something that can and should involve a multiplicity of venues.^{Footnote 17} She holds that these overlapping sites should attract and enable different sorts of actors, that these sites should be integrated in such a way that they feed into one another, and that a crucial component of this integration are sites that bring diverse actors together. Other theorists have stressed temporal disaggregation, and especially the value of sequencing deliberation as it filters through to decision.^{Footnote 18} The notion is not that any particular moment should resemble idealized communicative rationality aimed toward a definitive decision. Instead, the hope is that different qualities can be enhanced at different stages of the process, with the prospect that deliberation may be sequenced to meet these requirements in a way that is “good enough.”

These minor differences in emphasis aside, what emerges is an account in which the facets and functions of democratic deliberation are distributed through different institutions and practices. Like the shift away from consensus, this is a move to make democratic decision-making more accountable, public, and inclusive, while remaining mindful of the constraints of realpolitik.

Overall, then, the systemic vision of deliberative democracy is a sophisticated account that makes allowances for imperfect deliberation and, in fact, entirely non-deliberative activities, provided that they are of sufficient benefit to the system as a whole. This nascent turn makes the deliberative project more relevant to mainstream political science, and more tractable for agents of democratic reform and renewal. And for this it is to be applauded. Yet in failing to adequately consider the realities of democratic politics after the point of will formation, the systemic turn risks underpinning democratic practices that fail to address pervasive power asymmetries through the policy process.^{Footnote 19} Worse still, it might, as it feeds into and inspires further efforts towards democratic renewal and reform, provide the veneer of legitimacy to practices that actually further entrench power asymmetries and undermine deliberative and democratic goals. In embracing complexity and iteration—especially in the context of vague and contingent outcomes of decision-making—deliberative democrats ought to consider how and to what effect such qualities pervade the policy process as well. I take up that mantle in the sections that follow.

Ambiguity and Wriggle Room

The ambiguity inherent in Sunstein’s “incompletely theorized agreements” has long interested policy and administration scholars. In the dominant tradition of public administration, as in ideal deliberative democratic theory, it has been viewed as problematic. Ambiguity, in reference to the traditional-stages model of policy making, represents an incomplete process of policy formulation that leads to problems and gaps in implementation and enforcement.^{Footnote 21} And, as such, scholars in this tradition have given significant attention to coming up with ways of minimizing ambiguity. Among those who adopt a more bottom-up approach to policy implementation, though, there has been greater recognition of the ineliminability of goal ambiguity.^{Footnote 22} Indeed, influential scholarship in this mold has actually heralded ambiguity as a tremendous resource in policymaking, echoing in many ways Sunstein’s defense of incompletely theorized agreements. Stone’s seminal Policy Paradox, for instance, posits ambiguity as the key feature that enables adaptation to temporal and spatial context.^{Footnote 23} Yanow’s rich analysis of the Israel Corporation of Community Centers draws this observation out in practice. She shows how this program unfolded over time, its meaning and nature reproduced continually in symbolic interaction that sustained buy-in from stakeholders.^{Footnote 24}

However, some policy scholars are beginning to problematize ambiguity again. They argue not that ambiguity represents an incomplete process—there is widespread recognition of the need for wriggle room to adapt to local context and unfolding conditions. Instead, the problem they identify is that some actors have much greater capacity to influence wriggle room than others. These scholars show that typically those with greater material resources, hierarchical or professional status, and greater access to officials can exploit their position to ensure that incompletely theorized agreements are put into action in ways that further their interests, often at the expense of actors party to the initial agreement. There are many examples in recent policy scholarship but I will focus on two that notably highlight these dangers of ambiguity.^{Footnote 25}

One is Smith and Kern’s analysis of Dutch environmental policymaking.^{Footnote 26} Their focus is on the “environmental transition” toward a more sustainable Dutch economy. They find that the agreement around the need for transition in general terms actually disguised intense disagreement around what form any change should take specifically. They highlight the fact that powerful actors have been better positioned to see that their much more moderate interpretations of this agreement were put in place. The result, they show, has been the realization of little more than tokenistic changes in environmental policy and practice—powerful actors ultimately exploited the ambiguity of the proposed reform to minimize disruption to their private interests.

Zahariadis and Exadaktylos provide another example.^{Footnote 27} Their work on reforms to Greek higher education shows how a decision-making process that produces near consensus at a general level—the legislation to modernize this sector passed by the largest majority since Greek democracy was restored in 1974—can in the fine detail be eroded by vested interests. They detail the various strategies by which university executives and professionals took advantage of the ambiguity inherent in translating legislation into action on the ground. These embedded actors were able to resist the reforms in practice and sustain much of the status quo within the sector.

But these concerns are more obvious still in relation to efforts to tackle the obesity epidemic. In general, policymakers have been reticent to make specific policy commitments to tackle climbing rates of obesity, cowed by the powerful food industry and fear of public anger. However, even in one famous case where such firm commitment was made—the Danish government’s commitment to a “fat tax”—there is strong evidence of how pervasive power asymmetries can undermine implementation.^{Footnote 28} Bødker et al.’s analysis shows that the Danish food lobby made extensive legal and political challenges to this tax as it took concrete form, exploiting wriggle room in the legislation to win concessions, delay implementation, and ultimately undercut its feasibility. They show that industry also bankrolled publicity to expose teething problems and to turn the tide of public opinion against the tax, all while public health experts and advocates were frozen out of the implementation process. The outcome, they argue, has been an abandonment of the tax, and little political appetite for any further regulatory reform—much to the frustration of public health advocates whose hopes had been raised in the initial “decision.”

These challenges of ambiguity are, in turn, exacerbated by the networked arrangements that now typify administration and implementation, where I now turn my attention.

Distributed Deliberation and Complexity

There has been widespread interest in the notion of networked governance and the interaction it implies between various state and non-state actors across an array of formal and informal venues.^{Footnote 29} The lesson from this scholarship is that discursive transmission across sites and over time is likely to be considerably distorted in practice. The networked sites in any system engender a multiplicity of institutional norms and professional discourses, and thus the claims, recommendations, agreements, or ideas generated in one are filtered and adapted in others.^{Footnote 30} It is common for recommendations from the discursive designs that bring diverse actors together—be they more traditional committees or inquiries, or more radical democratic innovations—to be filtered and moderated as they are taken up and discussed in formal political and administrative institutions.

This process is not problematic per se. After all, one task of deliberative system is to launder ideas and claims, and render them amenable to moderation. Another task involves translating opinion in public space into will in empowered space, publicizing the rejection of ideas that are not technically feasible. Transmission, in both cases, implies some form of transformation.^{Footnote 31} And it is clear that complex governing arrangements have some advantages for administering and delivering policies and programs. The wriggle room provided by ambiguous agreement and its diffusion across sites can be useful in legitimating policies and the processes that surround them. In this sense, the incremental, diffuse nature of policy change is not just a result of limited information, but of negotiating clashing values and ideas. The recursive process is democratically useful in that it allows time for mutual learning between actors through the protracted process of deliberation and negotiation, through the evolution of their relationships, and through the impact of transformative new technologies or compelling new evidence.^{Footnote 32}

The concern, however, is about bias in transmission to empowered venues of policy action. Complex governance networks can have a “dark side.”^{Footnote 33} They typically give privileged access and influence to actors with greater material resources or professional authority, whereas the critical claims of civil society actors can be subject to resistance or exclusion. Crucially, too, the drawn-out nature of the policy process favors powerful interests, allowing them to neutralize inconvenient concerns and issues. It is actors with greater resources who can bear the costs involved in continuous, low-profile, behind-the-scenes engagement. Civil society groups can lack the capacity to “stay” with issues through the convoluted, attritional process.^{Footnote 34} Meanwhile, actors with more resources at their disposal can instigate or repress deliberation in different parts of the system, be that via the mass media and the public agenda or through personal connections to political elites.

Again, the tendency of complex governing arrangements to entrench power relationships is a common finding in policy and administration literature.^{Footnote 35} However, I will provide color and context with reference to some particularly vivid examples.

One is Bulkeley’s widely-cited analysis of climate change policy in Australia.^{Footnote 36} Bulkeley analyses the interaction between interests, discourses, and institutions to show how claims about climate-change policy transform as they move towards empowered sites of political decision-making. In particular, she demonstrates that claims are adapted over time as they become institutionalized so as to emphasize issues of efficiency and exclude more radical proposals around, for example, stricter management of energy demand. She shows that this attritional journey of moderation across sites of policy discussion, decision-making, and implementation occurs in such a way as to neutralize more radical critique and align climate-change policy with the interests of powerful actors.

Patashnik shows how these concerns can be compounded when executing a raft of new policies and programs as part of a broader reform package.^{Footnote 37} He compares major public-interest reforms enacted in the United States in relation to tax, agricultural subsidies, and airline deregulation. He details the fierce political opposition to each package, and the repertoire of activities that affected industries adopt to undermine or block reform. He finds ultimately that only the airline-deregulation reform package is successfully sustained over time, with both of the former incrementally eroded by powerful vested interests. He concludes that the politics of controversial policy reform is never over, that the passage of legislation marks only one battle in a much longer war.

But again these challenges are nowhere clearer than with respect to tackling obesity. Much effort has been devoted to resolving obesity in networked partnership with the private and third sectors. In practice, though, networks tend to be heavily steered by powerful interests in the food lobby. In Britain, for instance, there are intricate networked arrangements for key policies and programs tackling obesity. In practice, they have done much to boost the image of corporate social responsibility. But, especially given the heavy reliance on industry funding and technical support, they have done little to achieve agreed aims of reformulating food products and restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to vulnerable groups, with industry actors successfully resisting any outcome with significant economic implications. The complexity of these governing arrangements ensures that debate is carefully managed and disaffection effectively neutralized; there is the veneer of due process, and an apparent or surface responsiveness to public concern, but the “rules of the game” favor these powerful and entrenched interests.

Reconciling Wriggle Room

The call for embedding deliberation acknowledges the pragmatic need for diverse actors to come together on agreements at a low level of specificity. Indeed, it goes further, following key interpretive policy scholars in recognizing that ambiguity can be a tremendous resource in governing complex issues. Ambiguity, after all, is what enables effective governance of issues in the context of increasing complexity and amid the diversity of actors that need to work together to deliver policy and services; it gives state and non-state actors alike much needed wriggle room to get down to the business of governing. By consciously working to embed aspects of democratic deliberation through the policy process, the benefits of ambiguity—in ensuring this flexibility and buy-in from stakeholders—can be maintained. The actors involved in deliberation are not being asked to come to a final settlement, since the emphasis is on the provisional nature of any agreement. It enables precisely the sort of contingent agreement that has long been the democratic norm.

Importantly, while embedding deliberation accommodates wriggle room, it also serves to highlight it. It makes explicit the contingent nature of any agreement, and assures all actors involved that they will get a chance to revisit the agreement in light of subsequent evidence of enactment and implementation. It thereby mitigates the risks and downsides catalogued earlier of ambiguity—where the devil is in the detail of how vague compromise is translated into action—by allowing all the actors involved to revisit the issue and further flesh out the detail of what has come before. Guaranteeing access and voice to actors through the process can redress the power asymmetries that typically enable the best-resourced and -connected to have greater influence over how ambiguous agreements take finer shape.

Recognizing Complexity

Another key benefit of working to embed deliberation downstream is that it can counteract the sort of diffusion and neutralization common to complex and contested political issues through the complex architecture of government. Where the deliberative systems’ account is largely concerned with decentering deliberation, from one ideal site to a wide variety across the system, practices devoted to embedding deliberation after will formation can help to publicize the issue and the policy work being done in relation to it, building connections along the deliberative system and countering the inevitable loss of specificity that occurs in the diffusion of claims across sites and over time. Embedding aspects of democratic deliberation through the policy process can guard against the neutralization or containment of issues that risks reinforcing the interests of the already powerful. This is because at the same time as providing greater latitude for ambiguous agreement, it also provides greater scope for the enactment of conflict.

It is useful here to consider Rummens’ reflections on systems of representation in contemporary liberal democracies, in which he emphasizes the importance of democratic venues that encourage the active performance of opposition to legislative and administrative action.^{Footnote 38} Recognizing the ineliminability of conflict over complex and contentious issues, he astutely sees the ongoing, dynamic forms of representation these stages enable as working to publicize the contingent or unsatisfactory nature of deliberative outcomes. Though Rummens remains focused on the established set-pieces enacted in existing institutional architectures, working to embed deliberation through the policy process might greatly multiply the spaces for such representation. It expands the scope of these opportunities, beyond high-profile political debates in legislative chambers and the mass media to the less-visible realms of policy work, where many more of the mundane but crucially important matters of political conflict, complexity, and uncertainty are dealt with. It provides greater public scrutiny over these otherwise opaque matters. Just as importantly, it expands the range of participants who get to perform oppositional conflict, providing a platform from which lesser-resourced actors can make their concerns heard. It allows these actors to draw attention to the distortions or emerging problems that occur as contingent, ambiguous agreements are put into action, reigniting conflict across the deliberative system.

In the sections that follow I outline some ideas for embedding aspects of democratic deliberation in practice. I draw on lessons from the successes of upstream democratic innovations and on emergent practices of democratization in policy and administration.

First, though, a caveat: A central appeal of the adapted account of deliberative democracy is its concession that we should not strive for perfect deliberation at all times, and that other democratic goods or norms may be more appropriate at particular junctures.^{Footnote 39} I am, in this spirit, not advocating that deliberation be embedded throughout the policy process (i.e., at every juncture). Attempting to do so would be counterproductive—creating an institutional bottleneck, straining state resources, or exhausting stakeholder and citizen good will. Embedding aspects of democratic deliberation through the policy process would entail establishing routinized or responsive institutions and practices that incorporate some deliberative goods to mitigate the distortions that pervade will execution. It would, at minimal cost and effort, help to ensure greater publicity for how ambiguous and contingent compromises are enacted and implemented in practice, and provide impetus for the sort of sustained, open-ended and inclusive deliberation that remains the ideal.

Scrutiny Forums

There is much in the architecture of contemporary democracy devoted to scrutinizing decision-making processes. But relatively little is dedicated downstream, to the execution of those decisions. Given that the ad hoc and informal nature of the links between democratic innovations and established processes of decision-making can play into the hands of powerful interests, it is important to also consider additional institutional levers that might help lower the barriers to rekindling deliberation, providing lesser-resourced actors with promising new platforms through which to publicize unjust or inappropriate exercise of wriggle room.

An especially promising example comes from Sabel and Zeitlin’s pioneering work on EU governance.^{Footnote 40} They highlight the emergence of “experimentalist governance” across a wide range of policy sectors within the EU. Their particular focus is on new processes that have emerged to help policymakers work through complex issues of multi-level coordination and implementation. These processes enable lower-level units, usually within member states, to pursue overarching directives as they see fit within local context. The key here is that these actors must subsequently account for their actions publicly. They must justify their actions both to European regulators and alongside counterparts from other member states in what is designed to be a process of policy learning based on rigorous peer review. Importantly, there is also potential at this juncture for new actors or coalitions of actors—especially those within civil society—to take part in some of these scrutiny forums, and, if necessary, seek to revise the measures handed down to lower-level units. They can hold powerful actors accountable for their use of discretion by assessing the review of their actions and comparing it with those pursued for the same ends in other member states (albeit, as Sabel and Zeitlin concede, that the extent to which civil-society actors exercise scrutiny is highly variable across sectors and countries).

Critics of Sabel and Zeitlin see them as overly optimistic about the deliberative democratic benefits of experimentalist governance. Papadopoulos, for instance, sees experimentalist governance as “deliberative elitism,” dominated by a technocratic culture at the expense of citizen participation.^{Footnote 41} Nevertheless, it serves as proof of concept here. It shows that scrutiny forums can embed key aspects of deliberation through the process. This mode of governance acknowledges and seeks to preserve the value of vague agreement couched at a high level of abstraction. But it also imposes greater scrutiny on those with the power to interpret vague agreements and exercise discretion in putting them into practice. Moreover, further experimentation could require a broader array of actors—across different levels of government and among non-state actors engaged in governance networks—to subject their actions and interpretations to such scrutiny. It might also, following Papadopoulos’ concerns, engage civil society groups and citizens in these processes. Indeed, it might replace elite-dominated committees altogether with the sorts of citizen-based democratic innovations pursued in decision-making input in the last two or three decades.^{Footnote 42}

In the obesity case, then, one might envisage scrutiny forums whereby policy elites—bureaucrats, but also food industry representatives and public health professionals—routinely report on and publicly justify their exercise of discretion in administering and implementing vague policy commitments, perhaps even to a committee of affected citizens themselves. This would threaten to expose powerful actors who exploit their position to block agreed policies to curb marketing or reformulate processed foods. It might even condition them to consider the public interest as they navigate wriggle room on these issues in the first place.

Contestatory Reviews

Yet as well as periodic processes of publicity and accountability, there should also be opportunities for urgent processes reflective of particularly pressing concerns about developments in the policy process. Routinization may beget complacency on the part of policy actors or disinterest on the part of key democratic watchdogs. It may also prove impractical or expensive in particular contexts. And so another key approach to scrutinizing the exercise of wriggle room may be through a higher-order process of accountability that citizens or civil society groups can trigger in response to concerns about unfolding events.

Here it is especially useful to consider and build on one of the core ideas in Philip Pettit’s vision of “contestatory democratization.”^{Footnote 43} Bemoaning the lack of ongoing accountability in the representative relationship between elected officials and their constituents, Pettit argues here for mechanisms that enable constituents to challenge the mandate of their representatives.^{Footnote 44} Keeping the same core idea, the complex context of governance networks would require a broadening of this remit. “Contestatory reviews” could be one such mechanism whereby the actors engaged in administration and implementation—private and third-sector actors, professionals, and experts—are all compelled to publicly account for their actions.

So, following Pettit, there should be provision for lesser-resourced actors to trigger emergency deliberative bodies to subject the low-profile settings of administration and implementation, and the actions and inactions of the representatives involved, to greater scrutiny and contestation. Such an institutional mechanism would enable these actors to invoke a higher order of deliberation when they perceive that contingent, ambiguous agreement is being steered by stealth towards the interests of powerful elites. It would subject these often low-profile settings and the actions and inactions of the representatives involved to greater scrutiny and contestation.

Applied to obesity, for instance, public health and patient groups would be able to trigger an emergency deliberative process to follow-up on the administration and implementation of laws and policies. Such a process could well have been triggered, for instance, in response to the perceived failures of networked arrangements in Britain. In practice, many British public-health advocacy groups walked away in an attempt (largely unsuccessful in practice) to draw media attention to perceived injustices.^{Footnote 45} A contestatory review at this juncture might have more effectively reduced wriggle room, better exposing the obstructive actions of the food industry and generating bolder impetus to check their influence downstream.

Feedback Funnels

Embedding deliberation may require more than just enabling greater accountability and publicity downstream. It may equally require more of that other key (deliberative) democratic norm: inclusion. Indeed it is downstream in the policy process that citizens, as service users, have greatest interaction with the state and so it represents a unique and largely overlooked source of potential inclusion in democratic politics. The qualifier potential is used advisedly, however, because the bulk of the administration and policy literature reveals that citizens largely play a limited role in implementation. They are typically characterized as consumers or clients. Their behaviors and preferences are procured and quantified (via social service data and, occasionally, surveys) but seldom explored in depth or engaged with dialogically.^{Footnote 46} The effect is largely to reinforce dominant market forces that further empower private sector elites and professionals to pursue their own interests in administration and implementation. Yet there remains potential for institutional innovations—what I dub “feedback funnels”—that enable citizens to reflect on their experiences and have their concerns about service delivery heard.

A promising example is the fledgling NHS Citizen project in the UK. Commissioned by NHS England, this project seeks to uncover the reactions and experiences of individual encounters with health service provision (via sophisticated web-trawling), to enable enhanced discussion and sorting of priorities by affected citizens and civil society groups (via online and offline deliberative forums), and to engage NHS England officials in discussion of the key concerns and demands that emerge (via a public assembly). It is an institutional innovation that funnels feedback about service delivery for providers in ways that go beyond a market orientation, actively engaging citizens in the setting of service priorities and the development of strategies for delivery. This innovation has, given the controversial context of health reform in which it has been born, not been entirely successful or seamless in its development.^{Footnote 47} Nevertheless, it represents a promising model for eliciting widespread inclusion in the process of administration after will formation.

With respect to the obesity case, then, embedding deliberation in this way could help to ensure widespread inclusion through the process, as vague commitments about a “whole-of-society” approach are actually turned into action. These individuals would no longer be targets towards whom policymakers and the experts and professionals engaged in public health policy implementation often adopt an antagonistic stance. Providers of public health services would have to actively collect and solicit the input of obese individuals and their carers.

Structured Partnerships

A particularly promising approach to this difficult task is to instantiate informal practices that actively expand the range of participants in activities typically undertaken only by insiders in policy networks. These sorts of activities might include routine face-to-face meetings, or more ad hoc policy briefings, planning sessions, reviewing of document drafts, and program status updates.

At first glance, such a suggestion would seem to be antithetical to the classical deliberative ideal of publicity, given that these practices and activities of contemporary governance are seldom subject to oversight or scrutiny. But, of course, one of the attractive features of the deliberative systems’ account is its capacity to make space for practices that fall short of all or perhaps many deliberative norms in isolation, but which when seen in context contribute valuably to the functioning of the overall system. Indeed, there can be considerable broader value in such deliberation behind closed doors, in that it allows actors to speak frankly and without fear of upsetting or losing their “constituency” at that moment, and instead report back later on the outcomes of their involvement.^{Footnote 48} Providing more equal opportunities for backstage deliberation can help to redress the power asymmetries that result from privileged access to informal opportunities for influence. Such an approach to embedding deliberation would give lesser-resourced actors regular access to information about how wriggle room is being navigated in practice, and a regular audience with service providers, administrators, and decision-makers with which to influence this process or publicize concerns about its nature.

A good example is Iusmen’s analysis of civil-society actors’ influence over the EU’s children’s-rights policy.^{Footnote 49} She argues for the value of a “structured partnership” approach to engagement, enabling civil-society actors equal access to deliberation with policymakers behind closed doors. Her point is that what matters is a genuine perception of buy-in and inclusion, and that this is not always best provided in the sort of institutional democratic innovation that deliberative democrats are familiar with. Indeed, she shows how one such innovation—the Forum on the Rights of the Child—was deemed to be “window-dressing” by the civil-society actors involved, and that instead they showed much greater enthusiasm for more informal “partnering” arrangements with Commission officials. She shows the benefits of cultivating, but not institutionalizing, the relationship between civil-society actors and the European Commission through regular meetings, policy draft reviews, and program rollout initiatives. Such an arrangement has given these lesser-resourced actors genuine influence to counter the traditional power of state actors and private interests in seeing ambiguous policy aims through to their manifestation in practice. Of course, there remain some limitations in the capacity of civil-society actors to influence implementation. Nevertheless, the case highlights successes in lowering barriers to lesser-resourced actors, allowing them to stay with the issue and especially to influence the direction of the Commissions’ external policy aimed at member states. It shows how cultivating such arrangements can work to foster ongoing input, scrutiny, and contestation, effectively embedding aspects of democratic deliberation downstream.

Applied to obesity, such structured partnerships would involve ongoing engagement with public health advocacy groups typically peripheral to administration and service delivery. This would go further than the involvement of civil-society groups and experts as participants in broader network arrangements. It would provide these actors with privileged access to policymakers and officials to match that enjoyed informally by powerful food lobbyists. These actors might be able, for instance, to halt the erosion of a fat tax in the face of lobbying efforts, or at least draw on their inside knowledge to publicize concerns effectively.

Co-production

While structured partnerships go some way to making the execution of will more inclusive, there are more radical alternatives to realizing this (deliberative) democratic good. In the public-management literature in particular there is growing enthusiasm for “co-production” of public services, enabling practices whereby affected citizens play an active role in the implementation of policies and programs.^{Footnote 50}

An important precursor to the enthusiasm for co-production is Soss’s seminal study on welfare service delivery in the United States.^{Footnote 51} Soss’s comparative study of welfare programs shows the potential value in having citizens, as users, actively engaged in service delivery. He points to the discrepancies among programs targeted at low-income children: some carried forward the tradition of regulatory or market-based coercion in welfare policy, while others adopted a co-productive approach to delivery through ongoing engagement with Head Start organizations—voluntary collectives of parents and carers who became partners in the oversight and delivery of services to low-income children. He shows that, under more coercive models, affected citizens remained less capable or confident of accessing services, while those under the more democratic model were more likely to have knowledge of, and the assurance to actively access, essential services. Just as importantly, Soss finds a positive democratic feedback effect—highlighting how greater interaction between democratic theory and policy scholarship can be mutually beneficial, with closer attentiveness to normative considerations greatly enriching implementation scholarship, too. He shows that while coercive approaches further alienate disaffected citizens, co-productive approaches empower them to feel more efficacious and engage more broadly. In other words, embracing co-production through the policy process can enhance democratic deliberation in practices of opinion and will formation as well.

On the ground, public health scholars and activists are beginning to call for co-production in obesity policymaking. They advocate that local communities, patient groups, and affected citizens themselves be empowered to perform and promote policies and programs to tackle obesity. And small-scale innovations at the local level have shown promise not just in reducing rates of obesity, but in transforming the way marginalized groups interact with health providers.^{Footnote 52} Co-producing services can ensure that affected citizens no longer feel like victims of state-sponsored coercion.