Reclaiming the Lost Treasure:

Deliberation and Strong Democratic Education

Dale T. Snauwaert
Educational Theory, 42:351-367
In her work On Revolution, Hannah Arendt argues that
participatory democracy is the "lost treasure" of the revolutionary
and, by implication, democratic tradition.1 This conclusion is
based upon the proposition that freedom is contingent upon the
existence of public, political spaces wherein self-determination
can be exercised. The purpose of this article is to discuss two
recent political works, James Fishkin's Democracy and
Deliberation and Benjamin Barber's Strong Democracy, that offer
a reclamation of this lost treasure.2 These works in turn have
profound implications for conceptualizing democratic education.
In order to appreciate fully Fishkin and Barber's contributions and
the implications their work has for educational theory, I begin
with a discussion of the nature of freedom and its relationship to
democracy, which will provide a conceptual framework for our
subsequent discussion. Ie will argue that the strong notion of
democracy is based upon a positive conception of liberty defined
as self-determination, which requires both counter-extractive
liberty and a democratic forum for its full expression. In turn, I
will discuss the purpose or broad aims of education consistent
with this conception.
The Lost Treasure
In his seminal essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," Isaiah Berlin
distinguishes between two conceptions of freedom: one negative,
the other positive.3 Berlin defines negative liberty as the absence
of coercion. He states: "To coerce a man is to deprive him of
freedom."4 For Berlin, coercion is a deliberate intention of either
an individual, state, or society to interfere in the freedom or
private affairs, of another individual. Thus, he defines negative
liberty as the absence of deliberative coercive interference.5
Implicit in this conception is an "area within which a man can act

unobstructed by others."6 As Berlin asserts: "Some portion of

human existence must remain independent of the sphere of
social control."7 Thus, negative liberty entails a zone of privacy
immune from coercive interference.
However, this immunity is contingent upon "keeping authority
atbay."8 This contingency entails what may be referred to as
"protective" democracy.9 In order to keep authority at bay, those
vested with governmental authority, which in principle entails
coercive power, must be made accountable to the people.10
Democracy becomes the means to accountability and thus a
necessary condition for negative liberty. Thus, from the negative
conception of liberty is derived liberal democracy in a protective
mode. As we will discuss below, both Fishkin and Barber point
out that this conception of democracy is weak, limiting citizen
action to the periodic selection of representatives without
significant cause for participation in meaningful political
deliberation.
Positive liberty, on the other hand, is, not freedom from coercion,
but freedom to determine one's own destiny: it is selfdetermination. As C.B. Macpherson points out, "positive liberty is
liberty to act as a fully human being."11 As Macpherson
suggests, in its basic form positive liberty may best described as
"developmental liberty," in the sense that through selfdetermined choice our humanity is defined.12 The form of
democracy that emerges from this positive conception of liberty
is developmental in the sense that political participation becomes
a necessary condition for self-realization.13
It can be argued that self-determination is the core concept of
democratic theory. Democracy originally meant rule of the demos
or rule of the many, in particular the economically lower classes.
However, as Arendt, among others, has pointed out, the Greeks
were not fundamentally interested in "democracy" per se but in
isonomy.14 Technically the polis was an isonomy, not a
democracy: it was a political body wherein there was no division
between rulers and ruled. It was not rule of the many but a
political body within which self-governance was achieved, an
achievement of self-determination that was fundamentally

developmental for it provided a forum wherein the individual's

humanity was constructed.
Berlin maintains that the negative and positive concepts of liberty
appear to be "at no great logical distance from each other," but
in reality they are profoundly divergent, in fact irreconcilable, so
much so that positive liberty threatens negative liberty, leading
to the possibility of despotism in the name of freedom.15 This
despotism is based upon the historical tendency to ground
positive liberty in extreme rationalist views of human nature and
society. This view perceives the individual and society as
composed of rational and irrational elements, such that if the
individual and/or society are to be self-determining, that is, to
achieve their conscious purposes, the rational must control the
irrational. In many cases, this extreme rationalism results in
profound denials of negative liberty. Given this danger, Berlin
maintains that we are better off rejecting positive liberty in order
to preserve the more narrow but safer and more philosophically
legitimate notion of negative liberty.
However, as Macpherson brilliantly points out, Berlin's rejection
of positive liberty is based, on the one hand, upon conceptual
confusion concerning the nature of positive liberty and, on the
other hand, upon an overly narrow conception of negative liberty,
thereby calling into question its validity.16 Macpherson argues
that implicit in Berlin's conception of positive liberty are actually
three different, and in some instances incompatible, concepts of
positive liberty. PL1, the foundational concept of positive liberty,
is self-determination. "It is the ability to live in accordance with
one's own conscious purposes, to act and decide for oneself
rather than to be acted upon and decided for by others."17 PL2,
on the other hand, distorts self-determination into self-mastery
in the extreme rationalist sense: "Liberty is coercion, by the fully
rational or by those who have attained self-mastery, of all the
rest."18 The conceptual confusion here is that Berlin links PL1
with PL2, maintaining that PL2 logically follows from PL1. This
linkage is based upon the proposition that self-determination is
contingent upon the existence of a "single universal, harmonious
pattern into which the ends of all rational beings must fit,"
implying that self-determination is contingent upon the rational
apprehension of universals.19 However, as Macpherson points

out, self-determination is not logically contingent upon the

apprehension of universal patterns. PL1 in fact stands in direct
opposition to PL2. It can be argued that PL1 is not possible if
there exist universal patterns to which our ends must adhere, for
in this case it is the pattern that is the determinant rather than
the self, thereby undermining any genuine sense of selfdetermination. The two concepts are in fact logically
contradictory; therefore, PL1 is conceptually independent of PL2.
There is, however, a fundamental linkage between PL1 and PL3.
"PL3 is the democratic conception of liberty as a share in the
controlling authority," that is, as participation in the political
decisions that affect our lives.20 PL1 is contingent upon PL3 in
the sense that if an individual is denied participation in the
political decisions that in part govern one's life, then he or she is
being controlled by others and is not self-determining. In this
sense, PL1 and PL3 are fundamentally linked. From this
perspective, positive liberty entails, not protective democracy,
but in Barber's phrase, democracy in a participatory mode (SD,
p. 151). Macpherson's focus however is on distinguishing PL1
from PL2 and on the debilitating effect of Berlin's narrowly
conceived notion of negative liberty on PL1. Although vital, this
focus overlooks the equally important establishment of PL3, an
establishment that Fishkin and Barber make significant
contributions to.
As Macpherson points out, Berlin's concept of negative liberty,
defined as avoiding deliberate coercive interference and
protecting a zone of privacy, overlooks the withholding of the
means of life and/or labor as a different sort of interference. This
type of interference, inherent in the capitalist mode of
production, restricts negative liberty, "since the dependence on
others for a living, which deficiency of access [to the means of
labor] creates, diminishes the area in which they cannot be
pushed around."21 It also profoundly limits PL1, in that those
who are forced to sell their labor are in essence forced to serve
the purposes of others rather than their own. Thus, Macpherson
concludes that a "formulation of negative liberty which takes little
or no account of class-imposed impediments, whether deliberate
or unintentional, is not entirelyadequate."22

It is important to point out here that coercive interference in the

form of the extraction of labor power, among other powers, does
not only occur in public sphere but also in private life.
Historically, the innate capacities and power of women have been
exploited in the context of the family without such exploitation
being viewed as a violation of their liberty (in both senses).23
Liberal democratic theory is in fact premised upon an artificial
separation of the public and the private, which has legitimized
such extraction. A part of this extraction for both workers and
women is socialization into passive, subordinate ways of being.
As we will discuss below, this differential socialization, inherent in
a stratified social structure, is a major impediment to a
participatory democracy.
Macpherson offers a more adequate conception of negative
liberty as"immunity from the extractive power of others
(including the state)," or as "counter-extractive liberty."24 This
concept would deny the extraction of one's labor and other
powers for the benefit of another. When the concept of negative
liberty is broadened in this way, negative liberty and PL1 are
truly of "no great logical distance from each other." However,
Macpherson maintains a distinction in that negative liberty as
counter-extractive liberty is a necessary condition for PL1.
However, this is where Macpherson stops. While counterextractive liberty is a necessary condition for PL1, it is not a
sufficient condition. PL3, or active participation in political
decisions, is also necessary. As noted earlier, a version of PL3 is
needed to protect negative liberty. However, this is a weak
notion of democracy. PL3 as a condition of PL1 is stronger in that
it requires direct and full participation: PL3 is conceived not as
protective but as a public space of positive political freedom; a
conception that has been virtually lost in modern political
discourse.
Arendt argues, in On Revolution, that the aim of "revolution" is
not liberation from political or economic oppression, but the
establishment of political freedom.25 The result of liberation is
the establishment of certain rights that define a zone of privacy
in essence, the establishment of negative liberty or perhaps even
counter-extractive liberty. However, Arendt maintains that
negative liberty in this sense is not the "actual content of

freedom"; the content of freedom is "participation in public

affairs, or admission to the public realm."26 Freedom here is
equated with PL3. However, why would democratic participation
be the aim of revolution? Put simply, the answer is that PL1, selfdetermination, does not occur in a vacuum; positive freedom
needs a public realm within which it is exercised.
The individual in isolation from others, outside of human society,
exercises a pure self-determination, for there is no one to impede
him. In this case PL1 and negative liberty become
indistinguishable. However, given the fact that we are social
beings, self-determination in any real sense does not occur in
isolation but must occur in the context of human association.
However, in the course of living together one's determinations
impede those of others, such that human association in principle
undermines self-determination. Thus, in order for PL1 to be real,
a "body politic" must be formed, wherein a public space is
created for the exercise of PL1. As Arendt put it: "a body politic
which is the result of covenant and 'combination' becomes the
very source of power for each individual person who outside the
constitutional political realm remains impotent."27
The constituting of a public space, a body politic, is the act of a
special kind of social contract, not in a Hobbesian or Lockean
sense wherein the people contract with a government to protect
their negative liberty, but in a positive sense of mutual pledge
and covenant. In this sense, individuals forge a mutual
agreement to govern their community collectively. For example:
The American Revolution... did not break out but was made by
men in common deliberation and on the strength of mutual
pledges. The principle which came to light during those fateful
years when foundations were laidnot by strength of one
architect but by the combined power of the manywas the
interconnected principle of mutual promise and common
deliberation.28
In the case of the American Revolution the founding of a body
politic was based upon 150 years of experience of covenantmaking and local participatory democracy. The revolution was

originally couched in the language of liberation ("no taxation

without representation") but, on the strength of democratic
experience, became an act of political founding in terms of the
establishment of a constitutional republic. As Arendt
demonstrates, at the basis of all modern revolutions is this notion
of founding a public space wherein positive freedom is
exercised.29
In the context of revolution there is the regular, repeated
"emergence and reemergence of the council system": for
example, the Paris Commune government of 1871; the
spontaneous emergence of soviets for the purpose of selfgovernance of workers in both the 1905 and 1917 Russian
revolutions (which, it is important to add, occurred outside any
party system); the revolts of 1918 and 1919 in Germany,
wherein soldiers and workers organized a council system,
demanding it be the basis of the new German constitution; and
the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, based upon a council system
which quickly spread and then was crushed by the Soviet
invasion.30 What is striking about these events is that in each
case they were expressions of ordinary citizens who, in a time of
revolutionary change, spontaneously, without being organized by
a revolutionary vanguard, sought and created a public space for
the exercise of positive freedom.31
However, in each case the spontaneous formation of forums for
the exercise of participatory democracy was undermined by
intellectual, revolutionary, or industrial elites and/or a foreign
hegemonic power. In Arendt's words, "It was nothing more or
less than this hope for transformation of the state, for a new
form of government that would permit every member of the
modern egalitarian society to become a 'participator' in public
affairs, that was buried in the disasters of twentieth-century
revolutions."32 This loss of forums for participatory democracy is
the "lost treasure" of the revolutionary and, by implication,
democratic tradition.
Unfortunately, the most successful of all modern revolutions, the
American Revolution, is also an example of the lost treasure.
Although built on the council system, in terms of the original
colonial covenants and township meetings, this system was

quickly eroded in the constitutional process and for all practical

purposes has vanished.33 The U. S. Constitution provided a Bill
of Rights for the protection of negative liberty, but it however
"provided a public space only for the representatives of the
people, and not for the people themselves."34 As Arendt states,
"the failure to incorporate the townships and the town-hall
meetings, the original springs of all political activity in the
country, amounted to a death sentence for them.it was the
Constitution itself, this greatest achievement of the American
people, which eventually cheated them of their proudest
possession."35 It was Thomas Jefferson alone among the
Founders, and he only partially, who recognized the vital
importance for democracy of preserving public spaces of
freedom. This is apparent in his early advocacy of regular
revolution and his later advocacy of the ward system.36
All of this suggests that developmental liberty is contingent upon
the creation of participatory democratic forums, as well as
counter-extractive liberty. What Fishkin and Barber offer is a
reclamation of this lost treasure.
Strong Democracy and Deliberation
In Democracy and Deliberation, James Fishkin defines democracy
in terms of the fulfillment of three conditions: political equality,
nontyranny, and deliberation. Fishkin defines political equality as
"the institutionalization of a system which grants equal
consideration to everyone's preferences and which grants
everyone appropriately equal opportunities to formulate
preferences on the issues under consideration" (DD, pp. 30-31).
In turn political equality yields three separate requirements:
equal weighing of each individual's preferences; guarantees that
threats or bargains external to the political system do not
determine policy or decisions (for instance, patronage); and an
effective hearing of the "full range of interests that have
significant followings" so that the people have a significant
opportunity to form and decide among preferences (DD, pp. 3133). If these requirements are not met, political equality is
undermined, for unequal voting weights, ineffective insulation

conditions, and skewed political debate all provide certain

individuals or parties advantaged positions.
Fishkin defines nontyranny as the avoidance of a "choice of a
policy that imposes severe deprivations when an alternative
policy could have been chosen that would have imposed no
severe deprivations on anyone" (DD, p. 34). He defines a severe
deprivation as the destruction or denial of basic human interests
or rights. Thus, any policy, even one based upon equality and
deliberation, that severely deprives another individual or group is
not democratic. The nontyranny condition is thus concerned with
a sense of justice at the core of democracy. Fishkin is particularly
concerned here, as were James Madison and Alexander Hamilton,
with majority tyranny.37
The last democratic condition, and the one Fishkin believes the
American democracy has lost, is deliberation. Deliberation is
defined here in terms of Jrgen Habermas's notion of an "ideal
speech situation""A situation of free and equal discussion,
unlimited in its duration, constrained only by the consensus
which would be arrived at by the 'force of the better argument'"
(DD, p. 36). This is the ideal of deliberation that should be
pursued in the political realm. Fishkin maintains that deliberation
makes equality real, for without deliberation political equality is
power absent of the "opportunity to think about how that power
ought to be exercised" (DD, p. 36). Public opinion must be
informed by deliberation and debate rather than being an equal
but merely emotive or whimsical utterance.
At the core of Fishkin's argument for increasing the amount and
degree of deliberation in the American political system is the
proposition that there exists a false dilemma in our democratic
theorizing and our democratic system between equality and
deliberation. The false dilemma is that we, or at least those in
power, believe that "we must choose between the thoughtful but
antidemocratic competence of elites on the one hand, and the
superficialities of mass democracy on the other," that in a largescale nation-state we are faced with either an undemocratic but
competent system of governance or an incompetent politically
equal mass democracy (DD, p. 3). The purpose of Fishkin's book
is to adapt democracy to the large-scale nation-state in such a

way that the three conditions of democracy are fulfilled. In

Fishkin's view, this project is fundamentally a task of bringing
"some of the favorable characteristics of small-group, face to
face democracy to the large-scale nation-state" (DD, p. 1). From
the perspective of the discussion of liberty above, it is a task of
creating public spaces wherein positive liberty may be exercised.
The focus here is on PL3. However, Fishkin neglects any
discussion of counter-extractive liberty, a shortcoming many
critical theorists will voice. However, Fishkin does make a
valuable contribution in recognizing the need for deliberation and
providing a thoughtful means to that end, which will be discussed
below.
For Fishkin the importance of deliberation in a democracy is
derived from Madisonian premises. Madison argues in Federalist
no. 10 that public opinion should not be taken in its raw form,
but rather refined and enlarged through a process of deliberation
in a deliberative body. Both Madison and Hamilton maintain that
this deliberative body be representative. This representative body
will serve as a check on tyranny as well as a mechanism through
which opinion will become informed. The problem with the
Madisonian position is that, while meeting the conditions of
nontyranny and deliberation, it is politically unequal (DD, pp. 1617, 35).
According to Fishkin, this is the position taken by the AntiFederalists, who sought a direct democracy, or at least a republic
that was close to the people. Fishkin maintains that this directmajoritarian vision, while losing the constitutional battle, "has
been transformed into a popular ideology for the large-scale
nation-state. In this transformation, the face-to-face character of
deliberation possible in the small-scale version has dropped out,
it has been replaced by millions of atomistic citizens who bounce
back unreflective preferences from the mass media"(DD, p. 19).
In the name of political equality we have moved, according to
Fishkin, to a plebiscitary system of governance. Instead of
informed opinions leading policy formation, preferences shaped
and controlled by political elites and the mass media are
"bounced back, reflected in polls, without sufficient critical
scrutiny and without sufficient information and examination to
represent any meaningful popular control" (DD, p. 19). Fishkin

interprets this result as being caused by a movement to political

equality without sufficient attention to deliberation. However, it
can be argued that our current massified citizenry is a result of
the inherent elitism of Madisonian democracy which has given
way to "elite" democracy, a system of governance based, not on
the consent of the governed, but on manufactured consent.38
However, whether the cause is a movement toward equality in a
plebiscitary form or a movement toward elitism, the solution is
the same: increase deliberation through the creation of public
spaces of positive freedom.
Fishkin's contribution to the creation of democratic forums is
what he calls "deliberative opinion polls." An ordinary opinion poll
models what thecitizenry thinks at a particular time. A
deliberative opinion poll, on the other hand, models "what the
electorate would think if, hypothetically, it could be immersed in
intensive deliberative processestelling uswhat the entire mass
public would think about some policy issues or some candidates if
it could be given an opportunity for extensive reflection and
access to information" (DD, p. 81). In essence, the deliberative
opinion poll provides a public space wherein a "representative
microcosm of the mass public can become deliberative" (DD, p.
84). In becoming deliberative, the participants would become
informed and their informed opinion would serve as a source of
judgment for nonparticipants.
Fishkin bases his deliberative opinion poll on the ancient Athenian
jury. The Athenian jury was fundamentally different from our
own modern ones, in that they were deliberative bodies,
composed of approximately five hundred citizens, charged with
"trying" the legislative decisions of the Assembly. In this sense
the Assembly was politically subordinate to the jury, for the jury
was empowered to "explicitly reconsider and overturn the
decisions of the Assembly" (DD, p. 88). In turn, this jury system
facilitated deliberation in the Assembly, for the citizens in the
Assembly needed to debate with greater care given that they
knew they would have to defend their decisions before the jury.
Fishkin concludes that these juries "were miniature, statistically
representative versions of the entire citizenry who were given
wide discretion in making political judgements for the polity"
(DD, p. 88).These political courts were a central democratic

institution; in Fishkin's view, the reconsideration of the

Assembly's actions was "in a comparable way, a higher form of
democracy" (DD, p. 89). Fishkin envisions the deliberative
opinion poll as a modern version of the Athenian jury.
However, although the deliberative opinion poll is a much-needed
advance in our current political environment and is a brilliant,
ingenious idea, there is a troubling omission. Fishkin's proposal,
although moving in a more deliberative direction, is politically
unequal, for although it extends deliberation to the people, the
people are still represented without a public space for the
exercise of positive freedom. Fishkin recognizes this shortcoming
but argues that this is the best that we can do, that to think of
extending deliberation to all citizens is "utopian" (DD, p. 84). He
assumes that the citizenry is generally apathetic and would not
take advantage of opportunities for increased deliberation even if
they were available. He argues that a complete extension of
deliberation "is belied by all that we currently know about the
effects of our general movement toward direct democracy." (DD,
p. 85). Here Fishkin is equating direct democracy with
franchisement whereas the Greeks equated it with direct
participation. One could argue, based upon Fishkin's own
assumptions, that franchisement without the opportunity to
deliberate leads to apathy, for without deliberation voting tends
to lose much of its significance and meaning. The opportunity to
deliberate, to participate in public spaces of freedom is
democracy in its broadest, positive sense. The actual founding of
our nation as premised on mutual pledge and covenant should be
proof enough that if given the chance, citizens will become
deliberative.39 It is this broad conception of political participation
that premises Barber's notion of strong democracy.
Barber's project is an attempt to articulate a democratic system
that revitalizes citizenship "without neglecting the problems of
efficient government by defining democracy as a form of
government in which all of the people govern themselves in at
least some public matters at least some of the time" (SD, p. xiv).
The aim of this "strong" democratic system is the development of
citizenship in terms of competent public judgment. Barber writes,
"the task of democracy must be to invent procedures,
institutions, and forms for citizenship that nurture political

judgement and succor common choice and action" (SD, p. 166).

Beyond citizenship itself Barber maintains that democratic
participation is developmental in terms of the whole person. He
writes, "[Strong democracy] places human self-realization
through mutual transformation at the center of the democratic
process" (SD, p. 215).40 Barber is here articulating the linkage
between developmental liberty (PL1) and participatory
democracy (PL3). From Barber's perspective the viability of
developmental liberty is contingent upon the existence of public
spaces of freedom, for "in the end human freedom will be found
not in caverns of private solitude but in the noisy assemblies
where women and men meet daily as citizens and discover in
each other's talk the consolation of a common humanity" (SD, p.
311). The content of freedom and hence the nature of democracy
for Barber is "liberal," not in the negative sense, but positively
and developmentally. This notion is centered in his conception of
politics.
Barber conceives politics in terms of human relationships rather
than as a function of truth. Politics, according to Barber, becomes
necessary when events in the public arena necessarily call for
"public action, and thus for reasonable public choice"(SD, p.
120). However, these public choices are made in the face of
conflict and in the absence of "independent grounds of
judgement" which provide a basis for resolving conflict by appeal
to a priori standards or principles (SD, pp. 120-22). Given
conflict and the absence of an independent ground, politics
becomes the means to reasonable public choice.
Barber articulates five modes of democratic politics:
authoritative, juridical, pluralistic, unitary, and strong democracy.
Authoritative democracy resolves conflict in the absence of an
independent ground through deference to a representative
executive elite who possess the competence necessary to make
public choices. In essence this is the "elite" conception of
democracy, wherein the representative elite receives a grant of
authority from the electorate in periodic elections and proceeds
to pursue the aggregate interests of the electorate. Barber
rejects this mode of democracy on the grounds that it tends
toward hegemony, is politically unequal, and possesses a weak
view of citizenship (SD, pp. 140-42).

The juridical mode of democracy is also authoritative but with

reference to a judicial elite. Deference here is given to
a"representative judicial elite that, with the guidance of
constitutional and preconstitutional norms, arbitrates difference
and enforces constitutional rights and duties" (SD, p. 142). In
this mode conflict is resolved and public choices are made
through neutral arbitration, adjudication, and protection of rights
based on constitutional standards. John Rawls's A Theory of
Justice typifies the theory of democracy in a juridical mode.41
Barber rejects this mode on the basis of its tendency to subvert
the legislative process, restrict citizen participation, and
reintroduce an independent ground in the guise of constitutional
norms and standards, a "higher law" (SD, pp. 142-143).
Democracy in a pluralistic mode resolves conflict through
"bargaining and exchange among free and equal individuals and
groups, which pursue their private interests in a market setting
governed by the social contract"(SD, p. 143). This mode is
exemplified by public choice models and Robert Dahl's conception
of polyarchy.42 The fundamental principle here is that public
choice is achieved through bargaining in a political market
obstructed only by the terms of the social contract. This mode
assumes an active citizenry which pursues its own private
interests within the political market. Barber rejects this mode on
the grounds that it "cannot generate public thinking or public
ends of any kind," and that it reintroduces an independent
ground in terms of the invisible hand of the market (SD, p. 144).
The above three modes of democratic politics are representative,
and in being representative they are "incompatible with
freedom"(SD, p. 145) The fundamental problem here is that
these modes do not provide a public space, an opportunity, for
the exercise of positive freedom. Barber writes:
Freedom and citizenship are correlates; each sustains and gives
life to the other. Men and women who are not directly
responsible through common deliberation, common decision, and
common action for the policies that determine their common

lives are not really free at all, however much they enjoy security,
private rights, and freedom from interference(SD, pp. 145-146).
While providing other political goods, including negative liberty,
the notion of positive liberty is absent from these conceptions of
democracy, and therefore they are fundamentally inadequate.
Democracy in the unitary mode resolves conflict and makes
public choices through "community consensus as defined by the
identification of individuals and their interests with a symbolic
collectivity and its interests" (SD, p. 149). This mode of
democracy provides a means to the articulation of a common
good and common action. However, it achieves this commonality,
not through deliberation, but through conformity. In this sense it
"ultimately betrays the democratic impulse" (SD, p. 148). It is
fundamentally coercive and thus provides neither negative liberty
nor a forum for the exercise of positive liberty. While it offers
community, it does so at the expense of liberty.
As Barber sees it, this conclusion raises a central question for the
future of democracy: "Is there an alternative to liberal
democracy [in a negative sense] that does not resort to the
subterfuges of unitary democracy?" (SD, p. 150). If not, then
along with Berlin we are better off rejecting positive liberty,
keeping to negative liberty and liberal, protective democracy.
However, Barber maintains that there is an alternative, which he
refers to as "strong democracy."
Strong democracy resolves conflict and makes public choices
through a "participatory process of ongoing, proximate selflegislation and the creation of a political community capable of
transforming dependent private individuals into free citizens and
partial and private interests into public goods" (SD, p. 151).
Strong democracy is fundamentally participatory, aiming to
transform conflict rather than either "suppressing, tolerating, or
ameliorating it" (SD, p. 151). What emerges from this process is
what Barber refers to as "creative consensus," as opposed to a
coercive, conformist, or a bargained consensus. Creative
consensus is "an agreement that arises out of common talk,
common decision, and common workthat is premised on citizens'
active and perennial participation in the transformation of conflict

through the creation of common consciousness and political

judgement" (SD, p. 224). Through public deliberation values are
"imaginatively reconstructed as public norms" (SD, p. 137).
Strong democracy is based upon participation in "an evolving
problem-solving community that creates public ends where there
were none before" (SD, p. 152). It responds to the political
condition by providing a dialectic between "participatory civic
activity and continuous community-building in which freedom
and equality are nourished and given political being" (SD, p. 151,
my emphasis). Strong democracy is fundamentally Deweyan in
that it is communitarian, participatory, and developmental. It is
an attempt to provide a theoretical basis for the creation of a
public forum for the exercise of developmental liberty.
In addition to these theoretical foundations, Barber provides a
series of recommendations for the institutionalization of strong
democracy. These recommendations center on three categories:
(1) strong democratic talk in the form of neighbor hood
assemblies, television town meetings, and the lot principle; (2)
strong democratic decision-making in the form of a national
initiative and referendum process; and (3) strong democratic
action in the form of national service, neighborhood action
programs, workplace democracy, and the creation of physical
public spaces. (SD, pp. 261-311)
The fundamental difference here between Barber and Fishkin is
that Barber favors local deliberative forums while Fishkin is
concerned with a national forum. Fishkin offers an extension of
deliberation to a statistically representative sample of the
electorate, while Barber attempts to make the system directly
participatory. On the one hand, Fishkin, while being deliberative,
is politically unequal, and on the other hand, Barber, while being
politically equal, lacks a viable means of extending deliberation.
A combination of Barber's small deliberative forums and Fishkin's
deliberative opinion polls, wherein local deliberative forums are
polled, would provide a politically equal and deliberative system.
However, there remains a fundamental problem which has
already been alluded to. Political participation does not occur in
isolation from the inherently unequal, stratified social structure.
The existence of stratification and its concommittant differential

socialization threatens to transform participatory democracy from

a process based upon formal equality of authority into an
unequal power relation. For example, women who have been
socialized to assume passive and subordinate roles may enter
deliberation on an unequal footing with males who have been
socialized to be aggressive and dominant. The same is true for
differential socialization across classes.43 If political equality and
hence self-determination is to be a reality, this inequality must
be addressed. Neither author is sensitive to this issue.
However, regardless of the technical merits of their respective
proposals and their insensitivity to extractive power, the authors
provide strong arguments for participatory democracy, which has
profound implications for how we conceive education.
Strong Democratic Education
A comprehensive discussion of the educational implications of
strong deliberative democracy is well beyond the scope of this
short essay, which has primarily concentrated on a review of its
fundamental tenets. Consequently, the discussion below will be
limited to a preliminary discussion of one of the main elements of
educational theory, namely a discussion of educational goals. A
discussion of educational goals is essentially a philosophical
project, for aims and purposes of education are fundamentally
contingent upon questions of value. Therefore, if we value a
strong, deliberative democracy, what should be the purpose of
education? or, put another way, what should be the aim of
education in a strong, deliberative democracy? A central feature
of this conception of democracy is that it is itself developmental,
that it contains inherently its own educational dynamic. However,
the world of strong democracy and its developmental dynamic
essentially concerns adults. Although adults are significantly
transformed through democratic deliberation,44 they enter the
democratic arena with a consciousness that has been already
formed through a variety of educational and socialization
experiences. As discussed above, these experiences and their
consequent effects on consciousness may or may not be
conducive to participation in a deliberative democracy. Thus,
even though inherently developmental, strong democracy

requires a particular prior preparation. Formal education, as well

as families, are the primary arenas within which this preparation
is provided to children. One of the central purposes of education
in a strong, deliberative democracy would then be the
development of a state of consciousness conducive to democratic
participation in adult life, for as Carole Pateman points out,
"every form of social life requires a specific form of consciousness
or 'social spirit' in its members."45 What would be the features of
such a state of consciousness?
Paulo Freire maintains that a particular cultural epoch is
premised upon a "thematic universe" which defines the
consciousness of the people in that historical moment. The
fundamental theme of our present epoch is domination.
Domination, manifested in various forms of extractive power
relations, shapes a dual or doubled consciousness comprising
both the sense of oppression and the image of the oppressor
within.46 In order for genuine democratization to be achieved,
the oppressive and dominating states of consciousness must be
transformed, especially in future generations. As we will discuss
below, such a state of consciousness is interrelated with
totalitarian regimes which are the antithesis of strong,
deliberative democracy. Whereas strong democracy is
deliberative and participatory, based upon self-determination,
totalitarianism is a system of absolute power exercised by an
elite or elites, entailing the subordination of the individual to the
state.47 Nazi Germany is a case in point.
Central to the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany was the
political principle that dissent was to be, as one of the Nazi
doctors at Auschwitz stated, "ruthlessly dealt with, as the
symptom of an illness which threatens the healthy unity of the
indivisible nationalorganism."48 Of course, there were dissenters
and they were eliminated by the thousands. However, the
majority of the German population willingly went along. Why?
What was the consciousness and in turn the education of the
German people that made them susceptible to the rise of fascism
and its genocidal system?49 This is a very complex question;
however, the Swiss psychologist Alice Miller does shed
considerable light on the issue in a way that explicitly connects it
to educational theory.50

Miller maintains that the rise of fascism in Germany can be

partially traced to the authoritarian structure of the German
family and the German educational system. Implicit in both is
what she refers to as "poisonous pedagogy." The goal of
poisonous pedagogy is the absolute obedience of the child in
dutiful silence, that is, without expressed feelings or objections.
For example, Hitler was beaten daily by his father and then made
to thank him for his guidance. The method of poisonous
pedagogy includes such acts as physical abuse, humiliation,
silencing, and ridicule, all for the child's "own good."
The child who is subjected to this treatment, in order to survive,
must engage in such psychological acts as psychic numbing,
dissociation, andrepression.51 The effect on the child is twofold.
First, the anger, pain, and rage naturally derived from being
abused is repressed and then projected onto others in later life
(for example, one's children) or back onto one's self (for
example, through drug abuse). In the case of Nazi Germany,
Miller argues that Hitler offered the German people, who had
been reared on poisonous pedagogy, the Jews as objects of
projection. This was rationally justified by the "life unworthy of
life" policy, a classic example of "moral exclusion," which
provides a justification for injustice and oppression of designated
groups, even genocide, when they are perceived as outside of
the boundaries that define the moral community, and thus not
protected by the principles of justice.52 However, it was the
poisonous educational experience which laid the foundation for
such moral exclusion and violence. Second, poisonous pedagogy
results in what Miller refers to as the "psychic murder of the
soul," the loss of a genuine conception of one's self, which results
in blind obedience to authority. As Rudolf Hss the commandant
of Auschwitz, put it:
It was constantly impressed upon me in forceful terms that I
must obey promptly the wishes and commands of my parents,
teachers, and priests, and indeed of all grown-up people,
including servants, and that nothing must distract me from this
duty. What ever they said was always right. These basic

principles by which I was brought up became second nature

tome.53
The implications of such an upbringing are profound, for when an
adult who has been miseducated in this way enters the public
arena, with a consciousness defined in terms of moral exclusivity,
psychically numbed and disintegrated, filled with repressed rage,
and blindly obedient to authority, "he will find himself at the
mercy of the authorities for better or worse."54 In Freire's
terminology, the oppressed individual, by internalizing the image
of the oppressor, becomes an oppressor.
In contrast to this state of consciousness is a state of mind that
is authentic. Miller maintains that "individuals who refuse to
adapt to a totalitarian regime are not doing so out of a sense of
duty or because of naivet but because they cannot help but be
true to themselves."55 This authenticity is the basis of selfdetermination, for "only if we do not allow ourselves to be
reduced to the instrument of another person's will can we fulfill
our personal needs and defend our legitimate rights."56
However, in order to be strongly democratic, this defense, taking
a stand based upon a deep sense of personal integrity, must be
nonviolent.
As Stephen Preskill suggests, care and cooperation are personal
characteristics at the core of strong democracy.57 As Carol
Gilligan points out, care and cooperation are premised upon an
awareness of interdependence and connection between
individuals, living in a "web of relationships."58 When this web is
extended to include all human beings, then universal moral
inclusion is achieved. Lifton and Markusen refer to this mentality
as "species consciousness."59 It is a state of consciousness which
is intimately aware of human interconnection and thus aware
that every human being is contained within the moral community
and thus deserving of just, nonviolent treatment. It is this sense
of species consciousness entailing care, cooperation, and
inclusion which is a fundamental prerequisite for democratic
deliberation, for such a mentality provides the foundation for the
nonviolent resolution of conflict, conflict resolution through
deliberation and negotiation rather than through extractive
power. As Barber points out, creative consensus or nonviolent

conflict resolution is at the heart of strong democracy. In

summary, a species consciousness characterized by authenticity,
care, cooperation, and inclusion is conducive to a strong,
deliberative democracy. Therefore, if we value strong democracy,
then the purpose of education must become the development of
an authentic, species consciousness. In the development of a
species consciousness we have in fact the meeting of counterextractive and developmental liberty.
In conclusion, Fishkin's Democracy and Deliberation and Barber's
Strong Democracy continue a trend in democratic theory toward
a reclamation of public spaces of positive freedom that began
with Pateman's Participation and Democratic Theory, penetrating
even into the arena of pluralist theory with the publication of
Robert Dahl's A Preface to Economic Democracy.60 This article
has been premised on the view that this development in
democratic theory, and the democratic impulse (in the sense of
self-determination) emerging throughout the world, have
profound implications for educational theory in general and the
conceptualization of democratic education in particular. If we are
to move to a more deliberative, stronger democracy, the
development of strong democratic citizens should become the
focus of our educational thought and practice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Dale T. Snauwaert is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Higher and Adult Education and Foundations, College of
Education, Hill Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia,
MO 65211. His primary areas of scholarship are political and
educational theory, comparative philosophy of education, and the
history of educational ideas.
1. See Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin,
1963).
2. James S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions
for Democratic Reform (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1991) and Benjamin R. Barber Strong Democracy: Participatory
Politics for a New Age (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1984). These works will be referred to as DD and SD in
the text for all subsequent references.

3. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1969).
4. Ibid., 121.
5. See C. B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 97.
6. Berlin, Four Essays,122.
7. Ibid., 126.
8. Ibid.
9. For a discussion of protective democracy see David Held,
Models of Democracy (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1987); and C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal
Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).
10. In addition, the protection of negative liberty also requires
the establishment of a "Bill of Rights" embodied in a constitution
and interpreted by an independent judiciary.
11. Macpherson, Democratic Theory, 105.
12. Ibid., 119.
13. See Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory
(London: Cambridge University Press, 1970); and Dale T.
Snauwaert, Democracy, Education, and Governance: A
Developmental Conception (Albany: State University of New York
Press, in press), chap. 3.
14. See Arendt, On Revolution ; Cynthia Farrar, The Origins of
Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); and Donald
Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy: The
Triumph of Vision in Leadership (New York: Touchstone, 1991).
15. Berlin, Four Essays, 131-32; see also Macpherson,
Democratic Theory, 105.
16. Macpherson, Democratic Theory, chap. 5.
17. Ibid., 109.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., 111.
20. Ibid., 109.
21. Ibid., 101.
22. Ibid.
23. Susan Moller Okin, "Gender, the Public and the Private," in
Political Theory Today, ed. David Held (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 1991).
24. Ibid., 118.
25. Arendt, On Revolution, chap. 1.

26. Ibid., 32.

27. Ibid., 171.
28. Ibid., 213-14.
29. Ibid., chap. 6.
30. Ibid., 261.
31. Ibid., chap. 6.
32. Ibid., 264-65.
33. Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism, 2d ed. (New York:
Norton, 1979).
34. Ibid., 238.
35. Ibid., 239.
36. Ibid., chap. 6; see also Richard K. Matthews, The Radical
Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View (Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press, 1984).
37. This nontyranny condition is very similar to Amy Gutmann's
criteria of nonrepression and nondiscrimination as oversight
criteria for democratic policy-making. See her book Democratic
Education (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987).
38. See for example, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky,
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1988); for the classic formulation in
terms of elite democracy and manufacturing consent, see Joseph
Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1942); for its application to education see, for
example, Steven E. Tozer, "Elite Power and Democratic Ideals,"
in Society as Educator in an Age of Transition, ed. Kenneth D.
Benne and Steven E. Tozer (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), 186-225.
39. However, Fishkin may be right in that a full extension of
deliberation may be "utopian" in our current hegemonic political
environment. Deliberative opinion polls would be a much
welcomed development, and possibly a step in the direction of
full deliberation.
40. This conception of "developmental" democracy has a long
tradition, starting with the Greek democracy and paideia and
continuing for example in the political thought of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey, among others. For
a discussion see Held, Models of Democracy; Macpherson, Life
and Times; Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory; and
Snauwaert, Democracy, Education, and Governance.

41. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1971).
42. See, for example, Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of
Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957); Mancur Olson, The Logic
of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1965); Robert Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1956).
43. See for example Jane Roland Martin, Reclaiming A
Conversation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985);
and Carole Pateman, The Problem of Political Obligation: A
Critique of Liberal Theory (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1985).
44. One classic example is the work of Paulo Freire. See his
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury Press, 1970).
45. Pateman, Problem of Political Obligation, 176.
46. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As we will see below this
state of oppressed consciousness is closely connected to
totalitarianism, in particular the Nazi regime.
47. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York:
Meridan Books, 1951).
48. Cited in Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Markusen, The Genocidal
Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat (New York: Basic
Books, 1990), 54.
49. Lifton and Markusen in Genocidal Mentality, argue that there
is a fundamental similarity between the mentality or
consciousness of the Nazi genocidal system and the American
and Russian nuclear system, which is premised upon the
possibility of genocide.
50. Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in ChildRearing and the Roots of Violence (New York: Noonday Press,
1983).
51. Miller, For Your Own Good. See also Lifton and Markusen,
The Genocidal Mentality.
52. Lifton and Markusen, Genocidal Mentality. For a discussion of
moral exclusion see Susan Opotow, "Moral Exclusion and
Injustice: An Introduction," Journal of Social Issues 46:1-20.
53. Cited in Miller, For Your Own Good, epigraph.
54. Ibid., 84.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 265.

57. Stephen Preskill, "Strong Democracy, the Ethic of Caring and

Civic Education," in Philosophy of Education 1989, ed. Ralph Page
(Normal, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society, 1990), 217-25.
58. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1982).
59. Lifton and Markusen, Genocidal Mentality, chap. 9.
60. Dahl, Preface to Economic Democracy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------EDUCATIONAL THEORY / Summer 1992 / Volume 42 / Number 3

1992 Board of Trustees / University of Illinois