CCST 2110

1
CCST 2110

• Rhetoric in politics, old and new

2
Rhetoric and Politics

• The domain of rhetoric the probable, opinion,
  beliefthe stuff of politics.
• Aristotles Zoon Politicon
• Political Style

3
Deliberative Rhetoric

• (as opposed to Forensic or epideictic)
• Critics of Democracy, from the left and the right
  agree that deliberation could save the day for
  democratic institutions. (effective deliberation)
• --deliberation instead of focus groups,
  monologues to empty chambers, or the mischief of
  factions
• Indeed, most political and legal theorists place
  Western democracies at a transitional moment--to
  Delberative Democracy. (remember Athens)

4
Deliberative Democracy

• Political decision making is legitimate insofar
  as its policies are produced in a process of
  public discussion and debate in which citizens
  and their representatives, going beyond mere
  self-interest, deliberate on their common good.
• This presupposes that we all have the same terms
  and would recognise the same ground rules for
  debate and rhetoric, that we have a notion of
  public good

5
Disagreements about how to deliberate

• Were not in Athens any longer Toto
• Representative democracy (aggregate individual
  expressions of belief)
• Consensus conferences, citizens juries
• New media deliberation (online)

6
The spin-offs of deliberation

• Publics and counterpublics (activism)
• Identification of an increasing number of social
  risks the so-called Risk Society
• Media Panics
• Questions about what can be deliberated and what
  cant
• Disagreements about ground rules (again)