Disability and Deliberative Democracy: Towards Involving the Whole Human Spectrum in Public Deliberation

Abstract

There is a danger that the basic assumption in deliberative democracy rests still strongly on the idea of normality. There is an image of ordinary, normal and active citizens which is supposed to capture the whole human spectrum. However, people with disabilities are traditionally excluded from societal participation. If the same exclusion takes place in deliberative democracy, the implications for its legitimacy are significant. In this article, we will examine how deliberative democracy understands and acknowledges disability and analyse how citizens' jury is suited to involve people with disabilities in order to reach the whole human spectrum for public deliberation. A citizens' jury for people with disabilities, implemented in Finland during the summer of 2011, is used as an in-depth case study. Findings of this article suggest that such citizens' jury has potential in enhancing the inclusiveness of deliberative democracy. However, challenges that need to be focused on in future research remain. These include the costs and the influence of citizens' jury for people with disabilities. Also the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities remains a challenge.