Prerequisites of deliberative democracy: Inclusivity, publicity, and heterogeneity of German citizens’ everyday political talk

Abstract

Departing from a systemic perspective, the paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of ordinary citizens’ everyday political talk from a deliberative democratic point of view. Drawing on unique survey data collected in Germany it examines three prerequisites of deliberative democracy as a model of democracy that is rooted in political discussions among the citizenry at large: (1) The prerequisite of inclusivity expects citizens’ engagement in everyday conversations to be widespread and egalitarian. (2) The prerequisite of publicity demands citizens to be mutually aware of each other’s political perspectives. (3) The prerequisite of heterogeneity necessitates that the standpoints to which citizens are exposed when communicating about politics reflect society’s political pluralism. Analyses of citizens’ communicative engagement in their overall and core networks suggest basically positive diagnoses for all three prerequisites, but with severe limitations on closer inspection. The paper furthermore shows that with regard to everyday political talk social inequality gives rise to political inequality, and demonstrates how these effects are mediated by variations in citizens’ endowment with cultural and social capital.