Deliberative democracy versus decisionist democracy

A deliberative democracy believes in structured public deliberation involving different shades of opinion in the process of official decision-making. On the other hand, a decisionist democracy prefers strong executive government and often the processes of arbitrary leadership in making public policies. Parliamentary system is ideally more suited to deliberative democracy that involves more community participation in major decision making compared to decisionist democracy.

The merit of a deliberative approach to democratic rule lies in its ability to gather information representing a wide range of views conducive to creating conditions for rational decision making by the government. Any participative decision making is likely to be accepted by those affected by the decision in particular and the wider community in general. Moreover, the decision made is more likely to be the right decision because it is generally based on consideration of all relevant aspects surrounding the issues that require government policy intervention or action.

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While both models of democracy are quite valid, deliberative democracy is considered to be more appropriate for bringing about effective outcomes of public policy and government actions. A deliberative democracy believes in more active role of the citizens. It is not limited to voting, rather it encourages them to be more proactive and take part in developing, implementing, and evaluating public policies wherever possible. This includes decision making and program implementation at both macro and micro (or grassroots) level.

Similarly, deliberative democracy encourages the development and strengthening of the institutions of civil society which can play an important role in the process of debate about public policies in a democracy. The deliberative democracy also fosters participation of independent policy research institutions to contribute to public deliberation of issues that affect the public in their day to day life as well as more strategic and significant public issues that have longer-term implications.

Deliberative democracy is a prerequisite for successful parliamentary system of government. In Bangladesh, people expected the practice of this model following the fall of president Ershad in early 1991 when the country adopted a parliamentary system of government.

However, in practice, Bangladesh has mostly followed a decisionist approach to policy making by the government. In general, there is hardly any serious and credible debate or deliberation on any issue of national significance on which official decisions are made. The government and for that matter its executive arm usually do not take into account all relevant aspects of an issue that deserves due deliberation for effective policy formulation. In other words, policies and decisions are not made on the basis of full and better information that requires timely and comprehensive consultation with all relevant stakeholders (ie, those having an interest in the matter).

While consensus decision making is not the goal of deliberative democracy, it encourages and promotes the expression of individual views and ideas on issues which need to be put for debate and deliberation. Deliberation implies participation and greater responsiveness of people and fosters democratic practices in the truest sense of the term.

Democracy in Bangladesh appears to have been limited to competitive elections of political leadership to gain power to govern the country on behalf of the people. The so-called representative government in Bangladesh has become ineffective to a large extent in achieving the core objectives of democratic governance, such as fostering constructive political participation of the citizens, promoting political consensus on issues of national significance through dialogue, formulating and implementing policies and programs conducive to a more productive economy and a more cohesive and harmonious society which is free from unnecessary conflicts.

A pertinent aspect of democratic government is the desired goal of allowing all citizens to benefit from nation's economic development and to reduce the social gap and economic disparity between the rich and the poor. However, the rich-poor gap is still on the rise in the country making the society more vulnerable to crimes, conflicts and instability.

Decisionist democracy may turn into an authoritarian democracy in which executive power and authority of a person (prime minister) or group of persons (Cabinet) generally becomes very prominent and community involvement is ignored in making official decisions or public policy. Many examples can be cited where authoritarian approach has been followed by the government in Bangladesh to make policy decisions.

The recent decision of the government to have two-day weekly public holidays on Friday and Saturday is a case in point. The government did not consult with the relevant stakeholders or interested partes or the wider community before declaring Saturday as an additional weekly public holiday in the country. Deliberative democracy would have required wider consultation with different sections of the public before making such an important administrative decision by the government.

Some key stakeholders, such as the business community, especially those engaged in export-import trade, were particularly unhappy because the two-day holidays would hurt their business interests. The government's only consideration was that the 52 additional weekly holidays would reduce fuel consumption in the transport sector and save energy or power consumption in the country.

The government did not consider some adverse consequences of its decision on weekly holidays. These include underutilisation of productive capacity in the economy and the loss of production that have implications for exports. The closure of offices on Friday and Saturday may have adverse impact on communication of Bangladeshi exporters and importers with the rest of the world. Business associations wanted one-day weekly holiday on Sunday to better align their activities with the rest of the world business community.

The key point I would like to make here is that the lack of deliberative democracy leads to less than satisfactory solution to problems affecting different sections of the citizenry or the public. In fine, a collective decision making process that involves all relevant interest groups in the society should be the norm of public policy formulation in a parliamentary democracy like Bangladesh.

Abdul Quader is a freelance contributor.