What happens when democratic principles become understood and enacted
through a particular conception of rationalisty? Does the linking
of democracy with instrumental rationality improve citizens' access
to public decisions or change the terms by which they participate
in these? I examine these questions in my analysis of a controversial
environmental decision where a group of federal bureaucrats adapted
rational decision models as a strategy for improving agency decision
making. Concerned to bolster public participation in its decisions,
and to find a way to integrate complex and diverse forms of information,
these bureaucrats believed that their models would help reduce conflict,
legitimate their investigations, and result in more "rational" decisions.
I argue that the adoption of these models did change the politics
surrounding this decision. Rational decision models facilitated
including the preferences of diverse groups into the decision and
helped to legitimate a compromise policy. But these models did so
in terms that some groups believed distorted their views and misrepresented
their interests. A hazard of this "procedural democracy" is that
it confers a formal equality that can diminish rather than enhance
power.
Wendy Nelson Espeland, Department of Sociology,
Northwestern University
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