In Deliberative Democracy and the Plural Polity, Michael Rabinder James argues for a greater degree of dialogue between normative political theorists and empirical social scientists working to understand the impact of cultural and ethnic pluralism on the functioning of democracies. In contrast to theorists such as Brian Barry and Will Kymlicka, James does not work at crafting sets of normative guidelines that make it possible for certain responses to be automatically triggered by the presence of certain kinds of institutional or social arrangements, or claims put forward by certain types of groups. Instead, James argues that political theorists can render normative judgments only about certain specific situations, and not about certain types of situations. Claims that one type of situation will always merit one type of response ignore both the difficulty involved in classifying a given situation as being of one type or another, and the consequent need to respond to each situation with flexibility. Unless they pay more attention to the complex nature of the societal dynamics present in each particular situation, theorists risk compromising the validity and utility of their normative recommendations.

When it comes to specific situations, however, James himself is primarily concerned not with entering the political fray by evaluating different policies, but with providing "contextual analysis of the legitimacy of democratic processes through which a plural polity [can itself respond] to the substantive claims of groups" (47). James puts forward a flexible and multifaceted normative model for democratic decision-making, "plural deliberation," which incorporates criteria that can be applied to particular situations: debate that is unrestricted in scope, receptiveness to valid criticisms on the part of participants, a relationship between deliberation and actual decision making, and six fairness conditions. Decision making processes are not legitimate by virtue of having fulfilled a single criterion laid out in advance, but instead must be assessed according to how well they meet the multiple criteria contained within the model of plural deliberation, even as satisfying one criterion may make satisfying another more difficult. This more complex form of legitimacy requires that judgments about the legitimacy of a democratic process be made only after that situation has been examined on its own, how it approximates and differs from the elements of the ideal model of plural deliberation having been weighed. In James' words, "[w]hat complex legitimacy requires are specific judgments" about political institutions and decision-making processes. (81)

James identifies a range of factors predisposing citizens toward successful deliberation. In particular, he highlights how as participants in deliberation seek the understanding of other perspectives and world-views that must precede criticism, the realization that ontological and practical limits prevent us from attaining "complete understanding" of other perspectives and world-views actually serves to call our attention to the "finitude" of our own perspectives and world-views, thereby forcing us to recognize them as "limited, contingent, and open to revision" (60-61). In this way, the process of deliberation itself breeds more and better deliberation, further inclining participants toward "deliberative reciprocity," characterized by a willingness to engage in "reflection on preferences and their bases through criticism and justification" (78). In addition, James also identifies a range of more basic "deliberative motivations," including but not limited to moral psychology, and claims that they account for the receptive "dispositions held by participants within deliberation" (144).

James also, however, undertakes a sophisticated investigation of what can go wrong during deliberation across group boundaries, and offers potential remedies. He draws extensively from social scientific research in order to delineate four different dynamics of group conflict that can subvert deliberative processes, while also elaborating his key insight: the need to eschew the familiar but simplistic "communicative/strategic distinction" if dynamics of conflict are to be counteracted. (85) According to Habermas' well known formulation, norms are valid if they would be agreed to by deliberants communicating under the conditions present in an ideal speech situation, in which participants, among other things, do not harbor ambitions to maximize their welfare by taking advantage of each other through strategic action. Strategic behavior, however, permeates communications and interactions of all sorts, and in contrast to Habermas, James argues that the appropriate response should not be to try and minimize strategic action, but rather to take advantage of it. Having paid attention to societal dynamics of communication and conflict, it becomes possible to understand how to "harness or transform strategic dynamics in order to facilitate plural deliberation" (85). The imperative lies in determining how various institutional arrangements can structure incentives so as to induce deliberation among participants in the political process even as they act out of strategic motivations.

In the latter part of his book, James suggests a number of way in which both public and private actors could improve the quality of public deliberation and mitigate dynamics of group conflict, but James focuses most of his attention on various types of institutional reforms. In particular, James thinks that electoral systems can be effectively calibrated to reshape the unruly and malleable public sphere. He argues that by paying significant attention to their design, and by taking into account the strategic motivations that political actors bring to the table, we can reengineer existing electoral systems so that they more effectively provide "incentives…for candidates to reach out and communicate inclusive signals across group boundaries" (154). Electoral systems can make it be in the self-interest of candidates for elected office to facilitate deliberation across group boundaries by making appeals for votes across those boundaries the surest route to electoral success, even in divided societies.

Ultimately, the inextricability of empirical investigation and normative theorizing in James' framework seems to prevent conclusive judgments about institutional design, as approaching accurate knowledge about the social world that we can act upon is an unending process. James himself only ventures to "tentatively suggest" the improvements that he would like to see made to American electoral systems at the local, state, and national level, such as increasing the number of Congressional representatives so as to make it more difficult to politically sideline minority voices that are often crowded out in large Congressional districts. (183) In exchange for accepting the necessarily open-ended nature of the evaluative process required by his framework, however, James can offer political theorists a valuable and sophisticated approach to grappling with many of the problems afflicting diverse polities, both abroad and here in the United States.

Andrew H. Smith, Northwestern University ^*

^* Andrew H. Smith is no longer affiliated with Northwestern University

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