Interpreting Deliberative Democracy: Speech Acts, Strategic Action and Coercion

This article uses speech act theory to challenge the claim that the deliberative state is a forum for communicative action, while markets are characterised by strategic action. Two arguments are advanced against this claim. First, the illocutionary act of initiating a deliberative procedure is strategic because the consensus which the speaker wants the deliberating group to reach is not part of the illocutionary point of the directive but one possible perlocutionary effect. Second, the illocutionary act of recommending following a deliberative consensus is strategic and meddlesome and therefore not a communicative action. Deliberation enables not communicative action but strategic action.