In Between Facts and Norms, Jurgen Habermas considers the ongoing question of how public, democratic deliberation might be moved from peripheral points in society to the very core of governance. That is, how might citizen opinions, social movements, and all manner of individuals and groups working outside the loci of decision-making push their diverse issues to the center of political institutions?

Obama’s change.gov is making headway on this question, and has thus far received high levels of citizen input via their online invitations for issue feedback. As I briefly mentioned in one of our last podcasts, though, it would seem equally productive to move some of the online discussion at change.gov to reflexive matters about the very “procedure” by which this mechanism hopes to best advance their democratic goals. Other bloggers are now picking up on this need too (see www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/33538/, “Open for Questions Round II: A Video Response”).

Many argumentation scholars have different ways of conceptualizing public deliberation. One traditional, useful scheme is to consider arguments as products (i.e. content), as processes (i.e. as human interaction), and as procedures (i.e. as rules or reasons that call into question such matters as forum, structure, etc.). My recommendation for change.gov and any similar online environments the Obama team is about to create is to not only make transparent the issues (argument as products) that might be debated over online, but the most useful processes and procedures that might be put in place to do so. Better yet, the administration should have a period where these considerations are also open to feedback from a public eager for change and full of innovative ideas—as we strive toward a good, albeit imperfect, new media system that decreases the deliberative distance between those with and without access to political resources and power. – Don Waisanen