This week, we will get three historical perspectives on what the best guarantee of good deliberation is.  The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle argues that good deliberation must be guided by a skillful leader.  James Madison, one of the principle architects of our constitution,  believed in the construction of systems of checks and balances that maintain a balance of power between political factions.  The political writer Walter Lippmann believed that deliberation must be guided by expert knowledge.  An the philosopher John Dewey believed that good deliberation and political decision-making can’t be trusted to political institutions or experts alone, but rather must be safeguarded by an informed citizenry.

First Task: Watch this video lecture.  For a downloadable version of the PowerPoint slides, without the voice-over, click here: Four Historical Perspectives on Deliberation.

Second Task: Read Hoffman’s “Dilemmas of Democratic Deliberation,”  Aristotle’s “Deliberation”, James Madison’s “Federalist 10,” excerpt from Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, and  John Dewey’s “Creative Democracy.”  These readings can be found in the “Historic Perspectives on Deliberation and Democracy” folder under the Content tab of the Blackboard site for this class.  All readings in the future, other than chapters from Gastil’s Political Communication and Deliberation, will be available on the Blackboard site under the Content tab in folders named after the class session to which they correspond.

Third Task: Comment on this post.  Respond to at least three of your classmates’ posts.

Fourth Task:  Post your Problem Memo on the Class Posts page.  Title of the post should follow the form “Problem Memo on…[your topic]”  Then use the “Add Media” button to upload the Word file of your memo and insert it into the post.