Anna Drake is a wonderful intellectual critic: persistent, probing and thoughtful. These scholarly virtues characterize Drake's recent book, Activism, Inclusion, and the Challenges of Deliberative Democracy. Although it will not, on its own, reorient deliberative democracy toward its more critical, discursive promises, it is a notable contribution to current discussions among proponents about the need to address the field's exclusionary, hierarchical and imperial tendencies. This book is not breaking new ground in terms of its critique, but it does not have to. Its essential value is to push the conversations along among deliberative democrats about the limitations of their field—limitations that, if not addressed, run the risk of relegating deliberative democracy to irrelevance. Worse than irrelevance is the risk that the field of deliberative democracy works to reinforce the status quo, including multiple and overlapping forms of oppression.
Drake takes aim at a generalized conception of deliberative systems, which are expansive constellations of loosely connected micro and macro forums for collective deliberation. In general terms, this conception is premised on the observation that political life is far too complex and messy to be captured in and by discrete deliberative events. Both practically and normatively, deliberative democracy is best understood as a collection of events, processes, institutions and networks, in which members of various publics engage in discussions, negotiations, contestations, norm development and decision making. Deliberative systems are dynamic, mirroring to certain degrees the moral, social, economic and political muddling through in the real world. Certainly, the deliberative systems framing is an improvement over more sterile, and much less realistic, understandings of deliberative democracy as individual forums of informed and reasoned public dialogue oriented toward an acceptable resolution. But, as Drake forcefully articulates, the problem is its expansive tendencies that threaten the co-optation of critical forms of expression—forms of expression necessary to identify and dismantle persistent systems of oppression. Specifically, Drake argues that inclusion in the name of deliberative systems fails to recognize activism as an important political phenomenon that should maintain its purchase outside deliberative systems and that it thus effectively disciplines activism while minimizing public space for genuine democratic contestation. Moves to include are really moves to anaesthetize, which threaten to reduce activism to deliberation. Numbing the critical spirit and drive for justice that characterize much—of course, not all—activism, deliberative systems effectively contribute to the reinforcement of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, imperialism and colonialism. Drake makes a strong argument.
But it could be stronger. In particular, Drake's argument would have benefited from more primary research, including more direct engagement with activists. Drake engages in primary research in the case of the direct-action group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), but insights from this case feel backgrounded in her book. Instead, what is foregrounded—indeed, what the book opens with—is violence against African Americans and a subsequent discussion of Black Lives Matter. Later in the book, Drake discusses the protest by Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO) against Pride Toronto in 2016. This discussion, which takes a central role in her argument, appears to be based on a collection of news reports; it's hard to know if Drake engaged in direct dialogue with BLMTO activists.
Drake goes on to discuss another case, which reads as a narrative detour. This case comprises consultations in the area of nuclear waste management in Canada hosted by the country's Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). She bases her description of this case on my research, which clearly demonstrates the shortcomings of the NWMO and the nuclear energy organizations in Canada. For my research, I spent countless hours interviewing elites and dialoguing with activists in this policy area. Dialogues with activists, in particular, over the course of time, resulted in the further sharpening of my critique of the NWMO and the nuclear energy industry.
For several reasons, I stress the importance of dialogue with activists when theorizing what they do and the value of what they do. Accountability through dialogue is critical, but so is solidarity. The former practice ensures that scholars are adequately understanding the realities on the ground and being sufficiently mindful of the impacts their theorizing may have on the communities about which they are researching. The latter provides assurance that scholars are acting in concert with the efforts of community members to dismantle oppressive systems and not inadvertently thwarting them or diverting scarce resources of time and energy away from them.
Again, while Drake's argument is strong, and while she makes some excellent points about, for example, the pervasiveness of racism and the role of white anger, it would have been bolstered by more direct and sustained research with communities of activists. At times, Drake suggests that activism should not be taken as a value secondary to democracy and justice and that it should be a primary value on its own terms. This strikes me as a reach, given how draining activism can be, especially for those who are racialized, minoritized and marginalized. Activists working to advance what are perceived by those in dominant social and political positions as disruptive agendas around, for instance, anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, trans liberation, and sex worker rights are often subjected to a range of aggression and violence.
Activism is worthy work. It is necessary work in the face of injustice. But this work can have brutal costs for those who put their bodies on the front line. I know this from a long-time collaboration with activist, educator and writer Kerry Porth in sex work governance. On the basis of ongoing dialogues with activists in this area, I know that in the same way we should not romanticize deliberation, we should not glorify activism for its own sake. Despite the limitations of the field of deliberative democracy, the ideal of inclusive, reasoned and meaningful discussion is primary relative to activism. Activism is worthy because of the recalcitrance of powerful actors who are not motivated to engage in these types of discussion. Drake's book is an important reminder to deliberative democrats to not lose sight of the ideal and to work in solidarity with activists from marginalized communities to advance their struggles for justice and liberation and, effectively, to bring us closer to this ideal.
