Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

284-- ----------- -- · --- ------- --Chapter 6aspects under which the syndrome of deliberative politics can beresolved, clarified, and differentiated. In legislative politics, thesupply of information and purposive-rational choice of means areinterwoven with the balance of interests and compromise formation;with the achievement of ethical self-understanding and preferenceformation; and with moral justification and tests of legalcoherence. In this way, the two types of politics Michelman hadopposed in a polarizing fashion rationally interpenetrate one another.Unlike Michelman, therefore, Sunstein draws on the originsof the American constitutional tradition to reconstruct not twodifferent strands that display an opposition between the republicanand the liberal models but an integrated concept that he calls"Madisonian Republicanism."This concept is strong enough to ground the deliberative modeof the legislative process as a necessary condition of legitimatelawmaking, but weak enough not to lose touch with empiricaltheories:There are numerous theories about legislative decisionmaking. Onetheory suggests that a considerable amount oflegislative behavior can beexplained if one assumes that members of Congress seek single-mindedlythe goal of reelection. Another approach indicates that three primaryconsiderations-achieving influence within the legislature, promotingpublic policy, and obtaining reelection-have more explanatory powerthan any single-factored approach. In the economic literature, there havebeen efforts to explain legislative behavior solely by reference to constituentpressures. Such interpretations have been attacked as too reductionistic.What emerges is a continuum. At one pole are cases in which interestgrouppressures are largely determinative and statutory enactments canbe regarded as "deals" among contending interests. At the other pole liecases where legislators engage in deliberation in which interest-grouppressures, conventionally defined, play little or no role. At various pointsalong the continuum a great range oflegislative decisions exist where theoutcomes are dependent on an amalgam of pressure, deliberation, andother factors. No simple test can distinguish cases falling at differentpoints on the continuum.80Sunstein sketches a realistic but somewhat flat picture oflegislativepolitics. Although there is no "simple test," we can at least break upand structure the empirical continuum. Discourse theory provides