• RHETORICAL CITIZENSHIP AS A CONCEPTUAL
FRAME IN ACADEME
• or:
• WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK
ABOUT RHETORICAL CITIZENSHIP
CHRISTIAN KOCK AND LISA VILLADSEN
Definition
• Rhetorical Citizenship: “a way of conceptualizing the
discursive, processual, participatory aspects of civic life”.
• “an understanding of citizenship as a discursive
phenomenon in the sense that important civic functions
take place in deliberation among citizens and that discourse
is not prefatory to real action but in many ways constitutive
of civic engagement”
• - related to “the trend in modern political theory which
sees the essence of democracy in the idea of deliberation.
If we are to connect these two ideas, citizenship and
deliberation, and reflect constructively on their meaning in
present-day democracy, then we should not only talk about
rights and freedoms, but also about rhetoric”.
• From Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation
Purpose
• focus is less how effective the particular
utterance is, more how suited it is to contribute
to constructive civic interaction
• an impetus to forge more explicit links between
particular utterances and their role in the
maintenance and development of civic life
• Thomas Farrell: “important civic qualities – such
as civic friendship, a sense of social justice – are
actively cultivated through excellence in
rhetorical practice”
Scope
• Rhetorical Citizenship as a ’compass rose’:
• Rights vs. duties:
• Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman (2000):
“the functioning of society depends not only
on the justice of its institutions or
constitutions, but also on the virtues,
identities, and practices of its citizens,
including their ability to co-operate,
deliberate, and feel solidarity with those who
belong to different ethnic and religious
groups”.
• Active vs. Receptive:
• Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson: “two
kinds of general demands on citizens; one
concerns how citizens present their own
political positions, and the other how they
regard the political positions of others”
(1996, 80).
Scope, cont’d.
• John Dryzek on a “systemic” test to distinguish
between “desirable and undesirable uses of
rhetoric”: we should be “asking whether or
not the rhetoric in question contributes to the
construction of an effective deliberative
system joining competent and reflective actors
on the issue at hand” (2010, 335).
• Simone Chambers: “the mass public can never be
deliberative.”
• Believes that the public rhetoric we hear, mainly
through the media, can provide deliberation, i.e.,
engage citizens’ “capacity for practical judgment.”
• We need deliberative rather than ‘plebiscitary’ public
rhetoric: “If rhetoric in general is the study of how
speech affects an audience then deliberative rhetoric
must be about the way speech induces deliberation in
the sense of inducing considered reflection about a
future action” (2009, 335).
• Robert Goodin on ‘deliberation within’: “very much of the
work of deliberation, even in external-collective settings,
must inevitably be done within each individual's head”
(2000, 83).
• We may “ease the burdens of deliberative democracy in
mass society by altering our focus from the ‘externalcollective’ to the ‘internal-reflective’ mode, shifting much
of the work of democratic deliberation back inside the head
of each individual ... internal-reflective deliberations might
hope to secure better representation of the
communicatively inept or the communicatively inert than
external-collective deliberations ever could.”
• Cf. Wayne Booth’s concept of ’listening-rhetoric’ (2009).
• Education for citizenship and the teaching of
democracy in schools on “skills and aptitudes”
that schools should teach:
• “to make a reasoned argument both verbally and
in writing,”
• “to consider and appreciate the experience and
perspective of others,”
• “to tolerate other view points,”
• “to recognise forms of manipulation and
persuasion” (1998, 44).
• Thomas Farrell: Rhetoric is “practical reasoning in
the presence of collaborative others” (1991, 189).
It is “more than the practice; it is the entire
process of forming, expressing, and judging
public thought in real life. …this enhanced
understanding needs to include the condition of
being a rhetorical audience. This is a condition in
which we are called to exert our own critical
capacities to a maximum extent. We have to
decide – quite literally – what sort of public
persons we wish to be”. (96)
References
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References
Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.
Simone Chambers, “Rhetoric and the Public Sphere: Has Deliberative Democracy Abandoned Mass Democracy?”
Political Theory 37 (2009): 323-350.
Robert Danish, “Stanley Fish is not a Sophist: The Difference between Skeptical and Prudential Versions of Rhetorical
Pragmatism” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 42 (2012): 405-423.
John S. Dryzek, “Rhetoric in Democracy: A Systemic Appreciation”. Political Theory 38 (2010): 319-339.
Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools: Final report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship 22
September 1998. London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1998.
Thomas Farrell, “Practicing the Arts of Rhetoric. Tradition and Invention” Philosophy and Rhetoric 24 (1991): 183-212.
Reprinted in Contemporary Rhetorical Theory. A Reader. John Louis Lucaites, Celeste Michelle Condit, Sally Caudill.
Guildford Press, 1999: 79-100.
Thomas Goodnight, A "New Rhetoric" for a "New Dialectic": Prolegomena to a Responsible Public Argument
Argumentation 7 (1993): 329-342.
Robert E. Goodin, “Democratic Deliberation within” Philosophy & Public Affairs 29 (2000): 81-109.
Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Gerard A. Hauser, Vernacular Voices. The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: University of South
Carolina Press, 1999.
Robert L. Ivie “Rhetorical Deliberation and Democratic Politics in the Here and Now” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 5
(2002): 277-285.
Christian Kock and Lisa Villadsen, “Introduction: Citizenship as a Rhetorical Practice” Rhetorical Citizenship and Public
Deliberation. Christian Kock and Lisa Villadsen (eds.) Penn State Press, 2012: 1-10.
W. Kymlicka and W. Norman, Citizenship in Diverse Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Karen Tracy, James P. McDaniel, and Brice E. Gronbeck, The Prettier Doll. Rhetoric, Discourse and Ordinary Democracy.
University of Alabama Press, 2007.