Journal
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 41, Issue 6, Pages 685-715Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X221079615
Keywords
public meetings; discursive psychology; conversation analysis; ordinary democracy; democratic competence; gatekeeping; topic or sequence closure
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Funding
- Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) [50-52200-98-325]
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This study examines the interaction between government officials and citizens in Dutch public meetings to understand the practical aspects of democratic citizenship. The findings suggest that citizens and officials challenge each other's democratic competence, pointing to broader relational issues between government and citizens.
Democratic participation is widely viewed as a crucial underpinning of legitimate governance; however, little is known about how this participation is practically accomplished. This study contributes to a better understanding of what democratic citizenship encompasses in actual practices of public engagement. Using conversation analysis and discursive psychology, we analyze interactions between government officials and citizens in Dutch public meetings on the effects of livestock farming. We examine situations where citizens treat officials' closing-implicative moves as wanting to shelve issues. We demonstrate how this uptake is preceded by officials treating citizens as not understanding what is within the scope of discussion, thereby challenging their democratic competence. Citizens subsequently turn the tables on the officials, treating them as not wanting to fulfill their democratic duties. We argue that these practices point to broader relational issues between government and citizens, transforming what seem mere agenda issues into negotiations about what constitutes good democracy.
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