Having outlined the conditions under which solidarity is constrained, we are now ready to explore the conditions under which it is expanded. A task of this kind calls for two types of questions. The first is remedial. Here we want to establish what kinds of corrective measures ought to be advanced to enhance the ability of the disadvantaged to influence deliberative outcomes. This involves an investigation into the political institutional arrangements required to ameliorate the exclusionary and assimilatory practices outlined in Chapter 2. It also involves an inquiry into the ways such changes are likely to create tensions between the various goals of deliberation and how these tensions can be eased. The second question is operational. How can the measures put forward to counter practices of oppression be implemented, given that the more powerful groups are likely to resist such changes?

In this chapter, I shall explore the remedial measures. In the chapter thereafter, I will turn specifically to questions of implementation, considering some of the obstacles parity-enhancing reforms encounter when attempts are made to institutionalise them, along with possible strategies that might be drawn on to overcome these obstacles.

There is general agreement among deliberative democrats that free and equal participation is best achieved through the elimination of structural inequalities that feed asymmetries in power. Yet, despite being united on this more general aspect of institutional reform, deliberative democrats diverge significantly on how it ought to be achieved. The main dividing line between them is drawn over the issue of whether taking explicit measures to include marginalised groups in the institutions of the state is the most appropriate way to rectify deliberative inequalities. On the one hand, those deliberative democrats who argue against group oriented measures, or at least advocate only a nominal role for them, take the view that such a remedy– while certainly empowering recipient groups to further their own ends next to the majority– can be self-defeating insofar as it does not lead to full participation and, over all, works to inhibit rather than enhance deliberative principles (Bohman 1996: 122; Benhabib 2002: 149; James 2004: 49). In view of this, they contend that groups should seek to influence political decisions from within the public sphere.