We pay tribute to Professor Jürg Steiner, one of the pioneers of the empirical study of deliberation.

Jürg Steiner, who passed away in November 2020, was one of the pioneers of the empirical study of deliberation. It all started with a research project dubbed “The Consociational Theory and Ethics in the Public Discourse” funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation in 1999. The project combined two of Jürg´s long-standing research interests: consociational theory, with its focus on the peaceful accommodation of conflict in deeply divided or plural societies, and his interest in the ethical dimension of politics, based on the argument that not all politicians maximise self-interest as postulated by some strands in traditional rational choice theory.

Jürg wanted to investigate whether consociational democracies, such as Switzerland, generate a “spirit of accommodation” conducing politicians to focus more on the common good compared to politicians in majoritarian democracies such as the UK. The original project aimed at tracking speeches oriented towards the common good in parliamentary debates. The research team—consisting of Jürg Steiner and the authors of this obituary—began looking at the most recent literature on the common good and discourse ethics in the tradition of Jürgen Habermas. It quickly became clear that the project needed to link up with the emerging literature on deliberative politics, especially the seminal work by Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. At a conference in Canada, Jürg came across a paper by Simone Chambers which synthesised several deliberative standards—such as justification rationality and respect—and applied those standards to Canadian constitutional debates. This paper strongly influenced the development of the Discourse Quality Index (DQI).

The project benefitted enormously from Jürg´s intellectual openness and deliberative attitude.

Since its publication in 2003, the DQI has become an influential standard for measuring the quality of deliberation. The project benefitted enormously from Jürg´s intellectual openness and deliberative attitude. For instance, after intensive deliberations, the research team decided to depart from the original focus on consociational theory and the behavioural concept of a “spirit of accommodation,” and integrate the growing literature on institutionalism. In the spirit of the “force of the better argument,” Jürg agreed that a purely behavioural orientation of the project did not match with contemporary demands for properly specified institutional mechanisms. This not only led to the specification of “institutional” hypotheses regarding the difference between consensus and majoritarian legislatures, it also led to the inclusion of a wider range of institutional (and issue) determinants affecting the quality of parliamentary deliberation, such as the distinction between public and nonpublic debates. While the empirical results based on the DQI demonstrated that institutions indeed affect the quality of parliamentary deliberation, future explorations with the original data showed that actor motivations also have a strong imprint on deliberative quality. As such, the old question that Jürg and Arend Lijphart raised, on whether institutions or virtue (in the form of a “spirit of accommodation”) makes a better political world, solicits a nuanced answer. Both institutions and actors matter.

Today, Jürg and his colleagues’ work on the DQI provides inspiration not only for scholars specialising in deliberative democracy but also to those seeking to find ways to enhance the institutions of representative democracy. The DQI, for example, has been described as an “emblematic example of how representation scholars could study whether representatives promote pluralist vs. republican aims.” This shows that Jürg´s original ideas about the common good and the ethics of public discourse are still highly relevant today, even for research areas outside deliberative democracy.

After the publication of Deliberative Politics in Action, Jürg wrote another book, The Foundations of Deliberative Democracy. This book presented major controversies in the literature on deliberation, as well as advanced empirical research on deliberation; at the same time, he returned to one of his long-standing interests, namely conflict management in deeply divided societies. In the concluding chapter of Deliberative Politics in Action, Jürg had noted, “From the perspective of political relevance, it will be urgent to study the aspect of discourse quality in deeply divided and unstable societies.”

Today, Jürg and his colleagues’ work on the DQI provides inspiration not only for scholars specialising in deliberative democracy but also to those seeking to find ways to enhance the institutions of representative democracy.

Jürg took on this challenge and collaborated intensively with scholars around the world. He worked with Maria Clara Jaramillo from Colombia, Simona Mameli from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rousiley Maia from Brazil. Jürg demonstrated, in the coauthored book Deliberation Across Deeply Divided Societies, that ex-guerrillas and ex-paramilitaries in Colombia, Serbs and Bosniaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina and police officers and locals in Brazilian favelas can not only sit and talk together in the same room, but also engage in high quality deliberation. This research also came with a methodological update. Jürg and his coauthors correctly claim that existing instruments for the quality of deliberation, such as the DQI, focus too much on the analysis of individual speech acts. Instead, they propose to focus on “transformative deliberative moments,” where the level of deliberation is either lifted from low to high or drops from high to low.

Not that he did not care about the myriad questions about implementation, but he never let them stand in the way of a good idea.

Jürg’s work on divided societies resulted in two dissertations, cosupervised with Marco Steenbergen, on deliberations between former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and paramilitaries. Steenbergen recalls that the project emerged after Jürg had visited Colombia, as he was enthused about the prospect of researching deliberation in this setting. Although Steenbergen had serious worries about the safety of this project for the participants, Jürg’s enthusiasm proved to be infectious and the project commenced without any difficulties. This enthusiasm—the belief in a good idea without letting this be toned down by the numerous questions about feasibility and methods—was very characteristic of Jürg. Not that he did not care about the myriad questions about implementation, but he never let them stand in the way of a good idea.

Besides his extraordinary academic merits, Jürg was a dedicated and inspirational teacher. He left a deep imprint on his students (André and Markus being one of those), not only in terms of scientific substance but also as a role model of how a good academic teacher is supposed to be. Jürg was not only appreciative and highly receptive of students´ contributions, he also introduced them to the “small world” of academia. We have lost a wonderful academic, teacher and collaborator—and a dear friend.

About the Authors

André Bächtiger is professor of political theory and empirical democratisation at the University of Stuttgart. He has continued the empirical work on deliberation that Jürg Steiner pioneered.

Marco Steenbergen is professor of political methodology at the University of Zurich. After a brief hiatus, he returned to the empirical study of deliberation that he began with Jürg Steiner.

Markus Spörndli is deputy head of communications of the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. He tries to apply principles of deliberation in government communications.