Solidarity and Deliberation After Extremist Attacks: Exploring a Complex Interplay

Solidarity affects and is significantly affected by public deliberation, but it has received limited attention from deliberative scholars. This paper unpacks the relationship between solidarity and deliberation by focusing on contexts where both solidarity and deliberation take markedly different forms—specifically, in the aftermath of violent extremist attacks. We begin by demonstrating how solidarity operates as a constant yet often tacit feature in deliberative theory, serving as a condition, a norm, and an outcome of deliberation. Next, we distinguish between two forms of solidarity—unitary and complex—that have very different relationships to deliberative democratic norms. Drawing on various cases of public responses to extremist violence, the paper shows that while both forms of solidarity provide social benefits, only complex solidarity embodies key aspirations of deliberative democracy, and emerges where deliberative qualities can be observed in the public sphere.