Deliberative Democracy Between Theory And Practice

This book offers a model to bridge the differences between political theorists and social scientists, focusing on deliberative practices.

A collection of articles on the theory and practice of deliberative democracy edited by Robert Cavalier.

Deliberative democracy is an approach to democracy that requires collective decision-making to be preceded by reasoned, inclusive, and respectful debate for it to be legitimate. It has become an increasingly dominant approach to democracy over the last few decades. In recent years, there has been a particular focus on ‘deliberative systems.’ A systemic approach to deliberative democracy opens up a new way of thinking about public deliberation in both theory and practice. It suggests understanding deliberation as a communicative activity that occurs in a diversity of spaces, and emphasizes the need for interconnection between these spaces. It offers promising solutions to some of the long-standing theoretical issues in the deliberative democracy literature such as legitimation, inclusion, representation, as well as the interaction and interconnection between public opinion formation and decision-making sites more generally. The deliberative systems approach also offers a new way of conceptualizing and studying the practice of deliberation in contemporary democracies. Despite its conceptual and practical appeal, the concept of deliberative systems also entails potential problems and raises several important questions. These include the relationship with the parts and the whole of the deliberative system, the prospects of its institutionalization, and various difficulties related to its empirical analysis. The deliberative systems approach therefore requires greater theoretical critical scrutiny, and empirical investigation. This book contributes to this endeavour by bringing together cutting edge research on the theory and practice of deliberative systems. It will identify the key challenges against the concept to enhance understanding of both its prospects and problems promoting its refinement accordingly. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Critical Policy Studies.

Deliberative democracy is a dominant paradigm in normative political philosophy. Deliberative democrats want politics to be more than a clash of contending interests, and they believe political decisions should emerge from reasoned dialogue among citizens. But can these ideals be realized in complex and unjust societies? This book brings together leading scholars who explore debates in deliberative democratic theory in four areas of practice: education, constitutions and state boundaries, indigenous-settler relations, and citizen participation and public consultation. This dynamic volume casts new light on the strengths and limitations of deliberative democratic theory, offering guidance to policy makers and to students and scholars interested in democratic justice.

Deliberative democracy has been one of the main games in contemporary political theory for two decades, growing enormously in size and importance in political science and many other disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy takes stock of deliberative democracy as a research field, in philosophy, in various research programmes in the social sciences and law, and in political practice around the globe. It provides a concise history of deliberative ideals in political thought and discusses their philosophical origins. The Handbook locates deliberation in political systems with different spaces, publics, and venues, including parliaments, courts, governance networks, protests, mini-publics, old and new media, and everyday talk. It engages with practical applications, mapping deliberation as a reform movement and as a device for conflict resolution, documenting the practice and study of deliberative democracy around the world and in global governance.

This volume assesses the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative democracy.

The contributions in this anthology address tensions that arise between reason and politics in a democracy inspired by the ideal of achieving reasoned agreement among free and equal citizens.