DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY

Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative Democracy

Introduction

Democracy is at all times named and exercised in the liberal discursive procedure. But if we go back to the past, democracy of these days is not the equivalent as democracy decades back. Thus, it is significant that democracy is assumed as a development and not as a static notion. Similarly it is essential to understand democracy by its main beliefs and not by its practitioners in power.

Liberal democracy can be temporarily defined as a system of administration in which the people decree themselves, either honestly or indirectly but in whichever case subject to constitutional restraints on the power of the majority.

Discussion

If we analyze democracy by the principles extracted from the definition: equality of political rights, majority rule, political participation, and political freedom, we can ask ourselves if the present formal democracy represents its own principles.

Guttman and Thompson say that equality of political rights mean that every individual has the right to vote, run for office, serve on a jury, speak on public issues and carry out other public functions. Furthermore, political rights are a matter of degree because they have been evolving during the last century. But it is not possible to know how much political equality is enough for democracy, because it seems to change every time and under different circumstances. An important example of how political rights can vary is the United States, because since 1787 until 1960 the franchise was extended to a majority of its citizens (Etzioni, 2007).

Another principle would be Majority Rule that is derived from the prior principle of political equality. Hence each vote counted equally will give a clear majority that must be respected and accepted. The decisions will reflect the majority's will.

In the same way a qualified majority that can be a smaller proportion than the majority. This way the Minorities Rights will be protected from majorities and there will be equilibrium between powers within the rule of law. This is a common practice, in formal democracies, for amendments to the constitution. In Canada, the ratification of the Senate, House of Commons, and the legislative assemblies of at least two thirds of the provinces, is needed, and this should represent at least fifty percent of the population (Smith, 2001).

Political Participation is another principle of liberal democracy that is classified by its participation. In Direct Democracy the people make their own legislations, not having to use intermediation by a representative. In representative Democracy there is intermediation and it is a representative elected by a majority in a determined area. In deed representative democracy is predominant in formal democracies in modern times.

Also it is necessary to realize that the level in which direct democracy is applied depends on the rest of the liberal democracy's principles: equality of political rights, majority rule, and political freedom. Due to critics on representative democracy, questioning the impartiality of representatives and their acts to represent people's demands, the ideas of referendum, initiative, and recall have been proposed to be active in liberal democracy (Finger, and ...