Deliberative theories of democracy

[Name of the Institute]

Deliberative theories of democracy

Introduction

Deliberative democracy places communication rather than voting or aggregation of preferences at the center of democracy, although it remains a matter of some contention what sorts of communications count as deliberative, who should deliberate, where deliberation should occur, and what relationship deliberation should have to voting and aggregation of citizen preferences. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, this approach dominates democratic theory, and it is very influential in political practice.

Discussion and Analysis

Deliberative democracy is distinguished from theories that rely primarily on procedures that aggregate the preferences of citizens (such as most varieties of procedural, aggregative, pluralist, and game theoretic approaches). These approaches tend to treat preferences as given, turning them into collective decisions through processes such as voting or bargaining. Without rejecting these processes, deliberative democracy provides critical standards for assessing preferences and encourages the possibility of changing them through political discussion. The idea that preferences cannot simply be taken as given also leaves more room for leadership in a democracy than purely procedural theories.

Deliberative democracy also differs from theories that take fundamental rights as given and designate them as constraints on democratic decision making (such as natural law conceptions and many forms of constitutionalism). Deliberative democracy accepts that some rights should constrain leaders and ordinary citizens alike, but permits the interpretation of rights and their application to be challenged by means of deliberation in the political process. Although at any particular time some rights are protected from majoritarian decision making, rights are not always and completely insulated from deliberative democratic processes.

Theoretical Challenge

Deliberative democrats should try to ensure that not only the practice but also the theory of the conception of democracy they favour are systematically open to challenge. How is it possible to defend principles as integral to a theory and simultaneously allow for the rejection of these same principles? If deliberative democrats take a dynamic view of their own theory, as we have suggested that they should, they can regard their principles not as fixed at any point in time, but as subject to change over time. Not all the theory's principles can be challenged at the same time, but any principle (or several) may be challenged at a particular time by other principles in the theory. The theory in this way contains the means of its own revision through the principle of revisability.

The principles of deliberative democracy should be not only morally but also politically revisable. Deliberative democrats should be committed to regarding their principles as subject to revision not only through moral argument among themselves but also through moral argument by citizens and their representatives deliberating together in political forums, including school boards, legislatures, and courts. The rationale for this commitment rests on the value of reciprocity. People should be treated not merely as objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, but as agents who take part in governance, directly or through their representatives, by presenting and responding to reasons that would justify the ...