No abstract

Democratic theorists often place deliberative innovations such as citizen's panels, consensus conferences, planning cells, and deliberative polls at the center of their hopes for deliberative democratization. In light of experience to date, the authors chart the ways in which such mini-publics may have an impact in the "macro" world of politics. Impact may come in the form of actually making policy, being taken up in the policy process, informing public debates, market-testing of proposals, legitimation of public policies, building confidence and constituencies for policies, popular oversight, and resisting co-option. Exposing problems and failures is all too easy. The authors highlight cases of success on each of these dimensions.

Effective deliberation is central to democracy and so should enter any definition of democratization. However, the deliberative aspect now ubiquitous in the theory, practice, and promotion of democracy is generally missing in comparative studies of democratization. Deliberation capacity can be distributed in variable ways in the deliberative systems of states and other polities. A framework is described for locating and analyzing the contributions of its components and so evaluating the degree to which a polity’s deliberative system is authentic, inclusive, and consequential. An emphasis on deliberation reveals important determinants of democratic transition and consolidation, thereby providing substantial explanatory as well as evaluative and normative purchase.

Deliberative Democracy and Beyond takes a critical tour through recent democratic theory, beginning with the deliberative turn that occurred around 1990. The essence of this turn is that democratic legitimacy is to be found in authentic deliberation among those affected by a collective decision. While the deliberative turn was initially a challenge to established institutions and models of democracy, it was soon assimilated by these same institutions and models. Drawing a distinction between liberal constitutionalism and discursive democracy, the author criticizes the former and advocates the latter. He argues that a defensible theory of democracy should be critical of established power, pluralistic, reflexive in questioning established traditions, transnational in its capacity to extend across state boundaries, ecological, and dynamic in its openness to changing constraints upon, and opportunities for, democratization.

Democracy can entail the representation of discourses as well as persons or groups. We explain and advocate discursive representation; explore its justifications, advantages, and problems; and show how it can be accomplished in practice. This practice can involve the selection of discursive representatives to a formal Chamber of Discourses and more informal processes grounded in the broader public sphere. Discursive representation supports many aspects of deliberative democracy and is especially applicable to settings such as the international system lacking a well-defined demos.