Deliberative Democracy and its Discontents

Deliberative democracy tends to suffer from a lack of literature from the perspective of legal theory. In this book, scholars from Europe and the United States look at the three fundamental questions raised in current deliberative theory: why deliberate, who deliberates and where to deliberate? Thus, the first section examines the justification of deliberative democracy and the issues of political legitimacy it involves. It explores the liberal and republican bases for public deliberation and, more concretely, the political culture and definition of citizenship each of these conceptions of deliberative democracy requires. The second part of the book sets out to determine who is involved in political decision making and the relationship between deliberative democracy and political representation. In particular, the authors examine the relationship between representatives and their constituents, the independence of representatives and their ability to modify their positions through parliamentary debate, the representation of disagreement and pluralism, the politics of inclusion etc. In the third section, the institutional aspects of deliberative democracy theory are explored and issues such as what are adequate fora for deliberation, the means by which deliberative quality in political decision-making are achieved and the role of communication.