Deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracy seeks quality over quantity by limiting decision-makers to a smaller but more representative sample of the population that is given the time and resources to focus on one issue.
Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law.
[2] Deliberative democracy has a long history of practice and theory traced back to ancient times, with an increase in academic attention in the 1990s, and growing implementations since 2010.
[3] Deliberative democracy holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation, not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting.
[10][11] James Fearon and Portia Pedro believe deliberative processes most often generate ideal conditions of impartiality, rationality and knowledge of the relevant facts, resulting in more morally correct outcomes.
[16][17] John Burnheim critiques representative democracy as requiring citizens to vote for a large package of policies and preferences bundled together, much of which a voter might not want.
[22][23] Joshua Cohen, a student of John Rawls, argued that the five main features of deliberative democracy include:[24] Cohen presents deliberative democracy as more than a theory of legitimacy, and forms a body of substantive rights around it based on achieving "ideal deliberation":[24] In Democracy and Liberty, an essay published in 1998, Cohen updated his idea of pluralism to "reasonable pluralism" – the acceptance of different, incompatible worldviews and the importance of good faith deliberative efforts to ensure that as far as possible the holders of these views can live together on terms acceptable to all.
According to Professor Stephen Tierney, perhaps the earliest notable example of academic interest in the deliberative aspects of democracy occurred in John Rawls 1971 work A Theory of Justice.
[33] According to Professor John Dryzek, early work on deliberative democracy was part of efforts to develop a theory of democratic legitimacy.
Others contributing to the notion of deliberative democracy include Carlos Nino, Jon Elster, Roberto Gargarella, John Gastil, Jürgen Habermas, David Held, Joshua Cohen, Amy Gutmann, Noëlle McAfee, Rense Bos, Jane Mansbridge, Jose Luis Marti, Dennis Thompson, Benny Hjern, Hal Koch, Seyla Benhabib, Ethan Leib, Charles Sabel, Jeffrey K. Tulis, David Estlund, Mariah Zeisberg, Jeffrey L. McNairn, Iris Marion Young, Robert B. Talisse, and Hélène Landemore.
This suggests that the deliberative capacity of a democratic system needs to be understood through the interconnection of the variety of sites of deliberation which exist, rather than any single setting.
