Deliberative democracy
Encyclopedia
Deliberative democracy (also called discursive democracy) is a form of democracy
in which public deliberation
is central to legitimate lawmaking. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making
and majority rule
. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting
, is the primary source of a law's legitimacy. The term "deliberative democracy" was originally coined by Joseph M. Bessette in his 1980 work "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government."
Deliberative democracy can be practiced by decision-makers in both representative democracies
and direct democracies
. Principles of deliberative democracy may be applied to both elite societal decision-making bodies, such as legislatures and courts (elitist deliberative democracy), and to groups of lay citizens who are empowered to make decisions (populist deliberative democracy). One purpose of populist deliberative democracy can be to use deliberation among a group of lay citizens to distill a more authentic public opinion
about societal issues, but not to create binding law; methods such as the deliberative opinion poll
have been designed to achieve this goal. Another purpose of populist deliberative democracy can be to use deliberation among a group of lay citizens to form a public will that creates binding law.
, a student of John Rawls
, most clearly outlined some conditions that he thinks constitute the root principles of the theory of deliberative democracy, in the article "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy" in the book The Good Polity. He outlines five main features of deliberative democracy, which include:
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":
opinion and base policy on outputs of ongoing research, because:
According to the proponents, another strength of deliberative democratic models is that they tend, more than any other model, to generate ideal conditions of impartiality
, rationality
and knowledge
of the relevant facts. The more these conditions are fulfilled, the greater the likelihood that the decisions reached are morally correct
. Deliberative democracy has thus an epistemic value: it allows participants to deduce what is morally correct. This view has been prominently held by Carlos Nino.
A claimed failure of most theories of deliberative democracy is that they do not address the problems of voting. James Fishkin's 1991 work, "Democracy and Deliberation" introduced a way to apply the theory of deliberative democracy to real-world decision making, by way of what he calls the deliberative opinion poll
. In the deliberative opinion poll, a statistically representative sample of the nation or a community is gathered to discuss an issue in conditions that further deliberation. The group is then polled, and the results of the poll and the actual deliberation can be used both as a recommending force and in certain circumstances, to replace a vote. Dozens of deliberative opinion polls have been conducted across the United States since his book was published.
The political philosopher Charles Blattberg
has criticized deliberative democracy on four grounds: (i) the rules for deliberation that deliberative theorists affirm interfere with, rather than facilitate, good practical reasoning; (ii) deliberative democracy is ideologically biased in favor of liberalism as well as republican over parliamentary democratic systems; (iii) deliberative democrats assert a too-sharp division between just and rational deliberation on the one hand and self-interested and coercive bargaining or negotiation on the other; and (iv) deliberative democrats encourage an adversarial relationship between state and society, one that undermines solidarity between citizens.
Social choice theory
presents deliberative democracy with a distinct challenge. Critics of deliberative democracy have pointed to Arrow's impossibility theorem
as limiting the use of deliberative democracy. Deliberative theorists (in particular Christian List) have responded with a recent body of research in support of the claim that deliberation actually makes the conditions necessary for Arrow's Theorem to apply less likely.
between the citizen participating, those affected or victimized by the process being undertaken, and the group-entity that organizes the decision. Thus it usually involves an extensive outreach effort to include marginalized, isolated, ignored groups in decisions, and to extensively document dissent
, grounds for dissent, and future predictions of consequences of actions. It focuses as much on the process as the results. In this form it is a complete theory of civics
.
The Green Party of the United States refers to its particular proposals for grassroots democracy
and electoral reform
by this name.
On the other hand, many practitioners of deliberative democracy attempt to be as neutral and open-ended as possible, inviting (or even randomly selecting) people who represent a wide range of views and providing them with balanced materials to guide their discussions. Examples include National Issues Forums
, Choices for the 21st Century, study circles, deliberative opinion poll
s, and the 21st-century town meetings convened by AmericaSpeaks
, among others. In these cases, deliberative democracy is not connected to left-wing politics
but is intended to create a conversation among people of different philosophies and beliefs.
In Canada, there have been two prominent applications of deliberative democratic models. In 2004, the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform convened a policy jury to consider alternatives to the first-past-the-post electoral systems. In 2007, the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform convened to consider alternative electoral systems in that province.
Similarly, three of Ontario’s Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) have referred their budget priorities to a policy jury
for advice and refinement.
, Jürgen Habermas
, David Held
, Joshua Cohen
, John Rawls
, Amy Gutmann
, Noëlle Mcafee, John Dryzek
, Rense Bos, James Fishkin, Jane Mansbridge, Dennis Thompson
, Benny Hjern, Hal Koch, Seyla Benhabib
, Ethan Leib
, Jeffrey K. Tulis David Estlund
and Robert B. Talisse
.
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
in which public deliberation
Deliberation
Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, usually prior to voting. In legal settings a jury famously uses deliberation because it is given specific options, like guilty or not guilty, along with information and arguments to evaluate. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and...
is central to legitimate lawmaking. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making
Consensus decision-making
Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks the consent, not necessarily the agreement, of participants and the resolution of objections. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first, general agreement, and second, group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its...
and majority rule
Majority rule
Majority rule is a decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations...
. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting
Voting
Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics.- Reasons for voting :...
, is the primary source of a law's legitimacy. The term "deliberative democracy" was originally coined by Joseph M. Bessette in his 1980 work "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government."
Overview
Deliberative democracy holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation. "Authentic deliberation" is deliberation among decision-makers that is free from distortions of unequal political power, such as power a decision-maker obtained through economic wealth or the support of interest groups. If the decision-makers cannot reach consensus after authentically deliberating on a proposal, then they vote on the proposal using a form of majority rule.Deliberative democracy can be practiced by decision-makers in both representative democracies
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
and direct democracies
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
. Principles of deliberative democracy may be applied to both elite societal decision-making bodies, such as legislatures and courts (elitist deliberative democracy), and to groups of lay citizens who are empowered to make decisions (populist deliberative democracy). One purpose of populist deliberative democracy can be to use deliberation among a group of lay citizens to distill a more authentic public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
about societal issues, but not to create binding law; methods such as the deliberative opinion poll
Deliberative opinion poll
The deliberative opinion poll is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy and sortition.The concept was described by James S. Fishkin in his 1991 book "Democracy and Deliberation". Dr...
have been designed to achieve this goal. Another purpose of populist deliberative democracy can be to use deliberation among a group of lay citizens to form a public will that creates binding law.
Cohen's outline
Joshua CohenJoshua Cohen (philosopher)
Joshua Cohen is an American philosopher specializing in political philosophy. He is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society and professor of political science, philosophy, and law at Stanford University. At Stanford, Cohen is also program leader for the Program on Global Justice at the...
, a student of John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
, most clearly outlined some conditions that he thinks constitute the root principles of the theory of deliberative democracy, in the article "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy" in the book The Good Polity. He outlines five main features of deliberative democracy, which include:
- An ongoing independent association with expected continuation.
- The citizens in the democracy structure their institutions such that deliberation is the deciding factor in the creation of the institutions and the institutions allow deliberation to continue.
- A commitment to the respect of a pluralism of values and aims within the polity.
- The citizens consider deliberative procedure as the source of legitimacy, and prefer the causal history of legitimation for each law to be transparent and easily traceable to the deliberative process.
- Each member recognizes and respects other members' deliberative capacity.
- This can be construed as the idea that in the legislative process, we "owe" one another reasons for our proposals.
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":
- It is free in two ways:
- The participants consider themselves bound solely by the results and preconditions of the deliberation. They are free from any authority of prior norms or requirements.
- The participants suppose that they can act on the decision made; the deliberative process is a sufficient reason to comply with the decision reached.
- Parties to deliberation are required to state reasons for their proposals, and proposals are accepted or rejected based on the reasons given, as the content of the very deliberation taking place.
- Participants are equal in two ways:
- Formal: anyone can put forth proposals, criticize, and support measures. There is no substantive hierarchy.
- Substantive: The participants are not limited or bound by certain distributions of power, resources, or pre-existing norms. "The participants…do not regard themselves as bound by the existing system of rights, except insofar as that system establishes the framework of free deliberation among equals."
- Deliberation aims at a rationally motivated consensus: it aims to find reasons acceptable to all who are committed to such a system of decision-making. When consensus or something near enough is not possible, majoritarian decision makingMajority ruleMajority rule is a decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations...
is used.
Strengths and weaknesses
A claimed strength of deliberative democratic models is that they are more easily able to incorporate scientificScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
opinion and base policy on outputs of ongoing research, because:
- Time is given for all participants to understand and discuss the science
- Scientific peer review, adversarial presentation of competing arguments, refereed journals, even betting markets, are also deliberative processes.
- The technology used to record dissent and document opinions opposed to the majority is also useful to notarize bets, predictions and claims.
According to the proponents, another strength of deliberative democratic models is that they tend, more than any other model, to generate ideal conditions of impartiality
Impartiality
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.-Philosophical concepts of impartiality:According to Bernard Gert, "A is...
, rationality
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
and knowledge
Knowledge
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...
of the relevant facts. The more these conditions are fulfilled, the greater the likelihood that the decisions reached are morally correct
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
. Deliberative democracy has thus an epistemic value: it allows participants to deduce what is morally correct. This view has been prominently held by Carlos Nino.
A claimed failure of most theories of deliberative democracy is that they do not address the problems of voting. James Fishkin's 1991 work, "Democracy and Deliberation" introduced a way to apply the theory of deliberative democracy to real-world decision making, by way of what he calls the deliberative opinion poll
Deliberative opinion poll
The deliberative opinion poll is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy and sortition.The concept was described by James S. Fishkin in his 1991 book "Democracy and Deliberation". Dr...
. In the deliberative opinion poll, a statistically representative sample of the nation or a community is gathered to discuss an issue in conditions that further deliberation. The group is then polled, and the results of the poll and the actual deliberation can be used both as a recommending force and in certain circumstances, to replace a vote. Dozens of deliberative opinion polls have been conducted across the United States since his book was published.
The political philosopher Charles Blattberg
Charles Blattberg
Charles Blattberg is a professor of political philosophy at the Université de Montréal. Blattberg grew up in Toronto and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, where he also served as president of its Students’ Administrative Council during the 1989–90 academic...
has criticized deliberative democracy on four grounds: (i) the rules for deliberation that deliberative theorists affirm interfere with, rather than facilitate, good practical reasoning; (ii) deliberative democracy is ideologically biased in favor of liberalism as well as republican over parliamentary democratic systems; (iii) deliberative democrats assert a too-sharp division between just and rational deliberation on the one hand and self-interested and coercive bargaining or negotiation on the other; and (iv) deliberative democrats encourage an adversarial relationship between state and society, one that undermines solidarity between citizens.
Social choice theory
Social choice theory
Social choice theory is a theoretical framework for measuring individual interests, values, or welfares as an aggregate towards collective decision. A non-theoretical example of a collective decision is passing a set of laws under a constitution. Social choice theory dates from Condorcet's...
presents deliberative democracy with a distinct challenge. Critics of deliberative democracy have pointed to Arrow's impossibility theorem
Arrow's impossibility theorem
In social choice theory, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, the General Possibility Theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives , no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking while also meeting a...
as limiting the use of deliberative democracy. Deliberative theorists (in particular Christian List) have responded with a recent body of research in support of the claim that deliberation actually makes the conditions necessary for Arrow's Theorem to apply less likely.
Association with political movements
Deliberative democracy recognizes a conflict of interestConflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
between the citizen participating, those affected or victimized by the process being undertaken, and the group-entity that organizes the decision. Thus it usually involves an extensive outreach effort to include marginalized, isolated, ignored groups in decisions, and to extensively document dissent
Dissent
Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...
, grounds for dissent, and future predictions of consequences of actions. It focuses as much on the process as the results. In this form it is a complete theory of civics
Civics
Civics is the study of rights and duties of citizenship. In other words, it is the study of government with attention to the role of citizens ― as opposed to external factors ― in the operation and oversight of government....
.
The Green Party of the United States refers to its particular proposals for grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy
Grassroots democracy is a tendency towards designing political processes where as much decision-making authority as practical is shifted to the organization's lowest geographic level of organization: principle of subsidiarity....
and electoral reform
Electoral reform
Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of:...
by this name.
On the other hand, many practitioners of deliberative democracy attempt to be as neutral and open-ended as possible, inviting (or even randomly selecting) people who represent a wide range of views and providing them with balanced materials to guide their discussions. Examples include National Issues Forums
National Issues Forums
National Issue Forums , is a US “non partisan, nationwide network of organizations and individuals who sponsor public forums and training institutions for public deliberation.” Everyday citizens get to deliberate on various issues through NIF forums. Some of the issues discussed include civil...
, Choices for the 21st Century, study circles, deliberative opinion poll
Deliberative opinion poll
The deliberative opinion poll is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy and sortition.The concept was described by James S. Fishkin in his 1991 book "Democracy and Deliberation". Dr...
s, and the 21st-century town meetings convened by AmericaSpeaks
AmericaSpeaks
AmericaSpeaks is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization whose mission is to "engage citizens in the public decisions that impact their lives." AmericaSpeaks' work is focused on trying to create opportunities for citizens to impact decisions and to encourage public officials to make...
, among others. In these cases, deliberative democracy is not connected to left-wing politics
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
but is intended to create a conversation among people of different philosophies and beliefs.
In Canada, there have been two prominent applications of deliberative democratic models. In 2004, the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform convened a policy jury to consider alternatives to the first-past-the-post electoral systems. In 2007, the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform convened to consider alternative electoral systems in that province.
Similarly, three of Ontario’s Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) have referred their budget priorities to a policy jury
Policy jury
A policy jury or citizen jury is a body of people convened to render a decision or advice on a matter of public policy. It is similar to juries used in modern court trial except that the subject of its deliberation is a matter of public policy, rather than law...
for advice and refinement.
Academic contributors
After Joseph M. Bessette coined the term "deliberative democracy" in his 1980 work "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government," he subsequently elaborated and defended the notion in "The Mild Voice of Reason" (1994). Others contributing to the notion of deliberative democracy include David A. Crocker, Jon ElsterJon Elster
Jon Elster is a Norwegian social and political theorist who has authored works in the philosophy of social science and rational choice theory...
, Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
, David Held
David Held
David Held is a British political theorist active in the field of international relations. He will be chair of politics and international relations at Durham University from January 2012 and is currently Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Centre for the Study of...
, Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen (philosopher)
Joshua Cohen is an American philosopher specializing in political philosophy. He is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society and professor of political science, philosophy, and law at Stanford University. At Stanford, Cohen is also program leader for the Program on Global Justice at the...
, John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
, Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
, Noëlle Mcafee, John Dryzek
John Dryzek
John Dryzek is Professor of Social Theory and Political Theory in Australian National University's Political Science Program in the Research School of Social Sciences.He was born in Maids Moreton, England...
, Rense Bos, James Fishkin, Jane Mansbridge, Dennis Thompson
Dennis Frank Thompson
Dennis Frank Thompson is a political scientist and professor at Harvard University, where he founded the university-wide Center for Ethics and the Professions...
, Benny Hjern, Hal Koch, Seyla Benhabib
Seyla Benhabib
Seyla Benhabib is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and...
, Ethan Leib
Ethan Leib
Ethan J. Leib is a law professor at Fordham Law School. He is the author of several books, including Deliberative Democracy in America: A Proposal for a Popular Branch of Government....
, Jeffrey K. Tulis David Estlund
David Estlund
David Estlund is currently Lombardo Family Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. He has been teaching moral and political philosophy at Brown since 1991. He previously taught at University of California, Irvine, and has spent fellowship years at the Program in Ethics at Harvard University...
and Robert B. Talisse
Robert B. Talisse
Background InformationRobert B. Talisse is Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also a Professor in Vanderbilt's Political Science Department...
.
See also
- Anticipatory exclusionAnticipatory exclusionAnticipatory exclusion refers to a citizen's decision not to attend a discussion due to the anticipation of being excluded. The citizen would never take part in a discussion because he/she believes that his/her views and perspectives wouldn’t be given equal time or consideration, when compared to...
- AmericaSpeaksAmericaSpeaksAmericaSpeaks is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization whose mission is to "engage citizens in the public decisions that impact their lives." AmericaSpeaks' work is focused on trying to create opportunities for citizens to impact decisions and to encourage public officials to make...
- Citizen oversightCitizen oversightCitizen oversight is the act of an assembly of citizens that come together to review government activities that may be deemed misconduct or to consider possible government solutions...
- DeliberationDeliberationDeliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, usually prior to voting. In legal settings a jury famously uses deliberation because it is given specific options, like guilty or not guilty, along with information and arguments to evaluate. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and...
- Deliberative assemblyDeliberative assemblyA deliberative assembly is an organization comprising members who use parliamentary procedure to make decisions. In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the English Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became the basic term for a body of...
- Deliberative opinion pollDeliberative opinion pollThe deliberative opinion poll is a form of opinion poll that incorporates the principles of deliberative democracy and sortition.The concept was described by James S. Fishkin in his 1991 book "Democracy and Deliberation". Dr...
- DemocracyDemocracyDemocracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
- Consensus democracyConsensus democracyConsensus democracy is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterised by a decision-making structure which involves and takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to systems where minority opinions can...
- Direct democracyDirect democracyDirect democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
- DemarchyDemarchyDemarchy is a form of government in which the state is governed by randomly selected decision makers who have been selected by sortition from a broadly inclusive pool of eligible citizens...
- Participatory democracyParticipatory democracyParticipatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...
- Representative democracyRepresentative democracyRepresentative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
- Consensus democracy
- Group decision makingGroup decision makingGroup decision making is a situation faced when individuals are brought together in a group to solve problems. According to the idea of synergy, decisions made collectively tend to be more effective than decisions made by a single individual...
- Consensus decision-makingConsensus decision-makingConsensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks the consent, not necessarily the agreement, of participants and the resolution of objections. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first, general agreement, and second, group solidarity of belief or sentiment. It has its...
- Majority ruleMajority ruleMajority rule is a decision rule that selects alternatives which have a majority, that is, more than half the votes. It is the binary decision rule used most often in influential decision-making bodies, including the legislatures of democratic nations...
- Consensus decision-making
- MeritocracyMeritocracyMeritocracy, in the first, most administrative sense, is a system of government or other administration wherein appointments and responsibilities are objectively assigned to individuals based upon their "merits", namely intelligence, credentials, and education, determined through evaluations or...
- Online deliberationOnline deliberationOnline deliberation is a term associated with an emerging body of practice, research, and software dedicated to fostering serious, purposive discussion over the Internet...
- Open source governanceOpen source governanceOpen-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
- Collaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracyCollaborative e-democracy is a democratic conception which combines key features of direct democracy, representative democracy, and e-democracy...
- Policy juryPolicy juryA policy jury or citizen jury is a body of people convened to render a decision or advice on a matter of public policy. It is similar to juries used in modern court trial except that the subject of its deliberation is a matter of public policy, rather than law...
- Public reasonPublic reasonPublic reason refers to a common mode of deliberation that individuals may use for issues of public concern. The concept implicitly excludes certain assumptions or motivations that are considered improper as a basis for public decision making, even as a person may apply them in personal decisions...
- Public spherePublic sphereThe public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
- Ralph NaderRalph NaderRalph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
's Concord PrinciplesConcord PrinciplesRalph Nader's Concord Principles were offered in 1992 as an invitation to the Presidential candidates to improve civic dialogue and the democratic institutions of the United States.... - The People's ParliamentThe People's ParliamentThe People's Parliament was a Channel 4 programme in which 90-100 randomly selected citizens, sitting in a mockup of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, debated and voted on controversial issues. Each programme started with a motion that was then debated by a proposer and witnesses for each...
External links
- Deliberative Democracy, Australian National University, for information on deliberative research
- OpenForum.com.au, an online collaborative think tank, which invites people from all walks of life to engage with the political process, by participating directly in policy debates with politicians, business people, academics, senior public servants, and other interested parties.
- Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
- Deliberative Democracy Consortium — A movement to promote Deliberative Democracy at the national level, internationally
- The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation — A hub for this growing community of practice, with hundreds of members and thousands of resources
- AmericaSpeaks official website, creators of the 21st Century Town Meeting
- Tomorrow's Europe, the first Europe wide Deliberative Poll
- Alternative Demokratie Deliberative democracy in Germany transl. in engl.
- MASS LBP official website
- BC Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform website
- Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform website
- Closing the Gap in Deliberative Democracy: The Importance of Communication in the Post-Deliberative Process
- Journal of Public Deliberation synthesizes the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement.