Deliberative Democratic Theories

Conceptualizing Deliberation and Democracy

Contemporary work on deliberation often traces back to the writings of German social theorist Jürgen Habermas, who argued that modern political systems needed to sustain a vibrant public sphere, a space in which diverse members of a society freely interact and address common concerns outside formal public institutions. In an ideal speech situation, people could debate issues based solely on the merits of their arguments, uninfluenced by inequalities in participants' social, economic, or legal standing.

Though suggested as a philosophical abstraction (and background assumption underlying democratic political and legal discourse), early deliberative theory written or inspired by Habermas drew criticism for its lack of realism. In particular, the difference critique holds that unfettered deliberation cannot occur, owing to pervasive inequalities among citizens in any society. In this view, promoting deliberative ideals glosses over such differences and confers unwarranted political legitimacy on public institutions. Public discourse norms should never promote deliberation to the exclusion of alternative forms of speech, such as personal testimony and advocacy, particularly within and between different subpublics unlikely to share common interests. Even amid this critique, however, some theorists developed full-scale conceptions of democracy inspired by the deliberative ideal.

Empirical Deliberative Theory and Practice

Since the late 1990s, much deliberative democratic theory and research have focused on the actual practice of political conversation, discussion, debate, dialogue, and other communicative practices that can, at times, represent aspects of the deliberative ideal. Empirical theories vary in their definitions of deliberation but generally understand it to be a discursive process of carefully weighing diverse arguments about the most appropriate form of action to take in addressing a public problem. Deliberation involves gaining background knowledge and exploring alternative solutions, all respecting the equality of speaking opportunities and the full diversity of participant viewpoints and experiences.

This conception of deliberation grounds in the actual practice of deliberation. Beginning with citizens' juries and planning cells in the 1970s, a range of deliberative designs have been developed that involve lay citizens in governance, public debate, and civic education. In some ways, this represents a resurgence of the forum movement of the early-20th-century United States, but modern deliberative models often give citizens a more direct role in policymaking and draw from international experiments with consensus conferences, deliberative polls, national issues forums, participatory budgeting, study circles, 21st-century town meetings, and other processes.

The bulk of empirical work on deliberation has scrutinized the effects of these deliberative practices (or lower-grade simulations of them). In particular, theorists have devoted considerable attention to how participants in deliberative events change the quality and direction of their policy-relevant attitudes. The general hypothesis animating much deliberative research maintains that participants refine their unreflective opinions into considered judgments through the experience of hearing and advancing arguments that are interwoven with both personal experiences and general information. In some cases, theorists maintain that participants are likely to change their basic position on an issue, shifting from one point of view to another. In the aggregate, this could produce something approaching the elusive ideal of a broad public consensus.

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