Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term used by political theorists, e.g. Jon Elster, Jürgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson to refer to any system of political decisions based on some tradeoff of consensus decision making and representative democracy. In contrast to the traditional economics-based theory of democracy, which emphasizes voting as the central institution in democracy, deliberative democracy theorists argue that legitimate lawmaking can only arise from the public deliberation of the citizenry. The history of democracy traces back from its origins in prehistoric times to its re-emergence and rise from the 17th century to the present day. ... Here is a partial list of varieties of democracy. ... Anticipatory democracy is a theory of civics relying on democratic decision making that takes into account predictions of future events that have some credibility with the electorate. ... The speakers platform in the Pnyx, the meeting ground of the assembly where all the great political struggles of Athens were fought during the Golden Age. Here Athenian statesmen stood to speak, such as Pericles and Aristides in the 5th century BC and Demosthenes and Aeschines in the 4th... Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision making to the process of legislation. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... Direct Access Democracy is a phrase coined to describe a participatory democracy subset. ... Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy[1], comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ... Non-partisan democracy (also no-party democracy) is a system of representative government or organization such that universal and periodic elections (by secret ballot) take place without reference to political parties or even the speeches, campaigns, nominations, or other apparatus commonly associated with democracy. ... Participatory democracy is a broadly inclusive term for many kinds of consultative decision making which require consultation on important decisions by those who will carry out the decision. ... The Elections and Parties Series Democracy Liberal democracy History of democracy Representative democracy Representation Voting Voting systems Elections Elections by country Elections by calender Electoral systems Politics Politics by country Political campaigns Political science Political philosophy Related topics Political parties Parties by country Parties by name Parties by ideology Representative... Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the peoples representants. ... Republican democracy is a republic which has democracy. ... Soviet democracy is a form of democracy in which workers elect representatives in the organs of power called soviets (councils). ... Top-down democracy is a form of representative democracy in which candidates for government offices present themselves for election -- normally -- through signed petitions, as in the United States. ... Niccolò Machiavelli, ca 1500, became the key figure in realistic political theory, crucial to political science Political Science is the systematic study of the allocation and transfer of power in decision making. ... Jon Elster (born 1940) 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 (born June 18, 1929 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher, political scientist and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory, best known for his concept of the public sphere. ... Joshua Cohen, born in 1980 in Southern New Jersey, is a novelist and writer of short stories. ... Amy Gutmann, Ph. ... Consensus decision-making is a decision process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision. ... Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the peoples representants. ...

The term "deliberative democracy" was originally coined by Joseph M. Bessette, in "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government," in 1980, and he subsequently elaborated and defended the notion in "The Mild Voice of Reason" (1994).

Joshua Cohen most clearly outlined some conditions that he thinks constitutes the root principles of the theory of deliberative democracy in and article in the book The Good Polity. He outlines 5 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 their creation and that they allow deliberation to continue.
• A commitment to the respect of a pluralism of values and aims within the polity.
• The participants in the democracy regard deliberative procedure as the source of legitimacy and as such they also prefer those causal histories of legitimation for each law be transparent, and easily traceable back to the deliberative process.
• Each member and all members recognize and respect each others' having deliberative capacity
  • this can be construed as the fact that in a deliberative democracy, we "owe" one another, in the legislative process, reasons.

Cohen also goes further than the mere theory of Deliberative Democracy as a theory of legitimacy and forms a body of substantive rights around it based on achieving "ideal Deliberation":

1. It is free in two ways:
   1. The participants regard themselves as bound solely by the results and preconditions of the deliberation. They are free from any authority of prior norms or requirements.
   2. The participants suppose that they can act on the decision made, the decision through deliberation is a sufficient reason for compliance with it.
2. It is reasoned- parties to deliberation are required to state reasons for proposals, and proposals are accepted or rejected based on the reasons given, as the content of the very deliberation taking place.
3. Participants are equal in two ways:
   1. Formal- anyone can put forth proposals, criticize, and support measures. There is no substantive hierarchy.
   2. 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.”
4. Deliberation aims at a rationally motivated consensus- it aims to find reasons acceptable to all who are committed to such a system decision-making. When consensus or something near enough is not possible, majoritarian decision making is utilized.

Deliberative Democracy is usually associated with left-wing politics and often recognizes a conflict of interest 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. In politics, left-wing, the political left or simply The Left are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy or social liberalism, and defined in contradistinction to its polar opposite, the right. ... A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, a politician, or an executive or director of a corporation, has competing professional and/or personal interests. ... In individualist anarchist discourse, a group-entity is usually distinguished from an individual hominid, or animal groups from a single living being of any sexual species. ... Outreach is an effort by an organization or group to connect its ideas or practices to the efforts of other organizations, groups, specific audiences or the general public. ... Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to an idea (eg. ... Civics is the science of comparative government and means of administering public trusts - the theory of governance as applied to state institutions. ...

The Green Party of the United States refers to its particular proposals for grassroots democracy and electoral reform by this name. This article specifically discusses the national committee of the Green Party in the United States. ... For other meanings, see Grass roots (disambiguation). ... Electoral reform projects seek to change the way that public desires are reflected in elections through electoral systems. ...

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, Study Circles, Deliberative Polls, 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. Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term used by political theorists, e. ... In politics, left-wing, the political left or simply The Left are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy or social liberalism, and defined in contradistinction to its polar opposite, the right. ...

A claimed strength of deliberative democratic models is that they are more easily able to incorporate scientific 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.

Another strength of deliberative democratic models is that (according to their proponents) 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 the morally right ones. Deliberative democracy has thus an epistemic value: it allows participants to know the moral good. This view has been prominently held by Carlos Nino. Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather then on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons. ... In philosophy, the word rationality has been used to describe numerous religious and philosophical theories, especially those concerned with truth, reason, and knowledge. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with epistemology. ... Ethics (from Greek ἦθος meaning custom) is the branch of axiology, one of the four major branches of philosophy, which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to distinguish that which is right from that which is wrong. ... 1. ... For the philosophical concept of goodness see Goodness and value theory. ... Carlos Santiago Nino (1943-1993) was an Argentine moral, legal and political philosopher. ...

A 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 concrete 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. Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term used by political theorists, e. ...

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/ cf. http://personal.lse.ac.uk/list/ ) have responded with a recent body of research that has shown that deliberation actually makes the conditions necessary for Arrow's Theorem to apply less likely. Social choice theory studies how individual preferences are aggregated to form a collective choice, such as, for example in voting systems (also known as social choice functions or systems). ... In voting systems, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, demonstrates that no voting system can possibly meet a certain set of reasonable criteria when there are three or more options to choose from. ...

See also

• Democracy (varieties)
• List of politics-related topics

• Consensus
• Consensus democracy
• Green parties
• Meritocracy
• Online deliberation
• Ralph Nader's Concord Principles

Here is a partial list of varieties of democracy. ... The Elections and Parties Series Democracy Liberal democracy History of democracy Referenda Representative democracy Representation Voting Voting systems Elections Elections by country Elections by calender Electoral systems Politics Politics by country Political campaigns Political science Political philosophy Related topics Political parties Parties by country Parties by name Parties by ideology... Consensus has two common meanings. ... Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision making to the process of legislation. ... This article is about the green parties around the world. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ... Online deliberation is a term associated with an emerging body of practice, research, and software dedicated to fostering serious, purposive discussion over the Internet. ... Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American attorney and political activist. ... Ralph Naders Concord Principles [1] were offered in 1992 as an invitation to the Presidential candidates to improve civic dialogue and the democratic institutions of the U.S. They are written as 10 pleas intended to avert a trend of corporatism in government, plutocratic influence, banal sloganistic elections, power...

References

• Elster, Jon. (1998) "Deliberative Democracy". Table of Contents
• Nino, C. S. (1996)The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. [ISBN 03-000-7727-0]
• Steenhuis, Quinten. (2004) "The Deliberative Opinion Poll: Promises and Challenges". Carnegie Mellon University. Unpublished thesis. Available Online
• Cohen, J. (1989) "Deliberative Democracy and Democratic Legitimacy," from Hamlin, A. and Pettit, P. (eds), The Good Polity. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 17-34
• Bessette, Joseph (1980) "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government," in How Democractic is the Constitution?, Washington, D.C., AEI Press. pp. 102-116.
• Bessette, Joseph, (1994) The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy & American National Government Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

External links

• Center for Deliberative Democracy, Stanford University
• Deliberative Democracy Consortium — A movement to promote Deliberative Democracy at the national level, internationally