Robust Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy aspires to secure political liberty by making citizens the authors of their laws. But how can it do this in the face of deep disagreement, not to mention imperfect knowledge and limited altruism? Deliberative democracy can secure political liberty by affording each citizen an equal position as a co-author of public laws and norms. Moreover, fundamental deliberative democracy—in which institutional design is ultimately accountable to public deliberation but not necessarily subject to its direct control—does not strain knowledge or altruism. Thus, there is a place for deliberative democracy in a robust political economy

Rawls and deliberative democracy

This chapter offers arguments to support the following conjectures: (1) despite claims by Rawls and some commentators, Rawls is not and cannot be a deliberative democrat; the evidence for this can be gleaned by focussing on various interpretations of the structure of Rawls’ arguments in A Theory of Justice (1972) and Political Liberalism (1993) respectively; and (2) if we ask more directly how the ideal dialogue of the original position might be approximated in real-world conditions, we can reach suggestive conclusions about institutions and deliberative democracy radically different from those reached by Rawls himself

Training the imagination to go visiting

Jon Nixon’s article, ‘Learning the Language of Deliberative Democracy’ explored languages of hope in relation to the discourses of deliberative democracy. Ours continues this theme of finding languages of hope. Like his article, ours makes people central. It explores a neglected area of epistemology: knowing people. It suggests that we take a critical perspective on the metaphors we live and then re-configure them to think again about the public and private spaces in the universities where we work

The Use of Deliberative Democracy in Public Policy Making Process

This paper intends to highlight the intensity of the use of deliberative democracy in the policy making process. It assists policy makers to understand the significance of deliberative democracy and the preliminary conditions to conduct effective and successful deliberation for the purpose of producing best quality decisions.  This paper stressed the relationship between deliberation and citizen's satisfaction of government decisions. It indicated that deliberative democracy helps citizens to directly influence on the quality of the decision and better represent their preferences by proposing their agenda and views on policy alternatives and issues. Deliberative democracy is a technique that stabilizes citizens' interests by diminishing domination, despotism, and better assessing public choices. This paper found that deliberation legitimizes government decisions and maximizes the outcome of the policies. This article defined several advantages of deliberative democracy in the public policy making process which pursues equality, mutual interest; reason based discussion, public goods, the decision focused and agreement on disputed preferences.  It also concluded that deliberative democracy facilitates free and fair participation and creating opportunity for discussion and information sharing between participants prior to the implementation process of government policies. Keywords: Public deliberation, deliberative democracy, public participation, decision making, public polic

Can Deliberative Democracy Favor a Flourishing Relationship Between Humans and Carnivores?

There is considerable interest in improving participatory governance in decision-making processes for the conservation of biodiversity and management of conflicts between humans and wildlife. Among the various modes of participatory governance, deliberative democracy has received virtually no attention for decisions focused on conserving biodiversity. This is surprising given that deliberative democracy is an important branch of democratic theory and is associated with decision-making processes that have been successfully applied to a wide range of complicated decisions across diverse cultural settings. Moreover, deliberative democracy has several distinctive properties that would seem to make it well-suited for many conservation decisions. First, deliberative democracy is better-designed than other processes to handle cases where the object of conservation appears to be insufficiently valued by those who have the most detrimental impacts on its conservation. Second, deliberative democracy engenders a rich kind of representation and impartiality that is nearly impossible to achieve with participatory governance focused on managing conflicts among hyper-engaged stakeholders. Here, we review the principles of deliberative democracy, outline procedures for its application to carnivore conservation, and consider its likelihood to favor carnivore conservation

Introducing the Journal of Deliberative Democracy

This editorial introduction provides a statement of our vision for the Journal of Deliberative Democracy and an overview of the Special Issue on the Frontiers of Deliberative Democracy

Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy

Research Methods in Deliberative Democracy is the first book that brings together a wide range of methods used in the study of deliberative democracy. It offers thirty-one different methods that scholars use for theorizing, measuring, exploring, or applying deliberative democracy. Each chapter presents one method by explaining its utility in deliberative democracy research and providing guidance on its application by drawing on examples from previous studies. The book hopes to inspire scholars to undertake methodologically robust, intellectually creative, and politically relevant research. It fills a significant gap in a rapidly growing field of research by assembling diverse methods and thereby expanding the range of methodological choices available to students, scholars, and practitioners of deliberative democracy

Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy is a political theory that requires legitimate decision making to be based on deliberation among citizens. The theory is often contrasted with the purely aggregative voting methods used in many democratic societies, as well as the self-interested bargaining typified in economics. Deliberative democracy is compatible with science and technology communication theory in that both broad theories promote participation, engagement, and accessible knowledge for all people, not just for the powerful or elite

What Should We Learn From Early Hemodialysis Allocation About How We Should Be Using ECMO?

Early hemodialysis allocation deliberations should inform our current considerations of what constitutes reasonable uses of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Deliberative democracy can be used as a strategy to gather a plurality of views, consider criteria, and guide policy making

Pyramidal deliberative democracy

This dissertation has two main objectives. First, to outline an ICT-facilitated model of democracy called ‘pyramidal democracy’ that reconciles deliberative democracy with mass engagement. Second, to suggest how this model of democracy might engender the democratisation of the global economy and thus the provision of a basic level of economic security for all global citizens. At the core of the model is the pyramidal deliberative network, a means of organising citizens into small online deliberative groups and linking these groups together by means of an iterative process of delegate-selection and group-formation. The pyramidal network enables citizens to aggregate their preferences in a deliberative manner, and then project social power by authorizing the delegates at the top-tier of the pyramidal network to communicate their social demands to elected officials or to other points of authority. The envisioned outcome is the democratisation of the public sphere by means of the proliferation of deliberative networks in the government, market, and civil society spheres. Transnational pyramidal networks may make it feasible to instantiate a new citizen-based schema of global governance and, thereby, facilitate the reform of the United Nations and enable a transition towards global peace, sustainability, and distributive justice. Distributive justice might be achieved by means of implementing the six components of a democratised economy: participatory budgeting, fee-and-dividend taxes, a basic income, monetary reform, workplace democracy, and the sharing economy. Taken together, these components might enable the universal provision of a social minimum – a universal basic income sufficient for basic security and real freedom. Taken to its logical conclusion, a democratised economy may also enable a transition towards a post-scarcity economic order characterised by a maximal stock of humanmade and natural capital that would not exceed the sustainable carrying capacity of the earth