Participation of people with disabilities in deliberative democracy

This thesis seeks to conceptualise a model of inclusion for people with disabilities in deliberative democracy, which on one hand addresses a gap in deliberative democratic theory and on the other hand provides practical insights for its practitioners. Despite its critical and emancipatory roots, in practice deliberative democracy has traditionally left people with disabilities outside deliberative decision making processes. The thesis identifies the root causes of this exclusion as deliberative democracy’s convergence with liberalism which leads to the construction of the deliberative citizen as a liberal citizen, its neglect of the embodiedness of deliberation and normalisation of able-bodiedness, and finally its neglect of the spatiality of deliberative sites in both micro and macro levels. The proposed model of inclusion seeks to reclaim the emancipatory quality of deliberative democracy by replacing the dominant liberal conceptualisation of deliberative citizenship with a caring citizenship. It highlights the embodiedness of deliberation and suggests instrumentalising the embodied appearance of the disabled in deliberative sites as a claim for recognition and voice. It proposes a way to translate the presence of the disabled in deliberative sites into preference. Finally, it highlights the role of the spatial arrangements in a deliberative site as a factor that contributes to inclusion or exclusion