La madurez de la democracia deliberativa

Abstract

I will be reviewing three different ways in which the ideals of deliberative democracy have changed in light of practical concerns of feasibility, that is, by making the problem of how this ideal would be approximated increasingly central in societies characterized by deep disagreements, social problems of enormous complexity and also consider the blunt instruments of available institutions. First, theories of deliberative democracy have come to emphasize the process of deliberation itself, rather than its ideal and counterfactual conditions and procedures. Second, deliberative democrats have become increasingly interested in the problems of institutionalization, of making institutions such as voting and majority rule, representation, courts and constitutional law more deliberative rather than rejecting them for more direct democracy. Third, these aforementioned democrats are concerned with examining and comparing different settings and procedures of deliberation, pointing out empirical problems and obstacles that cannot always be anticipated by conceptual argument alone.