two cheers for deliberation
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two cheers for deliberation philippe c. schmitter Department of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, Via dei Roccettini 9, I-50016 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy E-mail: [email protected] doi:10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210044
Books reviewed: Why Deliberative Democracy? Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004), 217pp., ISBN: 0 6911 2018 8 Deliberative Politics in Action: Analyzing Parliamentary Discourse Ju ¨rg Steiner, Andre ´ Ba ¨chtiger, Markus Spo ¨rndli and Marcus R. Steenbergen (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), 199pp., ISBN: 0 5218 2871 6
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f one is to judge by the titles of recent books and articles, something called ‘deliberative democracy’ has become one of the most salient issues in contemporary political science. Whereas for some time, if one were interested in types of democracy, the choice seemed binary, for example, between ‘majoritarian and consensual’, ‘presidential and parliamentary’, ‘adversarial and consociational’, ‘representative and direct’ or simply ‘weak and strong’, now we are told that there is a third way. And, needless to say, those who write about it seem to believe that it is far superior to the other two. This is certainly the case for the multiple authors of the two books under review here. Despite their dramatically different approaches, they all share the conviction that deliberative democracy is a good thing. Gutmann and Thompson argue the point on strictly normative grounds,
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while Steiner et al. analyse empirical data to prove the point. Since not all readers may be familiar with this novel perspective, let me try in as neutral a way as possible to define three alternative conceptions of democracy. They are not incompatible with each other, but each places emphasis on different actors, institutions and processes. And each presumably would distribute its costs and benefits in different ways to citizens. Almost any knowledgeable observer is likely to conclude that ‘real-existing’ contemporary democracies involve varying mixes of all three, and that each has its distinctive virtues and vices when it comes to legitimating the process of taking generally binding decisions. Presumably, the quality of democratic performance – how willing citizens are to obey and how satisfied they are with the results – will depend on getting the mix of principles right and in the right places for the right issues.
european political science: 4 2005 (430 – 435) & 2005 European Consortium for Political Research. 1680-4333/05 $30 www.palgrave-journals.com/eps
(1) Good old-fashioned liberal democracy involves political parties competing in elections to represent territorial constituencies and cooperating to form governments. Its central principle is supposed to be numerical and it can be defined as follows: democracy consists of a process in which citizens with equal rights and obligations participate directly (in elections, primaries, referendums, polls, etc.) or indirectly (through representativ
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