In this paper, I argue that many recent interpretations of John Dewey’s vision of democracy distort that vision by fi ltering it through the prism of contemporary deliberative democratic theories. An earlier attempt to defend Dewey’s theory of moral deliberation is instructive for understanding the nature and function of this fi lter. In James Gouinlock’s essay “Dewey’s Th eory of Moral Deliber...

Deliberative democracy by the people themselves is a distinctive form of democratic practice. It can be distinguished from deliberative democracy practiced by elites or representatives as well as from other forms of democracy that do not emphasize deliberation. In this article I explore ways this kind of democracy can be realized and then inserted into our current democratic institutions. The i...

Deliberative democracy is a form of alternative dispute resolution. Consulting the public in a thoughtful and representative way can lead to consequential public policy outcomes that might otherwise have been difficult to achieve. However, some recent literature appears to treat deliberative democracy and alternative dispute resolution as rivals.! While there are differences in emphasis and in ...

Background There is a vast body of literature on deliberative, participative, or engaged democracy. In the area of health care there is a rapidly expanding literature on deliberative democracy as embodied in various notions of public engagement, shared decision-making (SDM), patient-centered care, and patient/care provider autonomy over the past few decades. It is useful to review such literatu...

Broadly defined, deliberative democracy aspires the decision-making legitimacy by deliberation of equal citizens. As a response to the growing discontent with the representational governance, the normative and empirical development of the deliberative democracy theory addresses the increasing desiderata of public engagement beyond party politics and constituencies. Generating knowledge for the ...

Joshua Cohen In this essay I explore the ideal of a 'deliberative democracy'.1 By a deliberative democracy I shall mean, roughly, an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members. I propose an account of the value of such an association that treats democracy itself as a fundamental political ideal and not simply as a derivative ideal that can be explained in t...

Five arguments in favour of deliberative democracy are considered. These focus on its educative power, on its community-generating power, on the fairness of the procedure of public deliberation, on the epistemic quality of its outcomes and on the congruence of the deliberative democratic ideal ‘with whom we are’. The first four arguments are shown to be inadequate. The fifth argument, it is cla...

The ethical, social and political dimensions of legislative regulations of issues concerning the citizens’ health are generally recognized to be of increasing significance in modern deliberative democracies. However, nanotechnologies in health have raised extra difficulties in deliberative democracies’ procedural justice arrangements. Could a deliberative model of democracy based on substantive...

Focus on the concept of deliberative democracy has increased rapidly within recent decades. However, the concept is weakly defined, if at all. ‘Deliberation’ is defined as an unconstrained exchange of arguments that involves practical reasoning and potentially leads to a transformation of preferences. Throughout the 1990s several innovative democratic experiments have flourished focusing on cit...