ICTlogy

Abstract:

'Deliberative democracy' is often dismissed as a set of small-scale, academic experiments. This volume seeks to demonstrate how the deliberative ideal can work as a theory of democracy on a larger scale. It provides a new way of thinking about democratic engagement across the spectrum of political action, from towns and villages to nation states, and from local networks to transnational, even global systems. Written by a team of the world's leading deliberative theorists, Deliberative Systems explains the principles of this new approach, which seeks ways of ensuring that a division of deliberative labour in a system nonetheless meets both deliberative and democratic norms. Rather than simply elaborating the theory, the contributors examine the problems of implementation in a real world of competing norms, competing institutions and competing powerful interests. This pioneering book will inspire an exciting new phase of deliberative research, both theoretical and empirical.

• An extremely high-calibre team of contributors featuring some of the most cited deliberative scholars and leaders in the fields of political philosophy, European public policy and the theory and policy divide.
• Proposes a new 'systems approach' to deliberative democracy, providing readers with a thorough introduction and key features.
• Sets out an analytic framework and clear empirical challenges to help political scientists design new empirical projects for exploring deliberation across societies and networks.