The Foundations of Deliberative Democracy: Empirical Research and Normative Implications

Deliberative democracy is now an influential approach to the study of democracy and political behaviour. Its key proposition is that, in politics, it is not only power that counts, but good discussions and arguments too. This book examines the interplay between the normative and empirical aspects of the deliberative model of democracy. J rg Steiner presents the main normative controversies in the literature on deliberation, including self-interest, civility and truthfulness. He then summarizes the empirical literature on deliberation and proposes methods by which the level of deliberation can be measured rather than just assumed. Steiner's empirical research is based in the work of various research groups, including experiments with ordinary citizens in the deeply divided societies of Colombia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Belgium, as well as Finland and the European Union. Steiner draws normative implications from a combination of both normative controversies and empirical findings.

Author: Jürg Steiner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 06/21/2012
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.80h x 5.90w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781107625013

About the Author
Steiner, Jürg: - Jürg Steiner is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at both the University of Bern and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of Deliberative Politics in Action (Cambridge University Press, 2005, with André Bächtiger, Markus Spörndli and Marco R. Steenbergen) and the textbook European Democracies (8th edition 2012, with Markus Crepaz).