Deliberative Systems

Reviews / Votes

'Deliberative Systems is a true landmark: an integrated set of essays that analyzes, celebrates, and advocates the turn to systems in deliberative democracy. An impressive set of contributors demonstrates the power of this systems approach on many dimensions, generating effective responses to critics of deliberation. This volume should set the agenda for inquiry on democracy for years to come.' John S. Dryzek, Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Australian National University 'Deliberative Systems infuses deliberative democratic theory with a macro-level conception of how a social system can engage in deliberative exchanges. By working through concrete cases from across the globe that involve media, elections, elites, and modern experiments in public participation, the book moves beyond theoretical abstraction to provide sharp insights into the practical work of making modern societies more deliberative and democratic.' John Gastil, Pennsylvania State University 'What does it mean for our understanding of reason-giving in a deliberative democracy to take seriously the division of political labour between the people and their various representatives? Using the notion of a deliberative system as a loosely-coupled group of institutions and practices that perform the functions of seeking truth, establishing mutual respect, and generating inclusive, egalitarian decision-making, the authors of this collection provide the reader not only with an up-to-date compendium of thinking in deliberative democracy by some of its leading theorists, but also with thought-provoking original contributions to our understanding of deliberation representative political systems. This is a book that anyone concerned with deliberative democracy will have to engage with.' Albert Weale, University College London