Deliberation, Difference and Democratic Institutions
In: Government & opposition: an international journal of comparative politics, Band 33, Heft 4, S. 519-527
ISSN: 0017-257X
A review essay on books by (1) Seyla Benhabib (Ed), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1996); (2) Amy Gutmann & Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA & London: Belknap Press, 1996); & (3) James G. March & Johan P. Olsen, Democratic Governance (New York: Free Press, 1995). These texts investigate the historical origins of democracy & consider democracy's future directions. March & Olsen study the types of institutions needed to establish democracies & the process of creating such institutions. Their contention that successful democracies must find a balance between government autonomy & the citizenry's establishment of accountability measures is deemed sensible. Gutmann & Thompson build on Rawlsian & post-Rawlsian debates in political philosophy to examine the moral elements of democracy & advance the notion of "deliberative democracy." Although Benhabib's volume favors this deliberative type of democracy, contributors offer different accounts of the interaction between difference & deliberation in democracies. It is concluded that deliberation is a desirable component of democracy; therefore, the deliberative form is not an actual model of democracy. J. W. Parker