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Theoretically, feminists ought to be the best deliberative democrats. However, political commitments (which this author shares) to inclusiveness on issues of reproductive health and gay and lesbian rights, for example, create a boundary within feminism between those committed to the "feminist consensus" on these issues and women activists who share some feminist commitments, but not all. This article offers theoretically and empirically informed suggestions for how feminists can foster inclusive deliberation within feminist spaces.

Introduces a symposium on John Rawls, which considers the degree to which Rawlsian liberalism is shaped by, or potentially useful for, analyzing democratic & international politics. Central concepts employed by Rawls in honing his political philosophy are described, as are primary political roadblocks to social cooperation that formed the political backdrop against which he shaped his mode of liberalism. The participants in this symposium provide a thumbnail of the current political dilemmas for which considerations of Rawls's insights (& weaknesses) may be efficacious. K. Coddon

This article identifies a foundation for Confucian democratic political thought in Confucian thought. Each of the three aspects emphasized is controversial, but supported by views held within the historical debates and development of Confucian political thought and practice. This democratic interpretation of Confucian political thought leads to (1) an expectation that all people are capable of ren and therefore potentially virtuous contributors to political life; (2) an expectation that the institutions of political, social, and economic life function so as to develop the virtue of being a perfected human being; and (3) an expectation that there be public space for political criticism and for ongoing contestation over the duties and behaviors of individual leaders and citizens and over the functioning of the institutions that are to cultivate their behavior.