Suchergebnisse

Part I of this essay will be devoted to Gauthier's principle of minimax relative concession. Part II will focus, more generally, on the variety of possible strategies available to liberal theory. In Part I, I will argue that the principle of minimax relative concession does not define "essential justice" as Gauthier claims. In Part II, I will argue that the difficulties facing Gauthier's strategy are common to other strategies of die same general kind. I will close by suggesting what I think may prove to be a more promising approach.

Liberalism has often been viewed as a continuing dialogue about the relative priorities between liberty and equality. When the version of equality under discussion requires equalization of outcomes, it is easy to see how the two ideals might conflict. But when the version of equality requires only equalization of opportunities, the conflict has been treated as greatly muted since the principle of equality seems so meager in its implications. However, when one looks carefully at various versions of equal opportunity and various versions of liberty, the conflict between them is, in fact, both dramatic and inescapable. Each version of the conflict poses hard choices which defy anysystematicpattern granting priority to one of these basic values over the other. In this essay, I will flesh out and argue for this picture of fundamental conflict, and then turn to some more general issues about the kinds of answers we should expect to the basic questions of liberal theory.

Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin argue that Americans can revitalize their democracy and break the cycle of cynical media manipulation that is crippling public life. They propose a new national holiday-Deliberation Day-for each presidential election year. On this day people throughout the country will meet in public spaces and engage in structured debates about issues that divide the candidates in the upcoming presidential election.Deliberation Day is a bold new proposal, but it builds on a host of smaller experiments. Over the past decade, Fishkin has initiated Deliberative Polling events in the United States and elsewhere that bring random and representative samples of voters together for discussion of key political issues. In these events, participants greatly increase their understanding of the issues and often change their minds on the best course of action.Deliberation Day is not merely a novel idea but a feasible reform. Ackerman and Fishkin consider the economic, organizational, and political questions raised by their proposal and explore its relationship to the larger ideals of liberal democracy

Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin argue that Americans can revitalize their democracy and break the cycle of cynical media manipulation that is crippling public life. They propose a new national holiday - Deliberation Day - for each presidential election year. On this day people throughout the country will meet in public spaces and engage in structured debates about issues that divide the candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Deliberation Day is a bold new proposal, but it builds on a host of smaller experiments. Over the past decade, Fishkin has initiated Deliberative Polling events in the United States and elsewhere that bring random and representative samples of voters together for discussion of key political issues. In these events, participants greatly increase their understanding of the issues and often change their minds on the best course of action. Deliberation Day is not merely a novel idea but a feasible reform. Ackerman and Fishkin consider the economic, organisational, and political questions raised by their proposal and explore its relationship to the larger ideals of liberal democracy.

This special issue focuses on EuroPolis, a unique experiment in 'deliberative democracy' at the European level convened in Brussels soon before the 2009 European Parliamentary Elections. A European wide random sample of the 27 member countries at the time was gathered to deliberate about two key issues--climate change and immigration as well as its voting intentions. The articles in the special issue focus on this Deliberative Poll, both quantitatively and qualitatively to assess what it tells us about ambitious versions of a 'European wide public sphere.' Can the citizens of Europe deliberate together across all the barriers of language and nationality? Can there be a credible process of European wide 'public will formation' about substantive policy issues and about voting?