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AbstractWe lack analyses of the judiciary from a systemic perspective. This article thus examines arguments offered by deliberativists who have reflected about this institution and argues that the current state of deliberative democracy requires us to rethink the ways they conceive of the judiciary within a deliberative framework. After an examination of these accounts, I define the deliberative system and describe the different phases deliberative democracy has gone through. I then single out elements common to all systemic approaches against which I test whether the regard that the authors show for the judiciary in deliberative terms can be maintained and argue in the negative. I conclude by pointing at the necessity to think about the definition of deliberative systems, and to the value of these discussions for debates on the legitimacy of judicial review when it is exercised under the form of judicial supremacy.

Der Artikel basiert auf einem Deliberativen Forum zur deutschen Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitik. Er untersucht Gruppendynamiken und Meinungsänderungen sowie den Einfluss von aktiven Personen auf diese Dynamiken mittels quantitativer Vor- und Nachbefragung der Teilnehmer_innen, um einen Beitrag zur Debatte über einen möglichen Mehrwert von Deliberation in demokratischen Entscheidungsprozessen zu leisten. Die These von durch Deliberationsprozessen angestoßenen Meinungsänderungen kann grundsätzlich bestätigt werden, allerdings deuten die Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass die Mehrheit in ihren Positionen weitgehend unverändert aus der Debatte gegangen ist. Auch inhaltlich lässt sich feststellen, dass die in der Demokratietheorie und empirischen Deliberationsforschung getroffenen normativen Erwartungen hinsichtlich Gemeinwohlorientierung, Großzügigkeit und Nachhaltigkeit von getroffenen Entscheidungen nur zu einem geringen Ausmaß erfüllt wurden. Gleichzeitig finden sich kaum Hinweise auf einen systematischen Einfluss aktiver Personen auf die Positionen der übrigen Gruppenmitglieder.

AbstractCan deliberative mini‐publics contribute to deepening the democratic dimensions of electoral democracies? The question is framed in this article using a problem‐based approach to democratic theory–to count as democratic, political systems must accomplish three basic functions related to inclusion, communication and deliberation, and decision making. This approach is elaborated with an analysis of a real‐world case: a deliberative mini‐public with a citizens' assembly design, focused on urban planning convened in Vancouver, Canada. This example was chosen because the context was one in which the city's legacy institutions of representative democracy had significant democratic deficits in all three areas, and the mini‐public was a direct response to these deficits. It was found that Vancouver's deliberative mini‐public helped policy makers, activists and affected residents move a stalemated planning process forward, and did do so in ways that improved the democratic performance of the political system. Depending on when and how they are sequenced into democratic processes, deliberative mini‐publics can supplement existing legacy institutions and practices to deepen their democratic performance.

In recent years many countries, including Austria, have commissioned citizen assemblies in response to the complex issue of climate change. Based on an explorative qualitative study, this paper examines the impact of climate assemblies on policy making and looks at elements that further or impede their impact. In addition, the paper identifies several other impacts of climate assemblies such as those on deliberative democracy and quality of discourse around contentious topics. The paper compares climate assemblies in France, Germany, Ireland and Scotland.

The democratic deficit in global governance -- Democracy within and beyond the state -- The state as (democratic) self-legislator -- The constitutionalisation of international law -- Democracy in international law -- International governance by non-state actors -- A concept of (international) law -- Deliberative democracy beyond the state -- Democracy in conditions of global legal pluralism.

The normative point of departure in this article is that mini-publics can "complement" representative democracy only if they enhance inclusive processes of mutual justification among elected representatives who are responsible for public decisions. This article distinguishes three different roles of mini-publics in representative decision-making. Mini-publics can be 1) advisory when they provide input for collective will-formation in the representative arena, 2) collaborative when they involve elected representatives in the deliberative process, 3) scrutinizing when they check representative decision-making. The article analyzes strengths and weaknesses of these roles of mini-publics. Advisory mini-publics are particularly vulnerable to "cherry-picking." While collaborative uses of mini-publics may facilitate inclusive reason-giving among elected representatives, they entail risks of representative dominance. Scrutinizing use of mini-publics seem particularly promising from the normative perspective, but it requires a well-defined institutional framework. The article concludes that while there are ways to avoid problems emerging in these different roles, political context is crucial in terms of the deliberative impact of mini-publics.

The deliberative turn in political philosophy sees theorists attempting to ground democratic legitimacy in free, rational, and public deliberation among citizens. However, feminist theorists have criticized prominent accounts of deliberative democracy, and of the public sphere that is its site, for being too exclusionary. Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and Seyla Benhabib show that deliberative democrats generally fail to attend to substantive inclusion in their conceptions of deliberative space, even though they endorse formal inclusion. If we take these criticisms seriously, we are tasked with articulating a substantively inclusive account of deliberation. I argue in this article that enriching existing theories of deliberative democracy with Fricker's conception of epistemic in/justice yields two specific benefits. First, it enables us to detect instances of epistemic injustice, and therefore failures of inclusion, within deliberative spaces. Second, it can act as a model for constructing deliberative spaces that are more inclusive and therefore better able to ground democratic legitimacy.

In this inaugural issue of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy, we are pleased to present reviews of five recently published books that will shape the scholarship on public deliberation in the years to come. These books engage with key theoretical and methodological debates in the field, contribute to the way we understand deliberation in relation to other political practices, and present compelling empirical accounts of how deliberative democracy comes alive in contemporary times.The reviewed titles are Mapping and Measuring Deliberation by André Bächtiger and John Parkinson (2019); Demagoguery and Democracy (2017) by Patricia Roberts-Miller Re-imagining Democracy by Jane Suiter and David Farrell (2019); Oral Democracy by Paromita Sanyal and Vijayendra Rao (2018) and Beyond Liberalism by Michael Briand (2019, Praeger).

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp's nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution to recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right.

La democracia deliberativa de Jürgen Habermas se sitúa conceptualmente entre las tradiciones liberal y republicana de la política. Se trata de un posicionamiento teórico que discursivamente transforma e incorpora ciertos principios de cada una. En el presente trabajo se analiza el tema desde el punto de vista republicano, poniendo énfasis en el principio rousseauniano de la soberanía popular. La idea es explicitar (parte de) las contribuciones que aquella teoría política puede realizar para el mejoramiento de la calidad institucional del estado democrático de derecho. ; The deliberative democracy of Jürgen Habermas is conceptually located between the liberal and republican traditions of politic. It is a theoretic position that both makes a discursive transformation and incorporates certain principles of each one. In the present work, this topic is analyzed from the republican point of view, with particular emphasis in the principle of popular sovereignty of Rousseau. The idea is to explain (part of) the contributions that the above mentioned political theory can make to improve the institution's quality of the democratic rule of law. ; Fil: Prono, Santiago Nicolas. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del Litoral. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del Litoral.; Argentina

Democracy in Europe is under pressure. The financial crisis has strained relationships between ordinary citizens and their elected representatives. Many European countries have swung, in some cases decisively, to the right – weakening the architecture of democracy. Constitutional courts are being undermined, press freedom curtailed and public spheres increasingly polarised. And then there are the political upheavals and social division that Brexit brings in its wake. These problems present a serious challenge to proponents of deliberative democracy: the space for free, open and inclusive debate seems to be shrinking fast, along with the conditions that support it. To address this challenge, the Panel takes as its starting point arguments presented in a recent ECPR Press publication, Constitutional Deliberative Democracy in Europe, edited by Min Reuchamps and Jane Suiter. The Panel will reconsider those arguments in the light of recent political developments. It also seeks to map out a future research agenda for deliberative scholars interested in the future prospects for democracy in Europe. Emerging local, national and regional challenges will be highlighted and deliberative approaches and solutions assessed.

The theory and practice of democracy have moved on from the paradigm of electoral democracy to conceptualising alternative models that can facilitate democratic deepening in different contexts. Methodology should follow too. In this piece, I build on Morlino's framework, which takes a step towards a pluralised assessment of democratic qualities but remains largely hinged on the electoral model of democracy. I suggest that Morlino's heuristic tools can be further sharpened by incorporating a deliberative democratic criterion. I provide an empirical illustration through the Philippine case – a country that already exhibits formal features of electoral democracy but fails to translate democratic impulses into democratic deepening.

The theory and practice of democracy have moved on from the paradigm of electoral democracy to conceptualising alternative models that can facilitate democratic deepening in different contexts. Methodology should follow too. In this piece, I build on Morlino's framework, which takes a step towards a pluralised assessment of democratic qualities but remains largely hinged on the electoral model of democracy. I suggest that Morlino's heuristic tools can be further sharpened by incorporating a deliberative democratic criterion. I provide an empirical illustration through the Philippine case – a country that already exhibits formal features of electoral democracy but fails to translate democratic impulses into democratic deepening.