Abstract
This essay focuses on recent proposals to confer decisional status upon deliberative mini-publics such as citizens’ juries, Deliberative Polls, and citizens’ assemblies. Against such proposals, I argue that inserting deliberative mini-publics into political decision-making processes would diminish the democratic legitimacy of the political system as a whole. This negative conclusion invites a question: which political uses of mini-publics would yield genuinely democratic improvements? Drawing from a participatory conception of deliberative democracy, I propose several uses of mini-publics that could enhance the democratic legitimacy of political decision-making in current societies.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 85-105 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | Daedalus |
Volume | 146 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 1 2017 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Political Science and International Relations
- History and Philosophy of Science