Discursive democracy
challenging the Australian deliberative theories
Keywords:
Democratic theory, Discursive democracy, Public deliberation, John Dryzek, RepresentationAbstract
This paper aims to discuss a specific approach among those that constitute the family of deliberative theo-ries: discursive democracy. Initially, it explores the theoretical premises of the works of John Dryzek, who challenges methodological individualism by proposing a displacement of subjects within democratic theory. The article, then, presents three recent developments of Dryzek’s work: the notion of discursive representa-tion, the trans-nationalization of democracy and the concept of meta-consensus. Lastly, it analyzes three empirical studies that re-conceive of the concepts of legitimacy (Parkinson, 2003), participation (Hendriks, 2004) and social learning (Kanra, 2004) through the lenses of the discursive approach. Despite the contri-butions of this perspective, two difficulties may be pointed out: (1) the absence of a mechanism of articula-tion among communicative arenas; and (2) the neglect of the situational component in discourse analysis.
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