Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice
- 1 August 1992
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Political Studies
- Vol. 40 (1_suppl) , 54-67
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1992.tb01812.x
Abstract
The paper contrasts the liberal conception of democracy as the aggregation of individual preferences with the deliberative conception of democracy as a process of open discussion leading to an agreed judgement on policy. Social choice theory has identified problems – the arbitrariness of decision rules, vulnerability to strategic voting – which are often held to undermine democratic ideals. Contrary to common opinion, I argue that deliberative democracy is less vulnerable to these difficulties than liberal democracy. The process of discussion tends to produce sets of policy preferences that are ‘single peaked’; and within a deliberative setting it may be possible to vary the decision rule according to the nature of the issue to be decided.Keywords
This publication has 9 references indexed in Scilit:
- Unveiling the VoteBritish Journal of Political Science, 1990
- Democratic Theory and the Public Interest: Condorcet and Rousseau RevisitedAmerican Political Science Review, 1989
- Effects of straw polls on group decision making: Sequential voting pattern, timing, and local majorities.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian PerspectiveAmerican Political Science Review, 1988
- Explaining discussion-induced cooperation.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- On Legitimacy and Political DeliberationPolitical Theory, 1987
- Democracy and Social ChoiceEthics, 1986
- Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functionsJournal of Economic Theory, 1975
- Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General ResultEconometrica, 1973