Can Less Be More? Leftist Deliberative Democrats' Critique of Participatory Democracy

Abstract

Many contemporary democratic theorists now base their conceptions of democracy not on the value of citizen participation but on deliberation instead. This apparently slight shift in emphasis marks an important change in the critical project of democratic theory. Although participatory and deliberative democratic theory are in some ways similar, close readings of the recent work of a number of leftist deliberative democrats reveal not only fundamental criticisms of their participatory predecessors but a strikingly different assessment of the political world as well. Deliberative democrats strive to avoid the charge of utopianism so often leveled against participatory theorists; in doing so, however, they lose the power to distinguish critically between the potential for democracy and its realization. Deliberative democratic theory, therefore, should not be understood as a revision of the participatory project, but rather as an independent and, for now, underdeveloped theory of democracy.