Deliberative Democracy Under the Influence of Populist Current

Abstract

The phrase “deliberative democracy” is attributed to the author Joseph Bessett, who in the article Democracy the majority principle in republican government, published in 1980, argued about a new form of democracy in contradiction with classical democracy, about deliberative democracy as an authentic alternative to traditional forms. In this respect, it is admitted that the political decisions cannot be legitimized without an early negotiation dialogue [1: 1]. The rise of populism in Central and Eastern Europe is a justification for the democratic crisis, a failure of representative politics after 1989. A negative effect of the populist current was also seen in Romania, Hungary or Poland. In this sense, applying a reorientation to a policy based on a deliberate democratic culture with populist influences was considered to be a solution that would justify the interference between populism and a deliberative democracy. The participation in the vote of the citizens of Eastern Europe who initially see in the left parties the popular interest is radically changing in the present, towards the right parties that no longer identify with pure right principles. Furthermore, moving populism from the left foot to the right foot does not require sacrifice. In the end, it all comes down to changing symbols, changing vocabulary but within the same type of policy based on a common way of thinking both left and right. The distinction between the two is greatly minimized. The transitional period in which the executives put pressure on the law institutions and themselves with a rather weak identity, on the press, on the media, allowed a reassessment of the transient moments, the populist discourse having the capacity to capture democracy of a populist state [2:132]. The diagnosis of the causes of the increase of populism was based on two major pillars, one being the failure of the national institutions located in the space of national constitutions and the second is the influence of the international institutions of the EU and of the Council of Europe that do not wish to sanction the fall towards populism [3:219].