Enfoques mesodeliberativos: sobre la articulación institucional en las democracias deliberativas

Abstract

The fact that democratic reflection centres on deliberative democracies is due to both their internal potential and the erosion of a political reality, which is becoming increasingly distanced from what we either thought of as democracy or expected of it. The present article is framed in this context and puts forward a proposal for a meso-deliberative approach that aims to contribute two closely linked aspects to the discussion on the institutional articulation of deliberative theories: the value of civil society and the perspective of ethics in institutional design. Neither of these aspects has altogether found its place in today’s deliberative initiatives, even though they are both essential for achieving a complete and critical democratic theory. The paper is structured as follows: we firstly justify the need for this meso-deliberative level within what is known as the systemic approach to deliberative democracies. Then regarding the question of which institutions and why, we introduce a broad concept of civil society following the two-track democracy proposal in discussion with the Habermasian conception. We thirdly explore some of the basic contributions of institutional design to develop this meso-deliberative level, and the actual and potential role of the ethical perspective. Finally, we depict this role on the grounds of the Kantian principle of publicity as the central hub for developing an ethical perspective in institutional design.