Abstract
The paper presents Jürgen Habermas' epistemological views on the theory of deliberative democracy. Habermas has been constructing a series of assumptions since the 1970ies about his Theory of Communicative Action to overcome the crisis of legitimacy. This position stems from the critique of the deep chasm that exists between the "constitutional-democratic legal order" as a normative framework and how forms of social power are imposed to undermine the legitimate process of passing laws. The course of Habermas's argumentation theorizing about communicative action and the communicatively based process of (democratic) political decision-making brings with it the potential to break with the procedural argumentation of the representatives of the so-called aggregate models of democratic practice. For the development of the theory of deliberative democracy, its sociological sharpness may be important, with the help of which the social basis of legal projects and public policies leads to the clarification of the external tension that exists between facticity and validity. Thus, Habermas respects the differences between facts and norms in every contemporary concept of law. This can be called the legal theory of deliberative democracy that has shaped the modern understanding of the conception and practice of deliberative democracy.
Highlights
Introduce the Problem the term "deliberative democracy" is thought to have been first used by Joseph Bassett (1980) in the context of interpreting the US Constitution as a set of principles that ensure effective public "deliberation," especially in Congress - the development of this form of democracy, owes most to the two most prominent authors and founders in contemporary political philosophy and the theory of morality in politics: John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas
What Habermas begins in the first part of the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action (1984) - the justification of the communicative way of rational action of each subject in the process of policy-making, reaching a common consensus and political decision-making - he concluded with Between Facts and Norms (1996), where his sociological aptitude for the social basis of legislative projects and public policies leads to the identification of the external tension that exists between the facticity and validity3
Habermas' commitment to the project of finding an alternative model of political decision-making is evident from the very beginning of the conception of the theory of communicative action
Summary
Introduce the Problem the term "deliberative democracy" is thought to have been first used by Joseph Bassett (1980) in the context of interpreting the US Constitution as a set of principles that ensure effective public "deliberation," especially in Congress - the development of this form of democracy, owes most to the two most prominent authors and founders in contemporary political philosophy and the theory of morality in politics: John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas. De Griff points out - the theory of deliberative democracy understood as the essential opposite of the pluralistic or group-interest political representation reaches a further contrast, a contrast in which the previous legitimation of aggregate liberalism (in which the parties most often represent whole) is replaced by legitimacy due to "the rational acceptability of the law (or law) to all concerned, and where rational acceptability can be established only under conditions of free and open deliberation" (de Greiff, 2002: 377). Such definitions of deliberative democracy include the definition given by Joshua Cohen when he says that: at the heart of the theory is the belief that the results (of political decision-making - AJ) are legitimate insofar as they receive express consent by participating in the authentic deliberation of all those subjects to whom the question relates (Cohen, 1989: 17-34)
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