Normative controversies in the literature

Jürgen Habermas has insisted throughout his career that good deliberationshould be public and transparent. He still very much emphasizes this point in arecent publication where he demands “publicity and transparency for thedeliberative process.” He justifies the logic of publicity in claimingthat this is a necessary condition to “generate legitimacy.” ThisHabermasian view was for a long time shared by virtually all deliberativetheorists, and many of them still stress the importance of publicity andtransparency as a key element of the deliberative model. Claudia Landwehr, forexample, argues:

Although Landwehr adheres to the logic of publicity, she acknowledges that inpractice publicity may be relative. Her point is that even if doors are notfully open but only ajar, the logic of publicity should still apply in the sensethat reasons should be “generalizable and transferable.”