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Non-deliberative politics in deliberative democracy: distinct approaches for different actors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2017

Andrea Felicetti
Andrea Felicetti*
Affiliation:
Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Firenze, Italy
*
*E-mail: andrea.felicetti@sns.it
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Abstract

This article advances one of the most important debates in recent scholarship on democratic theory: the one on deliberative systems. In the wake of the systemic turn deliberative scholars agree that not all components of a deliberative system can or even need to be deliberative. However, there is little clarity about the role of non-deliberative politics in a system and to what extent these are justifiable while we seek a more deliberative society. In this paper I first illustrate the main ideas of the systemic turn, explore the distinction between ‘deliberative’ and ‘non-deliberative’ politics and investigate the main arguments justifying non-deliberative politics. Then, I build upon these arguments to shed new light on the relationship between deliberative and non-deliberative politics. I identify three distinctive actors in deliberative systems (political institutions, empowered agents, and public space actors). Finally, I argue that deliberative democrats should adopt three different approaches (intensive, moderate, and free) in order to assess whether the use of non-deliberative politics by each of these actors is legitimate.

Keywords

democracylegitimacydeliberative democracynon-deliberative politicsdeliberative systemdemocratic system
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
© Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2017 

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