Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, which published its report in January 2024, is the first time that the topic of illegal drugs use has been considered by a deliberative forum of this type in any country. This article is a brief introduction to the concept of deliberative democracy and the ideas from which it developed.

Deliberative and aggregative democracy

Deliberative democracy is a political exercise in which deliberation is the defining feature, and so differs from aggregative democracy, which primarily involves the counting of votes. Citizens’ assemblies, citizen juries, mini-publics, or other mechanisms for deliberative democracy invariably focus on topics where there are sharp differences of opinion. Deliberative democracy does not seek to replace aggregative systems or become the only or even the main form of public policy formation. Accounts of the origins and development of deliberative democracy emphasise its equally important epistemic and normative aspects; reasons are weighed and their strength is determined through a political process that supports equal participation and produces a collective judgement on the matter being considered. The opportunities for deliberative input into policymaking are limited, but deliberative democracy can add a further level of legitimacy for policy decisions in that public justification for a position is built through reasoning among equals.

Settings for deliberative democracy

It is possible to see attempts at deliberation in formal political settings, such as parliament or in selective forums in civil society, where non-governmental actors bring the techniques and standards of deliberative democracy to resolve conflicts in a public setting. While public adherence to deliberative principles may improve the quality of debates, probably the only settings in which they can be consistently applied are those that are created specifically for the purpose of deliberation, such as citizens’ assemblies, citizen juries, or mini-publics.

Ideally, these forums comprise citizens who are randomly selected, not because of their interest in a topic or prior position in a policy debate. Mini-publics, citizen juries, or consensus conferences involve 15 to 20 people debating a particular policy issue. Citizens’ assemblies involve 100 to 150 people, and so have a greater claim to population representation. While their role in relation to the workings of the more established structures of power remains advisory, policymakers may give greater consideration to results of these forums than the submissions of interest groups or professional politicians.

Development of deliberative theory

The deliberative paradigm emerged as a response to concepts of democracy based on rational choice theory and the aggregation of interests. One of the key points of separation is the importance placed on the link between epistemic outcomes and the principle of inclusivity. The act of deliberation is a collective exercise in learning, weighing evidence, and considering the positions of other participants in a problem-solving process. This process is supported by scientific evidence, expert argument, and facilitated discussion. The democratic legitimacy and the epistemic value of the process depend on both equal participation and demonstrable reason-giving.

Several different strands of political philosophy merged in the first generation of scholars in the 1960s and 1970s to shape the concept. The emphasis was on creating the opportunity for public rational debate, respect for the opinions of others, and the goal of a consensus position firmly grounded in an agreed notion of the common good. The second generation of thinkers, beginning in the 1990s, are less fixed on reason-giving in argument and say that emotions and values have just as important a place in debate and that there should also be plurality in the styles of communication.1 This is not simply to ensure that expression is not suppressed based on assessment of the quality of reason it attains. Reason and emotion are not two immutable opposites. Emotions are learned responses to stimuli and allow for subtlety and calibration and an understanding of context when reason is being applied. Empathy and compassion also help to facilitate deliberation and widen the opportunities for stories, accounts of lived experience, and other less rigorous forms for evidence.2

Managing obstacles to deliberation

Plurality, political equality, and democratic inclusion are the overarching objectives of deliberation, with mutual respect being the standard to which all instances of deliberation must meet. For the ideal of mutual respect to be realised, coercive power in deliberation must be removed, clearly a challenge when the different experiences and expectations of class, gender, or ethnicity in any randomly selected group of citizens are considered. Polarisation within groups is inimical to gaining empirical knowledge but is far less likely when discussion is facilitated. Neither is class nor disparity in education nor income a barrier to engagement nor a drag on the quality of deliberation. Attention to evidentiary pluralism, such as allowing stories to complement reasoning based on observation or science, enables participants who may be less confident in their communication skills at the beginning to present their positions through logical argument.3 Empirical evidence demonstrates that in several deliberative assemblies, members gained an impressive body of knowledge on the topic, demonstrating that engagement with arguments in the right conditions was more likely to change opinions than motivated reasoning.

Philosophical origins

The emergence of deliberative democracy as a distinct concept in political theory began in the 1960s and while it challenges the dominant paradigms prevailing in liberal democracy, it is established on the same philosophical foundations. Some reinterpretations of Aristotle’s commentary on Athenian democracy draw attention to his recognition of the value of occasionally consulting the multitude.2 While wisdom and virtue might be qualities confined to a tiny number of citizens, given the right conditions, Aristotle does concede a more inclusive democratic process is capable of arriving at decisions that benefit the polity. Rousseau’s concept of the general will might appear to be an unlikely source of inspiration for deliberative theorists, given that it envisages a direct form of democracy that eschews the type of deep consideration required by the deliberative process. At the same time, the idea of the common good is a powerful inspiration for those genuinely seeking solutions to policy differences.

From this perspective, Rousseau is not opposed in principle to deliberation, but is concerned at its potential to encourage factionalism and distract from clear articulation of the people’s will. It is the Enlightenment’s emphasis on political equality, rather than the mode through which the general will is expressed, that is of most interest to contemporary theorists of deliberative democracy such as Cohen.4,5 The Kantian principle that all human beings are deserving of respect is inherent in the egalitarian basis of deliberative democracy. While Kant was not a democrat, he did argue that the legitimacy of laws needed to be established on reason, and this test could theoretically be done through public argument and reasoning and persuasion.

Contemporary political theory

John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas presented radical, separate challenges to the liberal notion of political justification being underpinned by a social contract and the state’s winning the consent of the governed.6 In common with the pragmatist tradition, Rawls and Habermas see the shortcomings in a liberal tradition rooted in metaphysical concepts like natural law theory. Political justification is established through reasoning in public and in conditions of pluralism and equality. Through our laws, it is argued, that we hand coercive authority to the state and the legitimisation of this control cannot depend on something as flimsy as personal belief. Rawls introduced the concept of public reason to democratic political theory as an attempt to move beyond subjective or personal beliefs and values and ground collective decisions on principles that derive their strength from rational appraisal and agreement. It might be asked how realistic it is to expect people to set aside deeply held beliefs and enter a process of reason-giving, unsullied by world views established over a lifetime. Other thinkers  accepted this challenge and offer a less rarefied and possibly more viable concept of reason-giving.1

For Habermas, the creation of a new sphere of political debate, as the early shoots of democracy emerged in Europe, allowed for the development of a new form of political communication. Public opinion became a recognisable feature of states moving into greater openness in expression of opinion and paying greater attention to the discussions taking place in newspapers and public settings outside the formal political gatherings. Habermas talks about ‘the ideal speech situation’, a key part of his linguistic theory of argumentation that describes the setting in which reason-giving can lead to a position that all participants in the discussion can agree to. While there may be similarities with Rawls’ notion of the outcome of reason-giving as the condition for acceptance of state coercion, Habermas is careful to stress that the ideal speech situation is a linguistic conception and sets out the rules of argumentation that must be adhered to if an argument is to be justified. It is quite formal and the rules are based on logic, rather than social or political requirements or the content of public reason. The distinction appears subtle. The rules of argumentation appear similar to the requirements of equality, respect, and pluralism that underpin public reason. Yet, each of us has an intuitive understanding of what these rules of argumentation are and are aware of transgressions in everyday interactions.

Proponents of deliberative democracy have made extensive use of Habermas’s understanding of reason as the outcome of communication that must meet exacting conditions of inclusivity, equal opportunity to speak, and the absence of deception or manipulation and coercion. The ideal speech situation can be given concrete expression in conditions of equality and respect. Reason in this context has a definite normative aspect; it is both the guarantor of the freedom and equal status of the participants in a discussion and the outcome of the deliberation that meets these standards. We must be careful when applying these standards in a political context; however, they do provide a guide to how the public sphere can be developed so the state is held to account and shortcomings regarding reason can be corrected. Habermas speaks of ‘the unforced force of the better argument’, which can at least point to a direction of travel towards reason-giving in deliberative contexts, even if we are cautious about applying the concepts implicit in the ideal situation to debate in recognisable public arenas.

Habermas’s unforced force of the better argument is a contemporary variation of philosophy’s championing of the epistemic value of deliberation. The practical work of deliberation sifts the jumble of arguments and bits of information, presents opportunities to look at information from a different perspective, and introduces new ideas and ways of seeing the world to those participating. Deliberation also helps to offset what might be considered impediments to reason due to personal histories, socioeconomic background, or even prejudice. In fact, it is the cognitive diversity of the participants rather than the pooling of expertise that gives deliberation the edge. Democratic deliberation, involving a public and equal exchange among a representative group, adds a further dimension in that it assures cognitive diversity and the confidence that, whatever the outcome, it will be accepted as legitimate.

1    Floridia A (2018) The origins of the deliberative turn. In Bächtiger A, Dryzek JS, Mansbridge J and Warren ME (eds) The Oxford handbook of deliberative democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2    Dryzek JS (2002) Deliberative democracy and beyond: liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3    Manin B (1987) On legitimacy and political deliberation. Political Theory, 15(3): 338–368.

4    Cohen J (1996) Procedure and substance in deliberative democracy. In Benhabib S (ed) Democracy and difference: contesting the boundaries of the political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 95–119.

5    Cohen J (1986) An epistemic conception of democracy. Ethics, 97(1): 26–38.

6    Habermas J (1996) Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Trans. William Rehg. Cambridge: Polity Press.