ABSTRACT
Earlier chapters have talked a lot about deliberation, without saying very much about how it will support democratic decisions. There is indeed a desire to put critical content into ‘liberal constitutionalism’, regarded as formalistic and empty (see Dryzek, Chapter 6). Perhaps as a result the rules governing deliberation and the end towards which it must tend – collective choice – have been hardly mentioned. The general assumption is that a consensus or at least a ‘workable agreement’ will emerge from informed debate. The main questions of concern to practising political scientists – the biases imparted by different electoral systems, voting cycles and political structures in general – are thus ignored as irrelevant to the fresh impetus which extended deliberation will impart to democratic processes.
