ABSTRACT
Habermas is associated with the term “deliberative democracy,” a school of philosophical thought about what makes democratic decisions legitimately binding on citizens. By a combination of constraints on what types of arguments are legitimacy-conferring and on the processes by which we reach decisions, Habermasian frameworks offer a rich view of democracies. This chapter will start by explaining what this means and then exploring how to understand this notion today by interviewing Cristina Lafont. In conditions of imperfect deliberation – where some are excluded, some are not as competent, some are disinterested, and some distort and vitiate processes – how can we think of legitimacy at all?
