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Deliberative democrats are alive to these other related criticisms. Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to say that almost everything that has been written about deliberative democracy since the late twentieth century has been in response to them (at least to some degree). Whether that betrays a certain insecurity on the part of deliberative democrats or a courageous willingness to fight their corner is an interesting question. While this present book can also be read as a response to deliberative democracy’s critics – explicitly or implicitly, the two objections just discussed will reappear at multiple points throughout the text – there is one crucially important point to reinforce.

As already noted, deliberative democracy is a normative ideal. The term also refers to a range of theories about how this ideal might be pursued. There are some important differences between these theories – for example, as we will see in Chapter 2, there are different views on what should count as a genuine exchange of reasons. Yet, at bottom, they share the view that democracies can be legitimated by grounding the exercise of political power in the deliberation of their members. Or, as Cohen puts it, ‘outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of a free and reasoned agreement among equals’ (1989, 22). The word ‘could’ is important here. Deliberative democrats accept that collective decisions are usually taken by legislative bodies. The crucial question or test, though, is whether those decisions are based on reasons that free and equal citizens could reasonably be expected to endorse (Rawls 1997). The actual world may fall short of the ideal. Legislators may fail to deliberate and ordinary people may fail to pay attention. Institutions may fail to provide the right incentives or impose the necessary sanctions. Nevertheless, the point of the ideal is to provide direction.

Although deliberative democracy is a normative ideal or theory, we do have some variable evidence that deliberative norms exist to some degree in some democratic systems. (They can also be found in nondemocratic systems, but since the concern in this book is with deliberative democracy, those cases can be set aside for now; see, e.g., He and Warren 2011). In recent years, scholars have spent a great deal of time and effort thinking about how deliberative democracy might be empirically measured and assessed, and have already produced an impressive body of findings. Arguably, the best-known measurement instrument is the ‘discourse quality index’ (Steenbergen et al. 2003; Steiner et al. 2004). This index is compiled or computed from a range of individual measures (e.g., questions about the degree to which a claim or statement is well reasoned, respectful or constructive, along with the degree to which it addresses the common good) and, in its original formulation, was used to analyse and compare levels of deliberation in different parliamentary systems. Evidence gathered in this way suggests that (overall) levels of deliberation are likely to be higher in consensus systems with low party discipline and credible veto points than in adversarial systems with high party discipline and no veto points (Steiner et al. 2004, 111–14). It is also likely to be higher in parliamentary settings that are open to the public than in parliamentary committee meetings that are held behind closed doors (Steiner et al. 2004, 128–31).

Empirical evidence is obviously important to any normative project. As Robert Goodin puts it, we ‘choose policies [or institutions] hoping to produce certain kinds of results, and we must know how the system is wired in order to know which lever to pull’ (1982, 4). In other words, if we want to improve our democracies, we must have some idea of what is likely to work in practice and what is not. Empirical research is pivotal in this respect. But that is not all. In an important essay on the relationship between deliberative democracy theory and empirical political science, Dennis Thompson (2008, 511–13) draws our attention to the ways in which empirical research can expose tensions within a normative democratic theory, and in particular between its core values, that otherwise might not be obvious. For instance, deliberative democracy supposes that everyone should have their say. This might lead one to ask: how can deliberative democracy exist in the real world? Usually, this question is framed as ‘the problem of scale’ (e.g., Parkinson 2003): how can modern mass democracies be deliberative without excluding most people from the deliberative arena? Even if it were possible for large numbers of people to gather together, the inevitable time constraints under which political decisions usually need to be made would surely make it impossible for everyone to speak.

Empirical research is particularly good at pointing out problems of this sort – in this case, the practical difficulty of reconciling values of deliberation and mass participation. The point is not that there are no solutions to problems of this sort – research into online deliberation, for example, suggests some intriguing answers (see, e.g., Neblo et al. 2018). Rather, the point is that empirical research can compel us to think harder about our normative commitments. At the same time, however, Thompson insists that, while empirical research may ‘pose some challenging questions, and even offer some provocative answers … it does not have the last word’ (2008, 513). On the contrary, if democratic values stand in conflict, ‘we still have to decide under what conditions which value should have priority, and which combination of the values is optimal. That decision depends partly on considerations that are not primarily empirical’ (2008, 513; cf. Graham Smith 2011, 898). In other words, decisions about how to reconcile conflicting values such as deliberation and participation are never just practical or pragmatic, but inevitably bring larger normative questions and concerns into play.

This last point is nicely captured by Goodin’s observation that, while the ‘case for some sort of empirical theory informing policy [or institutional] choices is intuitively obvious’, we ‘need to know not only which results follow from which policies [or institutions] but also which results we should prefer and strive to achieve’ in the first place (1982, 4, 7). There is, therefore, an important sense in which normative theory has priority. On the other hand, this also implies that normative theories must inevitably stand at some remove from the actual circumstances to which they are intended to apply. In the first instance, deliberative democracy is a political ideal; it is meant to guide us in our efforts to improve the political world in which we live and, in particular, to bolster its legitimacy. But if an ideal is worked out wholly in the abstract, it may well turn out to have little relevance to the actual circumstances to which it is intended to apply (cf. Mason 2004, 254).

Granted, abstraction plays a crucial role in (among other things) clarifying and differentiating concepts, which in turn is crucial to theory building. But on the whole, it is probably fair to say that deliberative democrats have eschewed highly abstract thinking. They typically assume that theories of deliberative democracy should take account of the normal circumstances of political life and they have sought to develop their accounts accordingly (see Rawls 2001, 4; cf. Mutz 2008). In fact, if anything, they may have been too attentive to those circumstances: in an effort to develop the concept in ways that demonstrate its practical relevance, some deliberative democrats may be guilty of concept stretching (Goodin 2018; Steiner 2008). Take, for instance, the goal of reaching an agreed judgement or consensus – people agreeing both on a course of action and on the reasons for it. For some, this notion sits uncomfortably with respect for social pluralism or diversity. Instead of consensus, we should instead aim for ‘workable agreements’ in which people agree on a course of action but for different reasons (Dryzek 2000, 170; Curato et al. 2017, 31). However, if workable agreement is made the goal, then ‘it is unclear what purpose is served by telling one another our reasons at all’ (Goodin 2018, 31; see also Neblo 2015, 106).

In Chapter 2, we will look at these and other related issues in more detail. Before we do so, there are two further introductory tasks to be completed. First, in terms of setting the scene for the rest of the book, it is important to get some sense of the intellectual origins of the ‘deliberative revival’ that began in the 1980s. Second, in order to pave the way for a closer examination of how the concept of deliberative democracy has changed since that time, it is important to see how it was originally defined. To this end, we will turn in just a moment to the extended definition presented by Joshua Cohen in his seminal essay, ‘Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy’ (1989). But let us begin with origins and revival.