Introduction

Authors: Jon Elster - Cambridge University Press eBooks 1998 cited by 214

The idea of deliberative democracy, or decision making by discussion among free and equal citizens, is having a revival. During the five months between the initial drafting of the present introduction and the completion of the final version, at least three new books were published on the topic in the United States alone. Largely under the influence of Jürgen Habermas, the idea that democracy revolves around the transformation rather than simply the aggregation of preferences has become one of the major positions in democratic theory.