Deliberative Democracy and Comparative Democratization Studies

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between the normative theory and empirical research on deliberative democracy and comparative studies of democratization. We begin the chapter by making a case for the role of deliberation in democratic transitions. We provide case studies on each of the roles we identify to illustrate how precisely deliberation unfolds amidst sensitive political contexts. We then chart directions for deliberative democratic scholarship to deepen its engagement with democratization studies. We first focus on how deliberative democracy can speak to current indices that measure the quality of democracy, and then propose ways in which the literature on deliberative systems and sequences can further contribute to challenging our assumptions about what counts as “good” democratic transition.