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Citizen Forums in the Deliberative System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Andrea Felicetti
Andrea Felicetti*
Affiliation:
Catholic University of Louvain
*
andrea.felicetti@sns.it
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Abstract

This article analyzes contemporary democracies from a deliberative democratic standpoint and focuses on the connection between public and empowered spaces. The idea of deliberative systems and the concept of “transmission” are introduced to discuss the ways in which the public is able to affect the empowered spaces. While elections perform important democratic functions, alone they cannot provide a good quality means for connecting deliberation in the public to that of actors in the empowered space. The problem with transmission is exacerbated to the extent that alternative forms of participation are neglected. The limited ability of the public to affect the empowered space in deliberative and democratic ways contributes to the crisis of democratic systems. One solution to this problem is to acknowledge the role of citizens' deliberation. The article argues for the systematic introduction of spaces for citizens' deliberation that would parallel existing decision-making.

Keywords

deliberative democracydeliberative systemempowered spacepublic spacetransmission

Information

Type
Which Crisis of Democracy?
Information
Democratic Theory , Volume 1 , Issue 2: The Crisis of Democracy: Which Crisis? Which Democracy? , December 2014 , pp. 95 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Democratic Theory 2014

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