The Liberal and The Deliberative Democracy
This study has in view the qualities and the deficiencies of two dominant patterns in the contemporary theory of democracy: the liberal pattern and the deliberative one. The liberal pattern has got as a finality the rational individual who posses rights. The deliberative pattern has got as finality the social participation and cooperation between individuals. Although both patterns have been criticized because of their constituent structure, a cooperation between their ideas can be the great advantage of the theory of democracy at the begining of the third millenium.
Keywords: democracy, liberalism, rational deliberation, epistemic patterns
1. The definition goes on as follows: „in current use it can refers to the popular leading or the popular sovereignty, to the representative government or to a direct participative government, even to the republican or constitutional government, in conclusion, to the government according to law.” A Romanian dictionary defines democracy as follows: „Democracy is that political order and manner of operation of the political system that realizes the right of the people to govern itself. The nucleus of democracy is the principle of the sovereignty of people, that means that the government process can be legitimate only by the will of the governed” (S. Tamaş, 1996, 79).
2. Let’s not make illusions: freedom never had a privileged position, not only in the political practice, but in theory, too, and that fact made Claude Lefort to reach to a sad conclusion: „Freedom, the simple word…, is usually banished from scientific language or relegated to the vernacular” (C. Lefort, 1988, 9).
3. David Held has special contributions regarding the understanding of democracy in contemporary reality, in his Modele ale democraţiei (D. Held a, 2000) şi Democraţia şi ordinea globală, translated by Florin Şlapac and Gabriela Inea (D. Held b, 2000).
4. „Democracy is that institutional arrangement to reach to that political decisions by which individuals get the power of decision by the means of competitive struggle so that they should gain the vote of the people” (J. Schumpeter, 1943, 263).
5. „Most fundamentally, deliberative democracy affirms the need to justify decisions made by citizens and their reprezentatives” (A. Gutman, D. Thompson, 2004, 3).
6. See also„The essence of democracy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation, as opposed to voting, interest aggregation, constitutional rights, or even selfgovernment. The deliberative turn represents a renewed concern with the authenticity of democracy: the degree to which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic, and engaged by competent citizens”, Ibidem, 1.
7. „The conception consists of three principles: reciprocity, publicity, and accountability; that regulate the process of politics, and three others: basic liberty, basic opportunity, and fair opportunity – that govern the content of policies.” (A. Gutman, D. Thompson, 1997, 12).
8. Also see Seyla Benhabib, „Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy” (S. Benhabib, 1996, 70).
9. „Deliberation here describes a particular way of thinking: quiet, reflective, open to a wide range of evidence, respectful of different views. It is a rational process of weighing the available data, considering alternative possibilities, arguing about relevance and worthiness, and then choosing the best policy or person.”, Michael Walzer, „Deliberation, and What Else?” (S. Macedo, 1999, 58). Also, deliberation „contributes to the legitimacy of decisions made under conditions of scarcity”; encourages citizens „to take a broader perspective on questions of public policy than they might otherwise take”; clarifies „the nature of a moral conflict, helping to distinguish among the moral, the amoral, and the immoral, and between compatible and incompatible values”; and, „compared to other meth-ods of decisionmaking[,] increases the chances of arriving at justifiable policies”, (A. Gutman, D. Thompson, 1997, 41- 3); „…public deliberation generally improves the quality of legislation by enhancing citizens’ understanding of their society and of the moral principles that ought to regulate it”, Thomas Christiano, „The Significance of Public Deliberation” (J. Bohman and W. Rehg, 1997, 244).
