Theory of Deliberative Democracy: The Integration of Political Sociology and Political Science in Contemporary Social Science
Author: Jovanoski, Aleksandar , aleksandarjovanoski3@gmail.com
Department: Institute of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy
University: Sts. Cyril and Methodius - Skopje , Macedonia
Supervisor: Ilo Trajkovski Ph.D.
Year of completion: 2011
Language of dissertation: Macedonian
Keywords:
deliberation
, democracy
, communicative action
, instrumental rationa
Areas of Research:
Political Sociology
, Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management
Abstract
The dissertation is a theoretical analysis of the newest form of political ordering of society – namely deliberative democracy. Advocates of the latest theoretical system and procedures for policy-making and political decision-making, thinking about this model within the framework of contemporary commitment to simplification and convergence of politics to most of the ordinary citizens, understood as a free and rational individual. The dissertation's framework draws on a wide range of theories ranging from political and philosophical teachings of Aristotle, through elitist positions about the nature of power expressed in views of contemporary political scientists - mostly advocates of the theory of rational choice - up to modern sociological considerations on the nature of social actions of individuals, from several different theoretical orientations such as critical theory, the tradition of the Frankfurt School and postmodern discourse. Presented in this way, deliberative democracy rounded dialectical triad that begins with the ancient glorification of mass participation in public affairs, continues with the modern-century commitment to representative political institutions, through Joseph Schumpeter's postwar theory of competitive elitism as a typical representative of this stream of thought, and ending with complete non-populist theoretical model of general political participation, such as theories of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.
There are several significant differences among theorists who are advocates of the theory of deliberative democracy and one of them is the division between procedural and non-procedural models of deliberative democracy. The dissertation is an attempt to provide a nuanced analysis by opposing the sociologically inspired model of Jürgen Habermas and his followers against the political (and philosophical) model of John Rawls. The dissertation also reviews the relationship of deliberative democracy to public goods, basic human rights, consociative engineering, civil society and liberal constitutionalism.
Analysing the theory of democracy as a deliberative procedure, means to investigate the latest model of policy-making and political decision making that follows the logic of social science, and also that is more comprehensive and far general scientific discipline than sociology or political science. The dissertation is an attempt to make an dialectical analysis and illustrate the development of deliberation and considering the deliberative democracy, with the mutually intertwined approaches of social and political science. It is also discusses some general criticisms of deliberative democracy.
