Conflicting or Reconciling: An Analysis of the Relationship between Deliberative Democracy and Political RepresentationDuan Demin

Deliberative democracy in a strand in today’s democratic theories that emphasizes normative and critical values, which is very powerful in contemporary politics. But we know very little about its relationship with political representation. On the one hand, political representation could be in conflict with normative demands of deliberative democracy, such as equality, reason, and participation. But on the other hand, if we consider democratic deliberation as an open, inclusive process, political representation is indispensable. The relation between the two is far more complicated, and more important, than scholar usually presume