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ontological claims of identity politics with a communitarian-inspired commitment to democratic
community. Like feminism and other forms of identity politics, deliberative democracy
recognizes that the formation of beliefs, positions and preferences is a political process, shaped
by private and social attachments. But where identity politics produced assertions of difference
and denied commonality as homogenizing, in deliberative democracy, rational exchange directed
towards persuasion to consensus becomes the medium through which difference is negotiated.
Given the norms of liberty and equality, deliberation constitutes a process by which citizens with
different “thick identities” may meet and debate, according to common rational discursive norms,
which enable them to bridge their differences.
Critics have identified two central problems for deliberative democracy. Firstly, the
definition of legitimate discursive participation – what kind of speech counts – is contested. As
we have seen, deliberative democracy generally privileges speech which conforms to rational
communicative codes rather than emotional or rhetorical speech – because reasonableness is
assumed to be a necessary characteristic of speech capable of changing the mind of another.
Related to this are the questions concerning the speaking subject: who is able and permitted to
speak, and what is the relationship between recognition as a speaking subject, and forms of
speech? Secondly, the link between deliberation and policy-making is subject to some
ambiguity. If deliberation means the formulation of public opinion which influences state policy
through election and legislation, it is not clear how this version of democratic theory differs from
earlier constitutional democratic pluralism, which focused upon the process by which opinions
formulated in political debate compete at the ballot box.
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More radical deliberative democrats
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Dryzek makes this criticism of Jurgen Habermas’ understanding of the relationship
Convention