Deliberative democracy or discursive democracy is a form of democracy in which deliberation is central to decision making. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere voting, is the primary source of legitimacy for the law.
Deliberative democracy is compatible with both representative democracy and direct democracy. Some practitioners and theorists use the term to encompass representative bodies whose members authentically deliberate on legislation without unequal distributions of power, while others use the term exclusively to refer to decision-making directly by lay citizens, as in direct democracy.
The term "deliberative democracy" was originally coined by Joseph M. Bessette in his 1980 work "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government."
Read more about Deliberative Democracy: Overview, History, Association With Political Movements, Academic Contributors
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“In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.”
—Chris Patten (b. 1944)