Democratic Representation of the Publics: “A Link Between Associational Democracy and Deliberative Democracy”

Abstract

Democracy theory witnessed many and varied contributions along the history with different perspectives, each introduced that the ideal of democracy should be approached through. However, representation is considered principal target of democracy and it was emphasized through different paths and methods of public representation. Associational democracy and deliberative democracy theories are of those methods that focus on the representation objectives, however each proposes distinctive model of representation. While, the former focus on the role of associations or secondary associations such as civil society and interest groups, the latter’s main focus is deliberation of the public on their preferences. Both perspectives provide powerful argument to their maintenance of democracy and representation ideal. Despite that, they received much critique in regard to their application of a comprehensive concept of democratic representation. Consequently, this clarifies a need to the development of a model that could combine the merits of both and solve their problems to reach more democratic model of representation.