The failure to examine failures in democratic innovation

Abstract

Deliberation scholars have changed the landscape of democratic theory irreversibly, providing us with a coherent set of principles that undergird contemporary approaches to democracy making (e.g., Bohman 1998; Gutmann and Thompson 1996). Deliberation has become a normative project owned and invested in by practitioners of democracy worldwide (see Bherer, Gauthier, and Simmard 2016). The relevance of deliberative democracy is clear, as it seeks to respond to a set of disquieting contemporary phenomena that increasingly manifest in declining social capital and trust, and increasing deference to extremist populist appeals.