Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T19:00:40.119Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Social Choice Theory and Deliberative Democracy: A Reconciliation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2002

JOHN S. DRYZEK
Affiliation:
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
CHRISTIAN LIST
Affiliation:
Nuffield College, Oxford

Abstract

The two most influential traditions of contemporary theorizing about democracy, social choice theory and deliberative democracy are generally thought to be at loggerheads, in that one demonstrates the impossibility, instability or meaninglessness of the rational collective outcomes sought by the other. We argue that the two traditions can be reconciled. After expounding the central Arrow and Gibbard–Satterthwaite impossibility results, we reassess their implications, identifying the conditions under which meaningful democratic decision making is possible. We argue that deliberation can promote these conditions, and hence that social choice theory suggests not that democratic decision making is impossible, but rather that democracy must have a deliberative aspect.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)