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Article: Political liberalism, deliberative democracy, and the public sphere.
- Article from:
- American Political Science Review
- Article date:
- March 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Cambridge University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"The recovery of the public realm" might be an appropriate way to characterize a recent trend in democratic political theory. Democratic theorists, in the tradition of Tocqueville, now emphasize the importance of voluntary associations in civil society for the generation of "social capital," that is, the various norms associated with the democratic art of collective self-role and decision making (Putnam 1995). Deliberative democrats and discourse theorists emphasize, in the Arendtian tradition, the importance of a free public sphere, separate from the apparatus of the state and economy, where citizens can freely debate, deliberate, and engage in collective democratic will ...