Deliberative democracy seeks to promote democratic decision making about public issues among the citizens. Discuss. (15m) (UPSC CSE Mains 2024- Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
- Deliberative democracy is a form of democracy that places people at the centre of decision making and provides them with a more direct route to participate in decisions that affect them, their communities and broader society.
- Deliberative democracy is based on the principles that everyone has an equal contribution to make; openness to differing ideas and views; knowledge exchange and sharing of unbiased information; and most importantly, collective deliberation and dialogue forms the basis for decision making – not voting alone. The emphasis of deliberative democracy initiatives is to ensure the decision-making process is participatory and of a high quality, and the outcome is not driven by self-interest.
- Public deliberation in public policy making is a bridge between citizens and policy makers that make that helps them to understand each other and collectively work to fulfill public interest. Deliberative democracy helps citizens to transfer their agenda into the public process where stakeholders all together form a collective decision. The collective decision is normally legitimized by the mass population.
- Since citizens expecting best services from government, it is important to understand the nature of the services and projects that citizens need the most. In this sense, deliberation could be used to define their needs and discussing all possible alternatives.
- Deliberation to meet public demands requires preliminary environments, including the availability of information, respect, mutual interest, pluralism, diversity of views and interests, open and honest discussion, equal opportunity to participate, equal opportunity to speak up, learning, empowerment and responsiveness.
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