Democracy Advocates Should Stop Fighting About Democracy
Forget Deliberative vs. Direct vs. Electoral. We’re All on the Same Team
If democracy is going to flourish on this planet, its practitioners must come to see themselves as members of the same team.
Unfortunately, global democracy is a field divided. And not primarily by country or language—the biggest divide is by type. Democratic activists, experts, and reformers often are fierce partisans of just one of several competing sub-fields: electoral democracy, deliberative democracy (focusing on randomly selected citizens studying tough issues), participatory democracy (where people might set a local budget or make a plan, at official invitation), direct democracy (initiative and referendum), or …
