Abstract

This paper holds that to significant extents the deliberative theory of democracy can be considered to be a continuation and an achievement of the participatory theory of democracy. It explores specifically two bridges leading from participatory to deliberative theories of democracy: the first of these bridges is the weight that these theories pretend to give to the participants to a decision-taking process; the second of them is the way in which each theory widens the realm of what is political. What this paper proposes is thus a theoretical exercise. It contains four part: it first (1) provides a short assessment of the current various participatory and deliberative practices of policy-making in various European countries; then (2) it roughly considers the way in which they fit in the current rationale and structures of representative government; in a third step (3) it fully dedicates itself to the links between participatory and deliberative theories of democracy; and it finally identify foundations of such bridges in some early writtings on participation.