The necessary rehabilitation of the representative system in democratic reform proposals

Abstract

In the debates on deliberative democracy it’s a common idea that the defenders of this theory argue for the direct participation of the citizens in the political issues and for the transformation of our current representative devices. However, in this work I argue that this conception is misguided, and that it’s the minority who defends the direct participation. The majority of the writers acknowledges the necessity of a representative device, although based on different premises to the liberal system. The deliberative democracy supports a responsible and compromised citizenship, against the model of self interested citizenship.