This paper seeks to kick-start the discussion of comparative deliberative systems by setting out the major models in play and their theoretical and empirical consequences. It argues that the potential of the systemic approach to deliberative democracy is being obscured by unconscious commitments to a set of pre-systemic metaphors and their associated models. It sets out an account of those models – one micro-level and three macro – and shows what is revealed and obscured by each of them in turn. It then deploys some novel metaphors which reveal what seem to be fairly uncontroversial and yet frequently overlooked features of deliberative democracy, not least of which is the fact that deliberation is not all, nor even most, of what goes on in a system that merits the adjective “deliberative”. The paper concludes with empirical implications of these various developments.
