Representation or Participation? Crisis of Liberal Democracy, Empirical/Normative Divide and the Ambiguity of Public Deliberation

The goal of this paper is to defend a certain notion of democratic polity which can be called “semi-participatory democracy”. This concept is aimed at addressing the structural crisis of the current form of liberal, representative democracy. Basically there are two types of responses to this crisis: normative and empirical. The normative argument states that liberal democracy should be replaced by a new type of regime which either abandons the principles of liberalism and representation (illiberal democracy) or radicalizes them (radical democracy). Conversely, the empirical argument focuses on the broad reform of already existing institutions of liberal, representative democracy which need to be adjusted to the ongoing social changes. Both perspectives seem to be at odds with each other. The essence of the empirical/normative divide is best understood when we look at recent advancements in democratic theory and practice associated with the concept of deliberative democracy. What was originally a normative, critical project it has then become an object of study in empirical research of real-existing democracies. The ambiguous nature of public deliberation is thus rooted in the attempt to find a balance between transformation and preservation of liberal democracy. This ambiguity can be translated into the concept of semi-participatory democracy, or a regime in which the initially given rule of the people is (self)limited. While it is limited by principles of representation, it is self-limited in the process of participation. I apply discourse analysis to the deliberative democratic theory in order to elucidate these tensions