Deliberative Democracy in the Global South: trends, barriers, adaptations, and open questions

Participatory and deliberative democracy is said to be global in reach (Curato, Sass et al 2020), though the field is historically rooted in practices and learnings from the Global South: foundational studies focused, for instance, on Kerala's gram sabhas (e.g. Heller et al 2007) and Brazil's Participatory Budgeting. More recent developments, however, privilege almost exclusively certain institutional designs that enjoy popularity in the global north, such as deliberative mini-publics. This development has serious consequences for research and praxis (c.f. Bherer et al, 2017), for funding and grassroots governance efforts (c.f. Openjuru et al 2015) and risks reproducing extractivist and neocolonial structures (Morán and Ross 2021). Moreover, the 'import' and 'export' of institutional designs across world regions carries myriad of problems like depoliticisation (e.g. Pradeu 2021) and in terms of standardizing research and evaluation (e.g. Zaremberg and Welp 2021). What is the current state of deliberative democracy in the global south? Is there a distinct perspective and practice of deliberation beyond the global north? What are the specific challenges to less privileged regions in the world, and (how) do they condition the emergence, implementation, and outcomes of deliberative practices? What adaptations take place, and what to they tell us about the empirical, theoretical, and normative body of evidence of deliberative demoracy in the global north? To approach these questions, this article presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolving landscape and original contributions of deliberative democracy practitioners working from and in the global south. It does so by critically examining trends, barriers, adaptations, and open questions in the field. I draw on original evidence generated between 2021 and 2023 as part of the Demo.Reset project. The data encompasses a survey, twelve focus groups, and five generative workshops with practitioners of deliberative democracy from four global south regions. The paper further discusses open issues that can grow the research agenda on concepts and practices of deliberative democracy in and beyond the global south.