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Deliberation For Devolution In The Public Sphere: A Case Study From Pakistan, Beenish Kulsoom

Dissertations

Genuine democratic deliberation on design of institutional rules is possible only when the state apparatus and political and civil society are engaged in communicative interexchange, exchanging ideas, and speaking in a language understood and accepted by all others. Moreover, in such an exchange the interlocutors do not hold back their thoughts to achieve strategic control in order to subvert the communicative engagement. The deliberative theory of democracy advocates communicative engagement between state and society actors that results in institutional rules that are accepted by all.

The advocates of the theory of deliberative democracy argue that while the state is the …