John S. Dryzek

Democracy is not just a matter of constitutions, parliaments, elections, parties and the rule of law. In order to see if or how democracy works, we must attend to what people make of it, and what they think they are doing as they engage with politics, or as politics engages them. This book examines the way democracy and democratization are thought about and lived by people in China, Russia and eleven other countries in the post-communist world. It shows how democratic politics (and sometimes authoritarian politics) work in these countries, and generates insights into the prospects for different kinds of political development. The authors explore the implications for what is probable and possible in terms of trajectories of political reform, and examine four roads to democratization: liberal, republican, participatory and statist. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, political theory and post-communist studies.

The past few years have seen a remarkable ferment in the theory of democracy. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond is a critical tour through recent democratic theory by one of the leading political theorist in the field. It examines the deliberative turn in democratic theory, which argued that the essence of democratic legitimacy is to be found in authentic deliberations on the part of those affected by a collective decision. The deliberative turn began as a challenge to established institutions and models of democracy, but it has now been largely assimilated by these same institutions and models. Drawing a distinction between liberal constitutionalist deliberative democracy and discursive democracy, the author criticizes the former and advocates the latter. He argues that a defensible theory of democracy should be critical of established power, pluralistic, reflexive in its questioning orientation to established traditions, transnational in its capacity to extend across state boundaries, ecological, and dynamic in its openness to ever-changing constraints upon and opportunities for democratization. Dryzek's reinvigorated approach enables deliberative democracy to respond more effectively to the criticisms that have been leveled against it. Oxford Political Theory presents the best new work in contemporary political theory. It is intended to be broad in scope, including original contributions to political philosophy, and also work in applied political theory. The series will contain works of outstanding quality with no restrictions as to approach subject matter. Series Editors: Will Kymlicka, David Miller, and Alan Ryan

In this book, John Dryzek criticizes the dominance of instrumental rationality and objectivism in political institutions, public policy and in the practice of political science. He argues that the reliance on instrumental rationality has led to the excessive bureaucratization of government and to technocracies of expert cultures that are ill-equipped for dealing with complex social problems. Drawing on critical theory, he outlines an alternative program for the organization of political institutions, advocating a form of participatory democracy. This involves the active involvement of citizens and public discourse.