Deliberative democracy basically reduces to the idea that citizens' preferences can change as a result of interpersonal dialogue about common goods. This is against the behavioralist assumption that preferences are given and fixed (making dialogue either pointless or manipulative). Although it is rarefied, the closest thing we see to this in our politics may be the (ostensibly "non-political") deliberative processes used by the Supreme Court: The judges write draft opinions, read each others' drafts, and then revise them in light of their conferral. (New Zealand's parliamentary norms are a good example of the opposite approach.)
Plato argued that there is a difference between "eristic" discourse--where interlocutors aim to win at any cost--and dialectical argument, in which interlocutors aim jointly at the truth. So, this is an old and crucial (and of course contested) distinction in political philosophy. For Plato, of course, only dialectic deserves to be called "argument"in the true (philosophical) sense.
Rousseau's account of deliberation, in the Social Contract, has been a source of inspiration for some contemporary "deliberative democrats". As so often with Rousseau, it's a stumbling block, too. See Social Contract book 2, chapter 3.
Deliberative democracy basically reduces to the idea that citizens' preferences can change as a result of interpersonal dialogue about common goods. This is against the behavioralist assumption that preferences are given and fixed (making dialogue either pointless or manipulative). Although it is rarefied, the closest thing we see to this in our politics may be the (ostensibly "non-political") deliberative processes used by the Supreme Court: The judges write draft opinions, read each others' drafts, and then revise them in light of their conferral. (New Zealand's parliamentary norms are a good example of the opposite approach.)
Plato argued that there is a difference between "eristic" discourse--where interlocutors aim to win at any cost--and dialectical argument, in which interlocutors aim jointly at the truth. So, this is an old and crucial (and of course contested) distinction in political philosophy. For Plato, of course, only dialectic deserves to be called "argument"in the true (philosophical) sense.
Rousseau's account of deliberation, in the Social Contract, has been a source of inspiration for some contemporary "deliberative democrats". As so often with Rousseau, it's a stumbling block, too. See Social Contract book 2, chapter 3.