Deliberation Day - Hardcover

Ackerman, Bruce; Fishkin, James S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300101015 ISBN 13: 9780300101010

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin argue that Americans can revitalize their democracy and break the cycle of cynical media manipulation that is crippling public life. They propose a new national holiday—Deliberation Day—for each presidential election year. On this day people throughout the country will meet in public spaces and engage in structured debates about issues that divide the candidates in the upcoming presidential election. Deliberation Day is a bold new proposal, but it builds on a host of smaller experiments. Over the past decade, Fishkin has initiated Deliberative Polling events in the United States and elsewhere that bring random and representative samples of voters together for discussion of key political issues. In these events, participants greatly increase their understanding of the issues and often change their minds on the best course of action. Deliberation Day is not merely a novel idea but a feasible reform. Ackerman and Fishkin consider the economic, organizational, and political questions raised by their proposal and explore its relationship to the larger ideals of liberal democracy.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Also available by Bruce Ackerman: The Stakeholder Society & Democracy and Deliberation

From the Back Cover:

"Ackerman and Fishkin, two of America's most thoughtful democracy scholars, argue powerfully for making democracy deliberative and deliberation democratic. Calling for a national holiday on which citizens might engage in deliberative practices, they offer a pragmatic and appealing case for a brand of deliberation that has gone missing in America's media and polling circus that passes today for democracy."-Benjamin Barber, author of Jihad v. McWorld

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0300101015
• ISBN 13: 9780300101010
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288