Deliberation and Development : Rethinking the Role of Voice and Collective Action in Unequal Societies

This book marries two fields that rarely converse with one another: deliberative democracy and development studies. The study of deliberation―which explores normative and practical questions around group-based decision making through discussion or debate―has emerged as a critical area of study over the past two decades. Concurrently, the field of development has seen a spurt of interest in community-led development and participation premised on the ability of groups to arrive at decisions and manage resources via a process of discussion and debate. Despite the growing interest in both fields, they have rarely engaged with one another. This book, which brings together new essays by some of the leading scholars in the field, deepens our understanding of participatory decision making in developing countries while initiating a new field of study for scholars of deliberation. In the process, it sheds light on how to best design and implement policies to strengthen the role of participation in development.

Deliberation and Development is a true landmark that establishes, surveys, and celebrates a rich field of study with crucial practical relevance. The striking and sometimes counterintuitive insights formulated by its contributors concerning the broad reach of deliberation should prompt rethinking of crucial questions in development, as well as reformulation of key aspects of the theory of deliberative democracy. --John Dryzek, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Centenary Professor at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra

Deliberation and Development advances the research agenda on how citizen engagement can encourage states to become more publicly accountable. Leading scholars from across a wide array of disciplines address the promise and pitfalls of deliberative decision making, effectively bridging development studies with political theory. These multiple perspectives are necessary to address deliberative processes whose diversity includes both bottom-up grassroots initiatives and topdown official invited spaces and whose scale ranges from local village assemblies to global multilateral organizations. Future research on citizen participation to improve development outcomes should take this book s insights into account. --Jonathan Fox, Professor, School of International Service, American University