Deliberative Democracy And Its Discontents

Besson (public international law and European law, U. of Fribourg, Switzerland) and Marti (law, Pompeu Fabra U., Spain) present papers from the eponymous academic workshop held under the auspices of the World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, held in Granada, Spain in May of 2005. Together, the 11 papers round up the major arguments for and against deliberative democracy, addressing legal and political perspectives, national and post-national concerns, and the different American and European takes on deliberative democracy. The basic structure of the text hinges on the three question of why, how, and where to deliberate democratically, with each question being tackled in turn. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Samantha Besson is Professor of Public International Law and European Law at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She is currently leading an interdisciplinary research project on the legal and political theory of European integration supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Previously, she held a research position at Oxford University and a senior lectureship at the University of Geneva European Institute. Her publications and research interests lie in constitutional and democratic theory with a special emphasis on global justice and post-national institutional design. JosAc Luis MartA- is PhD in Political Theory and Associate Professor of Law, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. He is mainly interested in theories of democracy, republicanism and theories of justice. He has published extensively on deliberative democracy and republicanism. A sample of his work may be found in L. Wintgens (ed.), a€?The Theory and Practice of Legislationa€?, published by Ashgate (2005).