Rawls and Deliberative Democracy

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ID: 318134
2026
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Abstract
Abstract Rawls’s influence was central in bringing deliberative democracy to the center stage of political philosophy in the 1990s. Through the seminal work of Joshua Cohen, a Rawlsian inflected theory of deliberative democracy came to dominate the early English-language articulations of this paradigm. This articulation took Rawls’s ideals of public justification, public reason, and liberal legitimacy and unpacked them in the form of a democratic theory that challenged the prevailing theories of democracy especially within political science. This chapter analyzes and evaluates three important versions of a Rawlsian theory of deliberative democracy found in the work of Joshua Cohen, Samuel Freeman, and the team of Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. The last two sections of the chapter chart developments in deliberative democracy that move away from a Rawlsian paradigm. Despite mapping the waning presence of Rawls in deliberative democratic theory, the chapter argues that the entire tradition in all its variations from the 1990s until today is deeply indebted to the ideal of public justification. This ideal is given its most powerful expression in the work of John Rawls.
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openalex_W7165583268 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors Simone Chambers
Journal Oxford University Press eBooks
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197754931.013.0018
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197754931.013.0018
Keywords Keywords not found

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