Introduction

Born as an attempt to move beyond the models of democracy which dominated public and academic discourses during les trente glorieuses , the deliberative turn has over the years promoted several other turnings, yielding a highly complex and disorienting theoretical spaghetti junction. Following the main deliberative turn we can also count: an ‘epistemic turn’ ( Jörke 2010 ), an ‘empirical turn’ ( Thompson 2008 ), a ‘systemic turn’ ( Mansbridge et al. 2012 ) and even a ‘democratic turn’ ( Barker et al. 2012 ). The end result of these twists and turns is a plurality of deliberative democratic models re-proposing many analytical features which used to characterise those of the past deliberative theorists wanted to replace (i.e. procedural, aggregative and participatory models of democracy). The revitalisation of democracy promoted by the deliberative turn has thus made the theoretical landscape extremely intricate and impervious, making even those acquainted with it likely to lose their way. The present volume aims to be a rough guide to deliberative democracy (DD) for those who are keen on exploring this uneven terrain on their own. Its goal is twofold: to single out some land marks to follow along the way, and to indicate which dwelling stations to use in order to make the journey worthwhile.