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This article presents a novel analytical account of the relationship between deliberation and representation by reconstructing the specific institutional logics that guide deliberative action in parliaments. In contrast to the dominant generalised paradigm in empirical deliberation research it develops a contextualised-systemic approach. The article argues that the parliamentary context is characterised by a tension between two equally legitimate institutional logics: a discursive one, institutionalised through parliamentary procedures, and a positional one, constituted by relations of representation. The resulting theoretical model links the specific institutional and situational conditions to different forms and functions of deliberation. Depending on the specific balance between both logics deliberation fulfils functions of either integration or contestation. The model is applied to a comparative analysis of different cases of parliaments demonstrating how this account can advance both the comparative analysis of deliberation in representative institutions and the development of deliberative democracy after the systemic turn. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to Jonathan Kuyper, deliberative democratic theory, having taken a “systemic turn,” is now better able to deal with the complexity of the real world. Central to this development is the democratic “division of epistemic labor,” under which experts, public servants, and the politically engaged may compensate for the relative ignorance of democratic citizens at large. However, the systemic turn raises the question of whether deliberation has been reconstituted as a means to the end of citizens’ interests, or whether it remains an end in itself. To the extent that deliberation has been accepted as a means to the realization of common interests, the systemic turn begs the question of why we should expect the epistemic division of labor to be effective in identifying public policies that serve those interests. To the extent that deliberative democrats seek to avoid this problem by retaining an a priori commitment to deliberative inclusion, it is more than conceivable that the systemic turn will descend into a simplistic and unedifying form of functionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]