Discursive democracy is woven here from threads supplied by a classical (Aristotelian) model of politics, participatory democracy, communicative action, practical reason, and critical theory. The product, or so I shall argue, is a coherent, integrative, and attractive program for politics, public policy, and political science. Ultimately, discursive democracy looks forward to a world of free and congenial political interaction where politics, properly understood, is returned to its Aristotelian primacy in the order of things. More immediately, discursive democracy charts escapes from some contemporary impasses in political arrangements, public policy, and social science. Politics, policy, and science alike are currently beholden to instrumental and objectivist notions about rationality in human affairs. My case for discursively rational alternatives is constructed on foundations provided by the ruins of instrumental rationality and objectivism.

These thoughts took form over a number of years. They were shaped by comments and criticisms on individual chapters by Terence Ball, Deborah Baumgold, Steven Brown, John Champlin, James Farr, Robert Goodin, Susan Hunter, David Jacobs, Brian Ripley, Rex Stainton Rogers, and Douglas Torgerson. Two anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press did an exceptionally thorough job. Chapters 5 and 7 are based on papers originally coauthored with Susan Hunter and Brian Ripley, who would not necessarily endorse the broader claims for discursive democracy made in this volume. Chapter 9 uses some results from a study in which my coinvestigators were Margaret Clark and Garry McKenzie. Steven Brown gave permission to reproduce in Chapter 9 some results from his work. Discussion with my communicatively competent climbing companions Terence Ball, James Farr, and Stephen Leonard involved learning much about political theory, mountains, and Laphroiag singlemalt Scotch.

Though a study like this requires little or nothing in the way of financial support, a summer research grant from the University of Oregon provided some initial momentum. This book breathes free Oregon air and so is happier than if it had been undertaken in more instrumentally rationalized and objectivist surroundings. Much of the writing was done in my home village of Maids Moreton, England. There I found the real inspiration for discursive democracy, not in ancient Athens, but in the public bar of The Wheatsheaf.