Deliberative Democracy

Theories of Knowledge, Psychology, Deliberation and Government

By Tal Yaron

This site was written by a non-English speaking writer. Any help in improving the readbility will be much appreciated.Tal Yaron 02:19, 30 December 2012 (IST)

Deliberation may be the most important field of research humankind will engage in the 21th century. Deliberation is so important, because every group of people as small as a group composed of two people, like a couple, to groups so large that they consisting billions, like China and India, needs to find solution that will help their members prosper. To prosper, all groups have to arrive at the best solutions available in their current situation. Deliberation is a field of research that engages the ways people can work together in pursuit of the best solution. If we will understand how to promote together the best solution through agreements, we will find ways to bring prosperity to wider population, and may also bring more peace among ourselves.

From the start of civilization until our days, decisions for a group were put at the hands of a small groups of decision makers. Although this method had helped create our mega to giga groups, it provided these small groups that are positioned near the center of decision making process, an abounded resources and wealth, while leaving the other members in the outer circles with much less resources. In modern representative democracy, the size of the groups of decision makers become bigger than those of the old monarchies, thus promoting more equality, and more wisdom into the decision making process. Bringing more people into the decision making circles made the groups wiser and more legitimate by their people, thus making them much stronger then monarchies. This may be one of the main causes for the triumph of democracies over tyrannies in the 20th century.

In the 21th century a technology, named "the internet" was introduced. In theory this innovation, can help every citizen participate in his group's decision making process. But this is just a potential. We do not yet know enough about decision making process, to build tools and methods to bring good decisions within large scale groups. When we will know how to build such tools and methods, we will be able to give any citizen an equal opportunity to contribute his knowledge and needs to the overall process of decision making which will help all of us, no matter our what is our social status or gender or any other discriminating factors, to contribute to the welfare of us all, and to produce much more informed and wise solution, through the wisdom of the multitudes.

We are in our way to actualize these systems and methods. Throughout the world, people are working to find solutions to this challenge, and tools are being built.

This site is an attempt to contribute to the global effort to understand how people decide, and how we can bring the wisdom of the multitude to the decision making process. It is based on research and experience done by scientists and practitioners in fields that relates to decision making and deliberation.

Let us all embrace ourselves for the quest for reveling ways for wise decision making by the multitudes'.

Contents

Goals of this Wiki

This wiki is designed to be the base for a coherent set of theories for understanding and developing deliberative Democracy. It will be home for different aspects of deliberative society, ranging from epistemology, individual psychology, education, learning, individual growth, and to the understanding of groups dynamics, deliberation, decision making, Government and international relationships.

It will be based on scientific research, evidential exprience and epistemology.

What is Deliberation?

Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options before making a decision, within the context of a group.

Why Using Deliberation?

The last several decades have seen growing agreement among political theorists and empirical political scientists that the legitimacy of a democracy depends in part on the quality of deliberation that informs citizens and their representatives. By improving deliberation process we improve democracy, and let more players participate in an efficient and more representing political decision making.

Deliberation is a method of thinking on problems together, and finding solutions that will be optimal for the participants in the process. Deliberation is a very old practice, used by groups of governing bodies, to settle contradicting needs and desires, and to achieve a peaceful way to advance together.

A Little Bit More About Deliberation

Humans tend to join into coalitions, and coordinate among themselves. Every gathering of people, is also a gathering of different wishes and needs, and some time these needs and wishes are in contradiction to one another. There are many ways to overcome these contradictions. wise leadership, is a leadership that knows how to bring all these wills into coordinate operation. But as the group grows, and the surroundings become more demanding, the coordination of the group become more and more difficult. Through history, many methods were developed, to drive group. Some times the main power that held groups together, was share power of the leadership, some times it was a shared narratives or ethos. But as democracy grow, the need for less power and more legitimate solutions was felt. In this area of time, when the internet ripe apart "narratives" and people are creating large groups, without the elites presiding over the adhesion making process, a true and effective for gathering the contradicting wills to a cooperative movement which will enable nations and states, find solutions that will benefits the multitude. Deliberation is one of these methods, based on mutual understanding and decision making, through discussions with multitude of participants.

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