Rights and Deliberative Systems

This article maps a significant area of contribution to (and control of) deliberative democratic systems: human rights enacted in law. Thus it takes up John Dryzek’s call for ‘close study of actual deliberative systems in the terms that theorists specify’. The article shows how the theory and practice of legal rights often provide a good fit with, and sometimes help to elaborate and advance, aspects of systemic deliberative democratic theory. One rationale for presenting a more detailed legal map of deliberative systems is descriptive: to look more comprehensively at the set of participants and activities within such systems. Yet the project may also be framed as normative. To try to ensure that legal rights do not displace, but rather align with, systemic deliberative democracy, courts and other legal actors may engage in what the article terms (pace John Hart Ely) ‘deliberative system reinforcement’.