Consensus, Colonization, and Counterpower? Deliberative Democracy, Uncharted Evolution, and Its Potential to be Decolonized

The article explores the trajectory of deliberative democracy as a response to contemporary political challenges within liberal, representative systems, with the debate on the possible decolonization of this concept being among its latest theoretical developments. Anchored in mini-public-based experiments, deliberative democracy seems to be – for most scholars – the chief remedy for the prevailing political crises of late capitalism, although its embedding in a colonial imaginary poses a fundamental obstacle. This article maps the evolution of the concept of deliberative democracy and its implementation in the present day, contending that the Western adoption of deliberative ideals into feasible practices has selectively incorporated the notion of public reasoning while sidelining the anarchist and autonomous implications inherent in consensus-based frameworks, which are recognizable in Indigenous political practices. While decolonizing public deliberative processes toward subversive practices has recently been subjected to theoretical debate, we also examine instances such as bottom-up deliberations in forest occupations. These not only exemplify queer, inclusive, and democratic decision-making, but also harness deliberation as a tool to counter private, political, and police authority in a way that is unavailable for public deliberations. But the question remains, how feasible is it as a democratizing practice beyond such niches?