LAWS 9973 Democratic Theory and Deliberation

This course will explore the meaning and practice of deliberative democracy within the U.S. constitutional system. Deliberative self-determination is often thought to play a foundational role in self-government, protected by the free-speech clause of the First Amendment. But what are the legal and institutional conditions that make democratic self-government possible? How have judicial opinions, interpretive theories, and political practice aided or thwarted the realization of deliberative democracy? How have contemporary debates and developments challenged our understandings of deliberative democracy and its role within our constitutional system? This course will raise these and related questions in examining the constitutional foundations supporting deliberative democracy.