Jane Mansbridge
The workshop brought together the thirteen people in the US and Europe that are most involved in trying to understand the ways that democracies can integrate the normative mandates of both deliberation and the exercise of legitimate power.
Those who advocate a normative stance based on principled negotiation that includes self-interest (the neo-pluralist approach) point out that, among other things, discussions restricted only to reason and the common good often adopt understandings of the common good heavily influenced by dominant groups. Deliberative theory, which could have considerable practical application, is also marginalized by not encompassing fundamental conflict. Theorists in the EU and elsewhere are looking for normative formulations that can capture the kinds of principled negotiation required when the participants in a negotiation do not share the same understanding of the common good.