Assessing the Preconditions for Deliberative Democracy: Speaking Truth to Theory.

A serious criticism of deliberative democracy is that its practical focus is minimal. Theorists seem unconcerned about the practical applications of deliberative democracy and have restricted their concern to the normative value of deliberative democracy, leaving the practical realm out of their focus of inquiry. Another major drawback of scholarship in this area has been the limited focus of deliberative democracy on Western societies. Most theorists accept foundational assumptions that would seem to limit the unstudied applicability of their theories to societies that are relatively wealthy, homogeneous, well-educated, and culturally Western. This paper examines the practical applications of deliberative democracy by investigating a community conservation experiment in rural India. This case tests the feasibility of deliberative democracy in a small village community in a developing country-- a poor, semi-literate, tribal community that has been attempting to actualize the norms of environmental democracy. We ask whether wealth and socioeconomic and political equality are indeed prerequisites (necessary but not sufficient conditions) for deliberative democracy to function effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]