Volume 51, Number 16 · October 21, 2004
Time Out?
By Alan Ryan
Deliberation Day
by Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin
Yale University Press, 278 pp., $30.00
Deliberation Day induces mixed emotions. It is lively, fast-moving, and concerned with a serious subject—restoring the health of American democracy; and it has a big idea about how to achieve it. The big idea is to institute a public holiday just before presidential elections, so that the whole nation can engage in political debate. Americans would be paid $150 to meet with one another to discuss the policies and personalities of presidential candidates and their political parties. If the idea took off, 'Deliberation Day' would be extended to congressional and senatorial elections. Deliberation Day explains the proposal, and defends its viability with great verve and a mass of detail.
Review, 3316 words
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