Symposium: Toward More Realistic Models of Deliberative Democracy Disentangling Diversity in Deliberative Democracy: Competing Theories, Their Blind Spots and Complementarities* André Bächtiger, Simon Niemeyer, Michael Neblo, Marco R. Steenbergen and Jürg Steiner** I N the last decade deliberative democracy has developed rapidly from a “theoretical statement” into a “working theory.” 1 Scholars and practitioners have launched numerous initiatives designed to put deliberative democracy into practice, ranging from deliberative polling to citizen summits. 2 Some even advocate deliberation as a new “revolutionary political ideal . . . about how political actors should behave here and now.” 3 Deliberative democracy has also experienced the beginning of an empirical turn, making significant gains as an empirical (or positive) political science. This includes a small, but growing body of literature tackling the connection between the normative standards of deliberation, how well they are met, and the empirical consequences of meeting them. 4 This trend has, for instance, included the use of methods and frameworks borrowed from other fields, such as political and social psychology. Such studies suggest that cases approaching ideal deliberation are rare, but that group interaction sometimes works surprisingly well according to such ideals. 5 *We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, Robert E. Goodin, John S. Dryzek, William Minozzi, Albert Weale, Regula Hänggli and Fabio Wasserfallen for extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts. **Bächtiger and Steenbergen, Political Science, University of Bern; Niemeyer, Political Science, RSSS, Australian National University; Neblo, Political Science, Ohio State University; Steiner, Political Science, University of North Carolina and University of Bern. 1 Chambers 2003. 2 Fung 2003. 3 Fung 2005, p. 297. 4 Risse 2000. Luskin et al. 2002. Holzinger 2001. Hajer and Wagenaar 2003. Steiner et al. 2004. Ulbert and Risse 2005. Parkinson 2006. Neblo 2000. Esterling et al. 2007. Thompson 2008. 5 Ryfe 2005. Reykowski 2006. The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 18, Number 1, 2010, pp. 32–63 © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2009.00342.x