< Deliberation enhances the legitimacy of decisions because a range of people have participated in the decision, not a single or select few decision makers. >

Probably right Graeme, generally speaking. Although there are other possibilities – Those who took part but who found themselves on the wrong end of the outcome could be considerably more aggrieved than if there had been no public consultation. I’ve certainly been in that position.

I’ve also often heard the criticism that a government’s consultative process was just a charade and that they were always going to do what they ended up doing.

Then we could have the problem that if decisions genuinely get made according to the peoples’ will, they could result in disjunct developments or policies that are out of synchrony with the wider region, state or country, or even with previous local decisions.

Another problem – for many issues you could get a biased input, not representative of the wider community. This could happen on both ends of the spectrum. For example; developers and their supporters dominating in a situation where the wider community is not particularly interested in a given development, regarding a development that is not in the best interests of the community. Or environmentalists dominating against a proposed development and stopping it, where there would be no significant environmental damage done by the development in question.

So all considered, I’m not sure whether a more deliberative form of democracy would actually be better for us. It seems to me to be pretty neutral.