Deliberative democracy has spread quickly, regardless of differences in political and administrative traditions. An equally fast-evolving debate has addressed its virtues and problems, gradually shifting from theory to practice and from a focus on deliberative arenas to a concern for their policy and institutional context, without questioning the fundamentally benign nature and implications of public deliberation. We might however be confronted with a turning point. A growing literature is developing a different, more corrosive type of critique, the underlying theme of which is not the ‘revitalization of democracy’ and the role of deliberative forums in the framework of governance, but the ‘neoliberalization of society’ and the acquisition of deliberative democracy to the rationality of government at work in this process. As a consequence, well-known problems are read or ranked differently and new questions gain salience, as especially related to politics and ‘the political’. The article discusses the basic arguments of this literature, where ‘weaknesses’ and ‘drawbacks’ do not look incidental and redeemable but largely purposeful and responsible for the very success of deliberation. Rather than to the ill-fated character of deliberative democracy, however, this critique points to a renewed research agenda.
