Exploring Methodological Challenges in Deliberative Democracy

Abstract This article analyses the current methodological debate within the field of deliberative democracy and provides some analytical suggestions about the research and methodological directions to analyze the field by considering theory falsifiability. The analysis follows three separate steps. First, the author specifies the field’s status regarding theory falsifiability. Then he classifies a purposive sample of scholars’ research in deliberative democracy into a specific methodological taxonomy. Finally, through configurational meta-analysis, he examines deliberative democracy considering the systemic turn. The results of the analysis suggest the use of mixed or set-theoretical methods are the most promising analytical approaches to examine the field from a theory falsifiability perspective.