The article presents a response to the text "Critical theory and deliberative democracy" by Ricardo Mendonça Fabrino (Opinião Pública, vol. 19, nº 1). Instead of analyzing the fidelity of current democratic-deliberative theories to the legacy of the Frankfurt School, it seeks to understand how much they retain from their original emancipatory impulse. The assessment is that the deliberative theory is tied to a trade-off between an abstract normativeness, incapable of effective intervention in reality, and the accommodation with the institutions and practices of really existing liberal democracies.
Deliberative democracy; Democratic theory; Critical theory