Habermas nos explica lo siguiente sobre el entendido procesal de la democracia y sobre la regla de la mayoría:"The point of [a genuinely proceduralist understanding] of democracy is this: the democratic procedure is institutionalized in discourses and bargaining processes by employing forms of communications that promise that all outcomes reached in conformity of the procedure are reasonable. No one has worked out this view more energetically than John Dewey: "Majority rule, just as majority rule, is as foolish as its critics charge with being. But it never is merely majority rule... 'The means by which a majority comes to be a majority is the most important thing': antecedent debates, modifications of views to meet opinions of minorities. ...The essential need in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion."
Deliberative politics acquires its legitimation force from the discursive structure of an opinion- and will-formation that can fulfill its socially integrative function only because citizens expects its results to have a reasonable quality. Hence the discursive level of public debates constitutes the most important variable. It must not be hidden away in the black box of an operationalization satisfied with crude indicators."
En Between facts and norms, pág. 304, Ch. 7 (Deliberative politics).
