The Independent Commission on Migration and parliamentary representation of migrants' interests: exclusion by deliberative rationalization?

Theories of deliberative democracy, which played an important role in justifying expert committees during the governments of Gerhard Schröder in Germany, understand the inclusion of everybody affected by a decision as the most important criterion of its legitimacy. However, deficits of political representation can be identified in discourse theory as the theoretical foundation of deliberative democracy. The immanent tendency of informalizing and rationalizing the process of political decision-making not only favors depoliticization but also leads to a systematic discrimination of requests which cannot be coupled to a common good, primarily understood in economic terms. This theoretical criticism of deliberative democracy can be affirmed empirically by comparing the representation of interests of migrants between parliament and party politics on the one hand, and the deliberative 'Süssmuth Commission' on migration during the Schröder-era, on the other hand. When it comes to the inclusion of weak interests, which can not easily be coupled to a presumable common good, the traditional political institutions prove to be superior. Reprinted by permission of the VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Germany