The institutional forms of liberal democracy developed in the nineteenth century seem increasingly ill-suited to the problems we face in the twenty-first. This dilemma has given rise in some places to a new, deliberative democracy, and this volume explores four contemporary empirical cases in which the principles of such a democracy have been at least partially instituted: the participatory budget in Porto Alegre; the school decentralization councils and community policing councils in Chicago; stakeholder councils in environmental protection and habitat management; and new decentralised governance structures in Kerala. In keeping with the other Real Utopias Project volumes, these case studies are framed by an editors' introduction, a set of commentaries, and concluding notes.

Contributions by: Bradley C Karkkainen, Craig W Thomas, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Jane Mansbridge, Joel Rogers, Joshua Cohen, Patrick Heller, Rebecca Neaera Abers, Rebecca S Krantz, T M Thomas Isaac