Interviews with members of the Norwegian national assembly's Standing Committee for Transport and Communications were conducted in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2004. The politicians were asked about the usefulness of analytic input that planners contribute to national plans, first the Norwegian Road and...

"The thrust of the theory of preference aggregation is that it is impossible to design institutions guaranteeing collective decisions that are both consistent and fair. Proponents of deliberative democracy have used this as an argument for decision-making based on dialogue rather than voting....