Public opinion and deliberative democracy: the example of the islamic veil in France

This article aims at making an operative use of the deliberative framework as a means to examine the formation of public opinion in western democracies. It focuses and reflects mainly on Iris Marion Young's conception of asymmetrical reciprocity, which challenges the typical understanding of imagining oneself in the place of the other as the way to make a judgment regarding the situation of the other. I suggest that Iris Marion Young's proposal of asymmetry has important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take pluralism, liberty and equality in the official discourses seriously. In order to prove it I examine the public debate on the Islamic Veil that has been developing in the European Context, particularly in France, throughout the last few years.