"Forgotten democracy" : deliberative democracy in Poland in XVI-XVIII centuries

In connection of crisis of democracy in modern Europe, there are new concepts of her reconstruction, including a new idea of deliberative democracy, which clearly separates public sphere from private sphere of people’s life. In both of them there are diff erent rules. In public sphere free and equal citizens care about the common good through the debate of public issues, which is conducted on the basis of freedom of speech. That deliberation, in which only substantive arguments should be used to persuade interlocutors, who express diff erent point of view, always ends not with a vote, but with universal agreement. That idea is considered to be the future of democracy. However it should be noted that Poland has in deliberative democracy extremely interesting traditions. On deliberative democracy was based Polish democracy in XVI–XVIII centuries