The Rhetoric Revival in Political Theory

The recent wave of interest in the rhetorical tradition among political theorists can be attributed partly to the rise of theories of deliberative democracy, which focused attention on communication and discourse. Some scholars see in rhetoric a way to challenge the assumptions of Habermasian deliberative theory, while others aim to integrate rhetoric into a broader theory of deliberation. Insights taken from studies of Aristotle have been especially influential in producing a new set of questions for scholars interested in deliberation and in democratic communications more generally, in spite of the vast differences between ancient city-states and modern liberal democracies.