The article deals with the development of the ideas about the communicative model of democracy and the “deliberative turn”. This phenomenon of the western political thought and partly - of political practice emerged at the turn of the XX and XXI century. The author demonstrates the consanguinity between this phenomenon and the previous understandings of democratic political process. The reasons, which led to the qualitative development of the communicative model in the mentioned period, are analyzed in the article. It is stated that in the context of the contemporary ideas of the development of the democracy the ideas of the deliberative description of the political process are relatively moderate and are intermediate maximalist (republican) and minimalist (liberal) ideas. The article examines conceptual models of deliberative democracy, special attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of S. Benhabib . The article analyses the opportunities and the limits of the practical application of the ideas of the deliberative democracy, the necessary conditions for its application and the problems connected with it.
