separate proposals on what they want for Cuba . There are already thousands of ballots accumulated , which practically operate as a national survey . That meeting marked the milestone from which the model of Deliberative Democracy ceased to be an encouraging promise to become an indispensable tool . Since the present has been reluctant to advance towards the future , the future must come to the rescue . That meeting in FIU was the appropriate preface to the fourth event the same year in the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Puerto Rico and the
Caribbean . It featured personalities from both islands and the United States , including Jose Javier Rodriguez , a Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives . Thanks to this event , I personally became convinced that the model was entering in a stage of fermentation among Cubans . Maybe it happened without having been noticed by the regime , or the latter is unable to prevent the spreading of the model . Anyway , the dictatorship could have finally met its match .
Fruitful exchange with the representative Jose Javier Rodriguez ( center )
Ultimately the fifth meeting took place as a catalyst for new developments of ideas about Deliberative Democracy . It brought evidence that more Cuban activists have been engaged and such a national gain is accompanied by increasing international support . It also served to prove the maturity archived in Cuba through specific contributions to the model . Although it is neither Cuban nor new , the model is being constantly enriched by the dynamics of its application in the Isle .
Historical background By 1980 , Dr . Joseph M . Bessette — then Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Catholic University of America — coined the term Deliberative Democracy for the model he would rework in 1994 . Since then it has been developed by renowned philosophers and political scientists . Of course , we talk about the formalization of the contemporary system . There are precedents of deliberative democracy in other much older systems as the agora
54