The liberal concern about the corrosive effect of unbridled majoritarian politics upon civil and political liberties is, 1 believe, incontrovertible. Nonetheless, the deliberative model of democracy can offer certain conceptual as well as institutional solutions to soften, and perhaps to transcend, the old dichotomy between the liberal emphasis on individual rights and liberties what Rawls would call “constitutional essentials” and democratic theory’s emphasis on collective deliberation and will-formation. I would like to single out two sets of issues around which further exchange between deliberative democracy advocates and liberal theorists is necessary. This brief discussion should also indicate why I see the deliberative democracy model as transcending the stark opposition between liberal and democratic theory.