Public Discussion in the Deliberative System: Does It Make Better Citizens?
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B.J.Pol.S. 37, 587–618 Copyright © 2007 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0007123407000336 Printed in the United Kingdom Public Discussion in the Deliberative System: Does It Make Better Citizens? DONALD D. SEARING, FREDERICK SOLT, PAMELA JOHNSTON CONOVER AND IVOR CREWE* In democratic theory, the practice of discussing public affairs has been associated with desirable consequences for citizenship and democracy. We use Anglo-American survey data to examine twelve hypotheses about psychological foundations for four general conditions that such discussions might promote: autonomous citizens, political legitimacy, good representation and democratic communities. Our data combine detailed measures of public discussion with measures of more of its hypothesized civic consequences than have heretofore been available. They also enable us to probe, using specialized samples, causal inferences suggested by our analyses of random samples in our British and American communities. Six of the hypotheses are supported, including at least one regarding each of the four general liberal democratic conditions we investigate. From Aristotle and John Stuart Mill to contemporary democratic theory, the practice of discussing public affairs has been associated with desirable consequences for citizenship and democracy.1 We use Anglo-American survey data to examine four sets of hypotheses about psychological foundations for the liberal democratic conditions that such discussions have been said to promote: autonomous citizens, political legitimacy, good representation and democratic communities. The first set of hypotheses suggests that discussing public affairs helps to educate autonomous citizens by inculcating independence and internal efficacy.2 In particular, the * Searing and Conover, Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Solt, Department of Political Science, University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale; Crewe, University of Essex. The authors are grateful to The Spencer Foundation for financial support. For valuable comments on this article, they are indebted to Albert Weale and reviewers for the Journal, to the Politics Study Group of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and to the Conference on Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics, European University Institute, Florence. 1 Aristotle, The Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (New York: Harper, 1862), and On Liberty (New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1956); John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (New York: Holt, 1927); Harold Lasswell, Democracy Through Public Opinion (New York: Bantam, 1941); Dennis F. Thompson, The Democratic Citizen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Ju¨rgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols. (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1987); Jane Mansbridge, ‘Everyday Talk in the Deliberative System’, in Stephen Macedo, ed., Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 211–42; James S. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991); John Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Stephen Macedo, ‘Introduction’, in Macedo, ed, Deliberative Politics, pp. 3–16; Albert Weale, ‘Party Competition and Deliberative Democracy’, in Judith Bara and Albert Weale, eds, Party Competition and Political Democracy: Essays in Honour of Ian Budge (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 271–86; Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); Thomas A. Spragens, Reason and Democracy (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1990). 2 Mill, On Liberty; David Held, Models of Democracy (Oxford: Polity Press, 1987); Joshua Cohen, ‘Democracy and Liberty’, in Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 185–231. 588 SEARING, SOLT, CONOVER AND CREWE more that citizens encounter different points of view, face to face, the more they are likely to examine their own views and thereby develop the autonomy needed for effective liberal citizenship. The next set of hypotheses suggests that discussing public affairs builds political legitimacy for democratic institutions by drawing citizens towards consensus on fundamental values and rules of the game. At the end of the day, even those who still disagree with public policies may nevertheless accept them because of their satisfaction with having been involved in discussions about these matters.3 The third set of hypotheses turns to electoral contexts to link political talk with good representation. It suggests that such discussions improve the knowledge and skills that citizens need to evaluate candidates and issues intelligently, and that the experience of discussing public affairs strengthens their desire to participate in electoral activity.4 Finally, the strongest claims focus on the democratic community to argue that deliberation should be regarded as a fundamental act of citizenship,5 because it fosters the mutual understanding, tolerance and public spiritedness that citizens require to live and work together successfully. Our data provide an exceptional opportunity to survey this extensive terrain and to investigate specific claims found here, because they combine theoretically oriented and detailed measures of discussion with measures of more of its hypothesized civic consequences than have heretofore been available. They also enable us to probe, using specialized samples, causal inferences suggested by our analyses of random samples in our British and American communities. THEORY Much of the recent empirical interest in political talk has been stimulated by the ‘deliberative turn’ in democratic theory, which, during the 1990s, drew attention to contexts for discussing public affairs and to deliberative activities that occur or might occur within them. Mansbridge and Habermas suggest we think about all these practices as a ‘deliberative system’ that educates, constructs, filters, adopts, applies and discards political ideas. At its core is political talk within institutions like national courts, parliaments and civil service departments.6 Around this core and linked with it is the political talk between constituents and government officials and within political parties, interest groups and the 3 Joshua Cohen, ‘Deliberation and Political Legitimacy’, in James Bohman and William Rehg, eds, Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Cohen, ‘Democracy and Liberty’; Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation; Bruce Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980); Bruce Ackerman ‘Why Dialogue?’ Journal of Philosophy, 86 (1989), 5–22; Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action; Seyla Benhabib, ‘Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition and Jurgen Habermas’, in Craig Calhoun, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992). 4 William Galston, ‘Liberal Virtues’, American Political Science Review, 82 (1988), 1277–90; Gutmann and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement; Barry Holden, Understanding Liberal Democracy (Hemel Hempsted, Herts.: Philip Allen, 1988); Robert A. Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985). 5 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age; Spragens, Reason and Democracy. 6 Mansbridge, ‘Everyday Talk in the Deliberative System’; Ju¨rgen Habermas, ‘Concluding Comments on Empirical Approaches to Deliberative Politics’, Acta Politica, 40 (2005), 385–92; Ju¨rgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). Public Discussion in the Deliberative System 589 media. The model’s third ring consists of political talk that occurs among activists, attentive publics and general publics. To situate the theoretical significance of our investigation in this third ring, several further distinctions are needed. Mansbridge’s and Habermas’s visions span a communica- tive spectrum from ‘structured deliberation’ to ‘public discussion’ to ‘casual political talk’. All three forms of political talk are found in each of the three systemic contexts. But some forms are more common in some contexts than in others. Structured deliberation involves listening carefully to the views of others, explaining one’s own views to them and taking time together to think over a matter thoroughly. This exercise finds its most systematic expression in ideal deliberative models constructed by political theorists for purposes of normative inquiry. Structured deliberation is, however, sometimes approximated in core deliberative institutions like parliaments and civil service departments.7 It has also been approximated in research settings where democratic deliberations are artificially or experimentally constructed for ordinary citizens.8 Public discussion, by contrast, refers to extended conversations about political issues, which are less structured by rules, participants or moderators, but which are importantly conducted in ‘public’ settings where participants are likely to encounter a range of different perspectives. This mode of political talk is commonly found in elite