Manipulating Democracy

Democratic Theory, Political Psychology, and Mass Media

Wayne Le Cheminant, John M. Parrish, Wayne Le Cheminant, John M. Parrish

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415878043
• eBook ISBN: 9781136994456
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Manipulation is a source of pervasive anxiety in contemporary American politics. Observers charge that manipulative practices in political advertising, media coverage, and public discourse have helped to produce an increasingly polarized political arena, an uninformed and apathetic electorate, election campaigns that exploit public fears and prejudices, a media that titillates rather than educates, and a policy process that too often focuses on the symbolic rather than substantive.

Manipulating Democracy offers the first comprehensive dialogue between empirical political scientists and normative theorists on the definition and contemporary practice of democratic manipulation. This impressive array of distinguished scholars—political scientists, philosophers, cognitive psychologists, and communications scholars—collectively draw out the connections between competing definitions of manipulation, the psychology of manipulation, and the political institutions and practices through which manipulation is seen to produce a tightly-knit exploration of an issue at the heart of democratic politics.

Part I
Democratic Theory

Introduction to Part I

The three essays collected in Part I focus on the normative theory of manipulation, and in particular on the difficulty of providing a satisfactory definition of the term and of distinguishing it from related phenomena such as persuasion. All three contributors to Part I employ a similar method and approach—philosophical analysis combined with careful application to real-world cases—but James Fishkin, Terence Ball, and Nathaniel Klemp each arrive at quite different conclusions about how to evaluate various instances of apparent manipulation. Unusually for current democratic theory, the exchange between these essays represents a departure from the self-cloistering of deliberative democrats on the one hand and their critics on the other, inviting conversation between these rival theoretical accounts. Fishkin is among the most prominent proponents of the deliberative democratic approach. Ball is, by contrast, straightforwardly critical of many of that approach’s most fundamental assumptions. Klemp constitutes a kind of middle case: his point of departure shares much in common with the deliberative democratic perspective, but he qualifies that position sufficiently, particularly in his embrace of what he calls “strategic manipulation,” as to move him quite some distance from Fishkin’s and toward Ball’s perspective.

Much regarding manipulation turns on the question of the term’s definition, since most observers agree that whatever conduct we identify as “manipulative” would in many other contexts count as morally blamable, and that it therefore requires some additional level of justification, even if we ultimately approve it as a necessary or proper means of political action. As we noted in the introduction, all theories of manipulation necessarily rely on some background conception of what constitutes true democracy, and that is certainly true for these three essays. Fishkin’s essay “Manipulation and Democratic Theory” defines manipulation specifically in opposition to the ideal of deliberative democracy. For Fishkin, persuasion (the morally permissible form of political communication) is defined as changing minds under conditions acceptable to our theory of democracy—which conditions in turn are defined as fair conditions of rational deliberation. Manipulation, by contrast, is a variation of persuasion that is morally objectionable, where what is morally objectionable about it is precisely its violation of the norms of rational deliberation. Whereas persuasion allows for changing minds under favorable conditions for democratic deliberation, in the case of manipulation undermining good conditions of deliberation is the point of the enterprise itself.

Terence Ball’s essay “Manipulation: As Old As Democracy Itself (and Sometimes Dangerous),” in contrast, defines manipulation not by its form but rather by its outcome. His distinction between “democratic manipulation” and “undemocratic manipulation” depends on a background theory of democracy that defines which outcomes promote, and which outcomes hinder, the achievement of democratic ends. Ball emphasizes that there is inevitably a close connection between politics and manipulation, since manipulation is about controlling or moving things according to your will, and to some extent so (invariably) is politics—specifically, moving one another through language to action. Employing Fishkin’s typology of democracy, Ball’s account is probably closest to the model of “contestatory democracy,” since Ball argues that a degree—even a very significant degree—of rough and tumble manipulation is acceptable, provided that it ultimately advances rather than inhibits the flourishing of democracy itself.

In Nathaniel Klemp’s essay “When Rhetoric Becomes Manipulative: Disentangling Persuasion and Manipulation,” we find an attempt to blend elements of both the deliberative and contestatory theories of democracy outlined by Fishkin and Ball. Like Fishkin, Klemp defines manipulation in opposition to a normative account of morally acceptable persuasion. In contrast to Fishkin’s approach, however, Klemp supports Ball’s position in seeking to make room for both deliberative persuasion and what Klemp calls “strategic persuasion,” persuasion oriented toward contestatory victory rather than mutual understanding. Klemp’s analysis introduces two new elements into our account of manipulation. First, Klemp argues for a (rebuttable) presumption of the immorality of manipulation, and offers both consequentialist and non-consequentialist grounds for this presumption (the consequentialist justifications mirror Ball’s argument, while the non-consequentialist criteria reflect Fishkin’s concerns). And second, Klemp introduces a distinction, similar to John Rawls’s distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, between morally justified versus morally decent forms of conduct. Deliberation that meets all Fishkin’s criteria may be fully morally justified, according to Klemp, but even so, Klemp agrees with Ball that actions which fail Fishkin’s criteria may nevertheless count as morally decent actions, all things considered.

We can usefully see what is distinctive in the competing approaches offered by Fishkin, Ball, and Klemp by comparing their models to the definition of manipulation surveyed in our introduction, that of Robert Goodin. According to Goodin, the individually necessary and collectively sufficient components of manipulative action are (1) deception and (2) intentional interference with another agent’s “putative will.” On the issue of deception, we can see the distinction between Ball’s and Fishkin’s views with great clarity. For Ball, deception is, more or less straightforwardly, permissible in the pursuit of certain ends, namely the promotion of democracy and democratic citizenship. While there are features of deception that might tend to militate against these values in many circumstances, this is by no means a necessary relationship, and therefore deception is permissible in a variety of situations when it is necessary to promote rather than obstruct these values. Fishkin, by contrast, employs a definition of manipulation that largely rules out the possibility of any legitimate form of deception. At the same time, however, Fishkin’s definition of manipulation stretches more broadly than Goodin’s to include not just deceptive interferences with the putative wills of subjects, but all such interferences whether they are deceptive or not. As an illustration, Fishkin offers the example of political candidates seeking to keep voters away from the polls by using techniques such as negative ads which, while not deceptive, nevertheless can contribute to a significant interference with the subjects’ putative wills by priming issues which would not otherwise matter most to the voters in question.

Klemp’s theory mediates between these two extremes. His account defines deception quite broadly, encompassing not only lying itself but also concealment and, to some degree, distraction. Deception in this broader sense constitutes a necessary condition of manipulation, since it always includes at least one of these three elements. The key distinction Klemp stresses, however, is transparency, which in many ways aligns him most closely with Goodin’s insistence on deception as the central defining characteristic of manipulation. Klemp notes that persuasive rhetoric is transparent and respects the autonomy of the various interlocutors, whereas manipulation, by his definition, makes full use of hidden and irrational forces with the intention of achieving a particular outcome. Thus at the heart of what is immoral about manipulation is the fact that it necessarily seeks to hide information and agendas and lure listeners toward a worldview that may not comport with the listeners’ true preferences. Persuasion, by contrast, in both its deliberative and strategic forms, is always essentially open, distinguishing it from the hidden or irrational forces which constitute the essence of manipulation.

With respect to the question of putative wills, the three authors also take somewhat different approaches. Ball, for the most part, does not treat the question of the subjects’ putative wills as particularly important. For Ball it is the outcome of the exchange, and in particular its consequence for promoting the institutions and values of democracy, that determines whether or not manipulation is morally permissible. But Fishkin and Klemp have both defined the problem of manipulation in such a way that the putative will of subjects is crucial to the question of whether we praise or blame particular conduct. Like other deliberative democrats, Fishkin is strongly inclined to define putative will in terms of deliberation. For Fishkin, a subject’s putative will is the expected outcome of the process of deliberation when conducted under favorable conditions. Manipulation, on this account, is intentional interference with the putative will of those it affects (understood as the will they would have been disposed to form under good reasoning conditions). Whereas many other influential theories of democracy are inclined to take citizen preferences as given, one of the great strengths of the approach of deliberative democrats such as Fishkin is that it offers a standpoint from which to critique the process of preference formation itself. Preferences formed under good reasoning conditions, they argue, are worthy of deeper respect than those emerging from processes that are, by definition, tainted by manipulation.

Klemp problematizes manipulation further by showing that one way to look at manipulation is to see it as a way in which speakers are able to get us to change our beliefs or concepts without our consent. For Klemp, a change in a subject’s putative will is definitely not by itself a sufficient condition for an accusation of manipulation. Persuasion is equally a change in a subjects’ putative will, yet it is not normatively problematic. However, there are aspects of Klemp’s analysis that accord considerable importance to the question of a subject’s putative will. Specifically, Klemp claims that the diminishment or enhancement of autonomy (understood as roughly equivalent to the pursuit of the subject’s true will) is the defining characteristic of manipulative versus non-manipulative behavior. In offering a normative ranking giving first place to deliberative, then to strategic, and lastly to manipulative forms of communication, Klemp underlines this judgment that the more autonomy-enhancing, the more legitimate; the more autonomy-diminishing, the less legitimate.

Finally, the essays differ in their treatments of the ideal of deliberation and its potential conflicts with the strategic realities of politics. Fishkin and Ball form the most striking contrast in this respect. Fishkin, speaking for the deliberative tradition, holds up deliberation’s inherent commitment against manipulation as a reason for us to accept deliberative democracy as our preferred form of democratic theory. Since deliberative democracy defines deliberation specifically in opposition to manipulation, Fishkin asserts, it is the theory best suited to guard against the normative dangers which a more permissive attitude toward manipulation might entail. He asserts that through the use of deliberative practices—open discussions concerning policy preferences and interests—we might better be able to limit the manipulative practices that often skew the polity towards the interest of the few and away from the will of the public. Fishkin is aware of the strategic dimensions of politics, and in particular of the difficulties posed by attempting to transpose the results that emerge from his “deliberative microcosms” to application for the larger polity (problems which will re-emerge with a vengeance in the essays collected in part 3 of this volume). However, Fishkin does not argue directly with the idea promoted by both Ball and Klemp that non-deliberative strategic contestation might play a role in democratic exchange normatively worthy of our respect.

Ball’s theory, by contrast, is very sensitive to the demands of strategic action, going to great lengths to accommodate it. In doing ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Introduction Manipulating Democracy
• Part I Democratic Theory
• Part II Political Psychology
• Part III Mass Media
• Index