Political Discussion in Modern Democracies

A Comparative Perspective

Michael R. Wolf, Laura Morales, Ken'ichi Ikeda

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415548458
• eBook ISBN: 9781136964145
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The study of political discussion has been broken into sub-categories including deliberative democracy, discursive studies, dynamics of interpersonal communication, and discussion network analyses, with substantial numbers of books and articles covering each. However, these areas are often treated distinctly and not brought together in a comprehensive and systematic way.

Political Discussion in Modern Democracies: a comparative perspective reviews the breadth of the different literatures on political science and provides original comparative analyses of the nature of political discussion and its consequences on political deliberation and behaviour in numerous advanced industrial democracies worldwide. It is divided into two main sections that provide both a review of the field and context for the chapters that follow:

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• Part I studies deliberation and discussion as the object of analysis.

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• Part II concentrates on the consequences of political discussion and deliberation.

Covering ten countries across Europe, Asia, and North and South America, this book makes a significant contribution toward broader theories of political communication, deliberative democracy, discussion networks, and political behaviour. It will be of interest to scholars of comparative politics, political communication, political behaviour, governance and democracy.

1
Introduction

Political discussion in modern democracies from a comparative perspective

Michael R. Wolf and Ken’ichi Ikeda

Political discussion is essential to the idea of democracy. It is the most common form of political engagement, occurring more frequently than voting or other modes of involvement in politics. Political discussion also can provide unmediated political expression in both intimate and general settings. Further, political conversation may affect voter behaviour in numerous ways. It provides voters with information short- cuts and also offers a means of reactivating latent political attitudes. Conversely, persuasive political talk may alter political attitudes and preconceptions. Certainly this latter point, engaging in political discussion with those holding differing political beliefs, is the basis of democratic consensus. Indeed, this aspect of political discussion has implicitly weighed heavily in the development of deliberative democracy and social capital theories, which attract scholars broadly from different fields. The main tenet of most political discussion and deliberation theories argues that social engagement produces instrumental information as well as reciprocity among discussants and builds a more vibrant society. For democracy, therefore, discussion is essential in the construction of trust across social divisions, as well as in attracting people to participate mutually in political activities.

The evidence is not entirely conclusive, however, on whether political discussion consistently leads to these positive results. Political discussion may lead to unintended consequences, biases and a further segmentation of political thought. Some scholarship questions the assumptions that discussion and expression are necessarily egalitarian, and also asks whether discussion truly builds consensus or perhaps cements political predispositions. These conflicting findings leave numerous broad questions about the dynamics of what actually happens in political discussion and what the consequences of political discussion are for democratic politics. Does deliberation empirically occur as normatively hypothesized, and does more discussion lead to greater civic engagement and democratic satisfaction? In an era when other forms of political behaviour are biased towards particular social groups, does political discussion offset these biases, ensure equality and empower democracy? Or, instead, does discussion compound biases? Do consensus and trust emerge from political discussion, or does it stoke divisive tendencies? More instrumentally, does discussion lead to greater political participation or to decision- making that is superior to conditions when discussion is lacking by increasing citizens’ political information flow?

Numerous scholars have increasingly tackled these important questions in recent years. This is not to say that political discussion had been ignored. Indeed, as Alan Zuckerman masterfully demonstrates, the classic models of political behaviour and partisanship suggest a very important role for political discussion, even if they do not directly account for discussion in their findings (Zuckerman 2005). But there are many possible reasons why this area has grown in focus in recent years. First, the party decline and New Politics literature chronicled the weakening of individual- level partisanship, social cleavages and demographic variables as determinants of voting and focused attention on more political variables that often involve the intermediation of political information from such forces as the media. Political discussion is a natural extension as a source of information and intermediation. Second, increased democratization has led many scholars to focus on normative aspects of democracy generally, with diverse trends in research such as how discussion can build social capital (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1995, 2000), the instrumental benefits of discussion (Elster 1998) and the very normative work of Habermas (1984) that argues that political discourse can better produce the common good. Empirical work testing such theories has developed in response. Third, the development of discussion network batteries within national election studies such as the Cross- National Elections Project and numerous other studies in the 1980s and 1990s made rigorous empirical testing of the effects of discussion in interpersonal networks possible. Fourth, as a consequence of these rigorous network data, it is now easier to incorporate the rich findings from the social psychology literature concerning group decision- making and group processes to further test the effects of political discussion.

Consequently, political discussion studies incorporate multiple theories, methods, and levels of analyses: from in- depth discursive studies, to Deliberative Polling, to network analyses. Often these very different approaches are not integrated, and as a result, conclusions about the general theoretical topic of political discussion often get tucked away, leaving subsections of the political discussion literature to develop independently. These separate approaches have borne fruit on their own account, but together would provide a broader grasp of political discussion. Some studies specifically concentrate on the content of discussion in controlled settings, whether in focus groups or Deliberative Polling situations. These provide the theoretical underpinnings of what political discussion is like at the micro level. Other studies, most often political discussion network analyses, provide broader conclusions about how democratic citizens gain information through conversation or build nuanced political discussion networks and how the levels and patterns of discussion influence political behaviour. To this point, scholarship that directly studies the content of discussion has not been married with complementary research that focuses on the dynamics and consequences of political discussion more broadly. A broader focus would demonstrate how these fields supplement each other. Further, the lack of studies that focus on the nature and consequences of discussion in a comparative framework leaves us without a firm grasp of how discussion and its effects are conditioned by national context and/or political culture.

The goal of this volume is to add to the burgeoning field of scholarship on political discussion in modern democracies in a number of areas. This vibrant literature has grown in varied directions, but we assemble diverse analyses into two areas of study as sections of this book: the nature of political discussion, and the impact of political discussion in democratic politics. For both sections of the book, expert reviews of the literature provide a backdrop for the original research made by contributors to this volume. The hope is that these chapters provide scholars with definitive reviews of the literature on the nature of political discussion and the consequences of political discussion from a comparative perspective by reviewing where the field has been and where it is headed. Both review chapters are written by top scholars in the field and are outstanding additions to the discipline and achievements on their own.

The first review introducing Part I of the book is André Bächtiger and Seraina Pedrini’s exhaustive review of research on the nature of political deliberation, especially deliberative democracy, that provides scholars with a true typology of this widely varied research, as well as highlighting the theoretical and empirical foundations of, and pitfalls facing, this mushrooming field of study. The second review by Ken’ichi Ikeda and Robert Huckfeldt lays out the theoretical bases and historical development of political discussion studies, especially in what regards the consequences of political discussion through the lens of discussion networks. This review by two of the most recognized scholars of comparative political discussion network analyses provides the jumping off point for current comparative analyses into the consequences of interpersonal communication for participation, information, knowledge, relationship to other sources of information, heterogeneity and homogeneity of interaction, as well as to the quality of democratic decision- making.

To extend beyond these powerful literature reviews, the book includes a very broad mix of original research using different approaches, international cases, and comparisons involving ten countries from eastern to western and northern to southern Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Many of the chapters present single- country analyses that provide theoretically rich conclusions that are difficult to make when controlling for cross- national distinctions. Other chapters take full advantage of cross- national comparisons or time–series concerning the dynamics of political discussion and draw broader conclusions. Given the variety of consequential findings and research traditions on political discussion in political science and other social sciences, the contributors adopt many different approaches to demonstrate the dynamics and consequences of political discussion and cover different key areas of the discipline: social capital, deliberative democracy and consensus, disagreement in discussion, and how discussion influences political and voting behaviour. Beyond the many cases and research traditions, the authors use multiple methods and levels of analysis from in- depth studies of discourse, to Deliberative Polling and community policymaking, to network analyses.

Despite the eclectic mix of methods and country settings in the volume, many general themes and complementary findings emerge from both sections, most notably that political discussion meaningfully shapes democratic politics. One clear theme centres on the instrumental benefits gained through political discussion. Political discussion provides information short- cuts and vehicles of political information. The question is whether the nature and transmission of political information culminates in changed political behaviours and/or superior political decision- making. Due to the comparative approach, we begin to separate out which of these effects occurs across all contexts and which result from particular national political settings. Many of these studies are found in the second portion of the book on the consequences of political discussion. Perhaps the most common question that carries across both sections of the book concerns the extent to which political discussion bridges social divides or exacerbates and causes the bonding along existent social divisions. In other words, how much does discussion occur within particular social groups, which ends up solidifying rather than breaking down political distinctions and inequalities?

Another major theme from Part I is that the normative ideals associated with deliberative democracy do not always hold up to empirical tests. Many of the social biases (gender gap, education and political information gaps) common in modern democracies are not overcome by deliberative political discussion, and may even be exacerbated in deliberative settings. Political discussion involves conflict and disagreement as much as, or more than, consensual deliberative agreement. Political discussants also follow distinct patterns of political discussion based on their political environment and the nature of partisan and electoral politics, and these patterns may not encourage more sources of information. Further, even the tangible benefits from deliberative settings may not last. Having laid out these limitations, no one would argue that the benefits of deliberation are so insufficient that they are unworthy of taking place in democracies. But the innovative findings from the first part of the volume fit well with Bächtiger and Pedrini’s conclusions that studies of deliberation in more real- world settings – what they call Type II studies – find that institutions, conditions and settings of discussion affect and often limit the normative benefits derived from deliberative processes. Nevertheless, there is no overarching consistent conclusion of whether discussion is entirely democratically virtuous or not. The systematic analysis of how and why inequalities in society overwhelm deliberative processes – or may be restrained by political discussion – provides a more complete empirical and theoretical grasp of the nature and consequences of political deliberation and discussion.

In Part II, some chapters demonstrate positive by- products from political discussion, whether by providing information, complementing or altering information effects from the media, increasing participation, or influencing attitudes and behaviour. Other chapters find that political discussion does not lead to more diverse sources of information, greater consensus or politically equal benefits for all social groupings. The numerous cases, the broad set of consequences studied, and the care with which these scholars have contextualized discussion among other sources of information such as the media and aspects of political attitudes and behaviour mean that this section extends beyond applying the same approach to different cases and instead makes crucial comparative theoretical contributions.

Plan of the book

The first part of the book, “Deliberation and discussion as the object of analysis”, begins with Bächtiger and Pedrini’s review of the field of political deliberation, as described above. In Chapter 3, Kasper M. Hansen’s findings from the Danish Deliberative Poll demonstrate that political deliberation does not lead to more equality but is biased towards championing the interests of groups already favoured in the political system. Sophie Duchesne and Florence Haegel use French and Belgian focus groups in Chapter 4 to measure how cooperation and conflictualization emerge in political discussion, and how national cleavages and cultures heighten or exacerbate (the repression of ) conflict when discussing political issues.

Lucio R. Renno and Barry Ames demonstrate, in Chapter 5, how the public budgeting process set up by the Worker’s Party in Brazil led to changed political discussion networks but few other positive effects that deliberative forums might generate. In Chapter 6, Michael R. Wolf finds that minority partisans remain very loyal to their party, and that one mechanism for this is how they seek out fellow partisans with whom to discuss politics. In Chapter 7, Thorsten Faas and Rüdiger Schmitt- Beck closely follow the nature of political discussion dynamics among different types of political discussants as the 2005 German election progressed. The ability to trace the nature of discussion and changes in patterns provides new information as to how citizens use discussion over time as conditions change during a campaign.

Part II of the book, on “The consequences of discussion and deliberation”, begins with Chapter 8, which is a review chapter of discussion networks, political discussion and their consequences for political behaviour and attitudes, by Ken’ichi Ikeda and Robert Huckfeldt. Gabor Toka writes on the impact of political discussion on Hungarian political information, knowledge and attitudes using a panel study from 2003–2005 in Chapter 9. Similarly, Lionel Marquis traces how the media and interpersonal discussion independently and together affect voter decision- making during direct democratic referenda on social-welfare policies in Switzerland in Chapter 10. In Chapter 11, Ken’ichi Ikeda argues that the interpersonal political environment improves tolerance and participation among citizens, and that these allow citizens to more autonomously and actively deliberate on politics rather than to simply conform to their surroundings despite the conventional wisdom. Oana Lup’s Chapter 12 situates how political discussion works with other forms of social interaction to jointly affect participation and engagement in a country where social networks have a different historical pattern given its Communist past. In the final original chapter, Laura Morales evaluates the consequences of highly homogeneous communication environments on Spanish electoral and political behaviour. Finally, Ken’ichi Ikeda and Laura Morales summarize the general findings of these chapters, especially given the backdrop of the review chapters, and discuss how the volume adds to this burgeoning literature in the concluding chapter.

Part I
Deliberation and discussion as the object of analysis

2
Dissecting deliberative democracy

A review of theoretical concepts and empirical findings

André Bächtiger and Seraina Pedrini

Deliberation has moved to the forefront in contemporary democratic theory. The main argument in the philosophical literature is that politics should not only be about power, reduced to counting votes or to bargaining among actors with fixed preferences. Rather, politics should be deliberative, infused with reason and arguments (Chambers 1996; Fishkin and Laslett 2002). Deliberative theorists view reflective and reasoned dialogue as a necessary means to arrive at legitimate decisions in modern pluralistic, fragmented and complex societies where a common religious view or a comprehensive moral outlook no longer exists and where the authority of tradition has greatly weakened (Benhabib 1996; Habermas 2005). The major claim of deliberative theorists is that deliberative processes improve democratic practice and the quality of public policy, produce “better citizens” (Mansbridge 1999) and counteract the democratic deficits of representative democracy (Warren and Pearse 2008).

In the last few years, deliberative democracy has developed rapidly from a “theoretical statement” into a “working theory” (Chambers 2003). Scholars and practitioners have launched numerous initiatives designed to put deliberative democracy into practice, ranging from deliberative polling to citizen summits (see Fung 2003; Melo and Baiocchi 2006; Parkinson 2006). At the same time, deliberation has made inroads in empirical (or positive) political science as well. A small but growing body of literature has tried to tackle this question of the connection between the normative standards of deliberation, how well they are met and the empirical consequences of meeting them. Empirical research has peered into a variety of real-world settings, such a...

Table of contents

• Routledge/ECPR studies in European political science
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Series editor’s preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Deliberation and discussion as the object of analysis
• Part II The consequences of discussion and deliberation
• Bibliography
• Index