Reviewing literature on the deliberative process in three parts. Main question is, “Does it work?”
- Organization of a deliberative encounter
- “Snowball”: allowing individuals to self-select and tell their neighbors
- Can result in homogenous groups
- Diversity is an indicator of a deliberative frame of mind
- Tend to privilege intimate kinds of talk that make open discourse difficult
- Arguably does not increase the legitimacy of outcomes
- Can result in homogenous groups
- Representative sampling: group with demographic profile that reflects the community
- “Random selection may ensure inclusivity, but it does not grant representativeness (Burnheim 1985).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 53)
- “Ironically, by fulfilling one deliberative principle (learning), the method short-circuits another (representativeness).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 53)
- The obvious answer is that the community consists of individuals who will be directly affected by a decision, but it is not always clear who those people are (Smith & Wales 2000)
- “Snowball”: allowing individuals to self-select and tell their neighbors
- Practice of deliberation within an encounter
- Bounded rationality, “information shortcuts”
- What the fuck—deliberation in lab experiments “can lead to decisions that not only conflict with expert opinion but also conflict with subjects’ own opinions—that is, decisions they later regret (Holt 1993, 1999; Wilson et al. 1989; Wilson & Schooler 1991).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 54)
- “Other studies have shown that deliberation can cause participants to doubt that a “correct” decision is available at all (Armor & Taylor 2003, Iyengar & Lepper 2000).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 54)
- “And still others have found that participants may feel more anxious and frustrated about the issue under discussion after a deliberative encounter than before (Cook & Jacobs 1999, Button & Mattson 1999, Hendriks 2002, Kimmelman & Hall 1997)” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 54)
- The fundamental assumption of what deliberation ought to look like is Habermasian, deliberation taking place through “an exchange of reasons,”
- “A participant defends a view by providing reasons; others probe the usefulness of this view through criticism; by reflecting together on the evidence for and against various views, free and independent participants come to accept what Habermas calls “the force of the better argument.”” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 54)
- Fuck. “As mass citizens, individuals rely on heuristics to unreflectively mobilize cognitive structures at their disposal.” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 55)
- In small group settings, heuristics are found through influence of individuals who have strong motivation to achieve consensus, through the acceptance of group stereotypes and identities, or through perceptions of group concensus.
- Theory of the role of emotions in political judgment
- Deliberation framed through this lens, deliberation is what jolts people out of everyday reasoning habits, into surveillance system.
- driven by a motivation to be accurate, through things that make us feel uncomfortable.
- three conditions: accountability, high stakes, and diversity
- “all three of our motivating prompts involve psychological assessments of self in relation to other people or to one’s environment.” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 57)
- when one is accountable to others, when one perceives oneself to be threatened by others or by one’s enviornment, and when one encounters others different from oneself. motivation is a culturally and socially constructed drive.
- Deliberation framed through this lens, deliberation is what jolts people out of everyday reasoning habits, into surveillance system.
- Bounded rationality, “information shortcuts”
- Product of deliberative talk
- National Issues Forums
- goal: education, not policymaking
- Deliberation as consultation
- Consult outcome of deliberative initiative
- fishkinBringingDeliberationDemocracy1995
- “Deliberative opinion poll”
- Policy officials explicitly bound by decisions of deliberative groups
- Rare.
- Because deliberative groups are easy to exit, those that stress action will become cognitively homogeneous as those who think differently from the growing group consensus exit
- Focus more on the process than the outcome
- Fundamental tension here:
- “To the extent that a group favors deliberation above all else, it will tend to avoid or constrain explicit linkages to the political system. By contrast, to the extent that a deliberative group seeks real political action, it risks losing its diversity of views.”
- National Issues Forums
Some highlights:
“Formidable psychological and structural barriers also impede public participation in policy making. People are, as cognitive psychologists like to call them, “cognitive misers.”” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 51)
Question: when was the last time you “deliberated”?
“Their extensiveness means that any rational individual will seek to forego the burden of participation because she is not likely to directly affect the result,” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 51)
So deliberative democracy is about engaging publics despite these limitations, not against them.
“Finally, random selection can be dreadfully time-consuming and expensive. Fishkin (1995) reports that to get a woman in poverty to his 1996 National Issues Conference in Austin, Texas, he had to personally drive her to the local airport (p. 180).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 53)
“Individuals engage in microrituals of social behavior to avoid conflict, identify points of agreement, and reach consensus (Brown & Levinson 1987, Mulkay 1985, Pomerantz 1984, Schiffrin 1990, Sheldon 1992).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 55)
Nice, this has relationship to face theory.
“Mounting research suggests that the “mere presence” of others is enough to alter a person’s cognitive activity (Levine et al. 1993).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 58)
This shit is what makes me hopeless of doing all of this online.
“Consider how policy officials and experts might respond if a deliberative group came to a decision on where to put a waste-management facility, ignoring the political realities of a local community and overlooking a crucial technical detail of how waste-management systems work. In this situation, policy experts might rightly look on a deliberative outcome with suspicion and even contempt. Ironically, a choice that enjoys the legitimacy conveyed by a deliberative process may well lack political legitimacy.” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 62)
The great tension. Contrasted with below:
“At the same time, were policy officials to summarily dismiss a deliberative group’s judgment, one can understand why its participants might come away from the process more disenchanted with politics than ever. Observations of real deliberative initiatives find that these reactions are quite common (see Button & Mattson 1999, Hendriks 2002, Kimmelman & Hall 1997, Ryfe 2002).” (Ryfe, 2005, p. 62)
His 5 mechanisms to successful deliberation
- Rules: talk is bound to be uncomfortable, because people are disinclined to deliberate. rules of equality, civility, and inclusivity are needed.
- Stories: requires a form of talk that combines the act of making sense (cognition), and the act of making meaning (culture).
- Leadership: keeping discussion on track, steer small groups toward nondeliberative conversations by insisting on the salience of particular cues…
- Stakes: the issue at matter needs to matter for the individuals involved
- Apprenticeship: more training is needed