SUMMARY OF PROJECT AND FINDINGS

This project illustrates the impact of partisan polarization on attitudes towards deliberative ideals of discourse. It speaks to the potential for the U.S. to establish a more

rights, representation, or other concepts, deliberative democratic theory focuses on the processes of decision making and justification in which governments engage. With its roots in Aristotle’s exultation of the Athenian assemblies, deliberative theorists idealize decision making that is preceded by discussion characterized by inclusiveness, publicity, and rational argumentation, among other values. A key discursive norm for nearly all deliberative theorists is a norm of reciprocity, which can be briefly summarized as a mutual respect in argument. It requires arguers to offer reasons that others, at least minimally, see as legitimate, and it requires those receiving arguments to keep an open mind and change their opinion with evidence if appropriate. With reciprocity, there is a goal of, but not an absolute mandate for, consensus. Gutmann and Thompson (1996), thus, place reciprocity in between a demand for complete consensus on moral values and self-interested (even if tolerant) political bargaining.

Since the 1980’s, deliberative democratic theory has been a central theoretical, empirical, and practical focal point in the study of democracy. Critics have asserted that deliberative political decision making, guided by reciprocity, is exclusionary (Sanders 1997; Fish 2000), unrealistic (Shapiro 2000), or simply not good social science theory (Mutz 2008). Proponents (Habermas 1983; Mansbridge 1980; Gutmann and Thompson 1996; Dryzeck 2010), however, argue that ideal deliberation leads to a host of benefits, such as greater legitimacy for political decisions, better and more consensual decisions, and learning and empathy for those who participate in the process. While there is not a complete consensus (see, for example, Jackman and Sniderman 2006), many empirical researchers have validated these supportive claims (Fishkin 1995; Barabas 2004; List et al. 2012; Druckman and Nelson 2003). What normative and empirical researchers on

deliberation have failed to do, though, is fully explore the conditions by which one will adopt the deliberative ideal of reciprocity when one enters political discussion. The question for the conditions for deliberation is particularly important, moreover, given the increasing normative attention to “deliberative systems” (Mansbridge et al. 2012). If, in these systems, some form of reciprocity needs to be present in media communication, public advocacy, interpersonal citizens discussion, and other public or “everyday” sites of discourse, it is important for researchers to assess in what context citizens will be willing to adopt reciprocal norms outside a deliberative poll or other small-scale, formally deliberative setting.

This project makes an important contribution to this regard, assess how partisanship and polarization impact the public’s propensity to adopt an attitude of reciprocity. Drawing on social identity theory, in Chapter Four I argue that partisan social identity attachment—in other words, the extent to which one views being a Democrat or being a Republican as an important part of “who one is”—weakens one commitment to deliberative ideals in a variety of ways. Through a series of survey experiments focused on policy vignettes, I show that, as opposed to following Habermas “unforced force of the better argument” (1993, 163), partisans heed party cues in

considering whether to afford reciprocity towards political disagreement. The effects of partisanship on reciprocity are particularly pronounced for those whom partisan social identity salience is especially high. Diverging from past research on partisan social identity that primarily focuses on outparty effects (Iyengar et al. 2012; Lelkes and Westwood 2015), this subset of partisans both display less reciprocity towards outparty arguments and more reciprocity toward inparty arguments. “Social” partisans, moreover,

are also less likely to support an inparty political representative compromising with the other party. Research shows that the U.S. partisan public has increasingly polarized not based on ideology, but on social distance (Mason 2015; Huddy et al. 2015). Thus, results in Chapter Four show that this mass “social” polarization is creating a fundamental barrier to the possibility of a deliberative system idealized by Mansbridge and others, with discourse at all levels characterized by a commitment to reciprocity.

Other chapters explored the conditions by which the deliberative bias created by partisan social identity varies. Chapter Five examined whether outparty social contact mitigates biases that occur with deliberation amongst partisans. Drawing on

interpersonal contact theory (Allport 1954; Pettigrew 1998) as well as research on political networks (Mutz 2002; Klofstad, Sokhey, and McClurg 2013), it was

hypothesized that having regular political discussions with outparty members would soften the effect of partisan cues on whether one evinces reciprocity. The results show, though, that the deliberative bias partisans exhibit is not directly influenced by whether they have discussions with outparty members. However, nonexperimental results are suggestive that outparty social contact can have an indirect effect on deliberative attitudes through reducing partisan social identity salience. This conclusion should be further explored through experimental and/or representative observational research.

Finally, Chapter Six explores how the deliberative bias produced by partisan social identity varies by one’s personality. Drawing on a “Big Five” trait

conceptualization of personality (McCrae and Costa 1990), the chapter shows that those scoring high on one particular personality trait—openness to experience—react less deliberatively towards partisan policy disagreement than those scoring low on this trait.

This difference, moreover, is not reducible to differences in partisanship or issue attitude. These results are surprising, given that adjectives such as “curious” and “imaginative” are used to characterize individuals high on the openness to experience trait (McCrae and Costa 1990, 3). More theoretical thinking and empirical research will need to be done to validate and explain the effect of the trait on deliberative attitudes such as reciprocity. However, an effect of personality, generally, on attitudes towards reciprocity points to a normative concern that those making an argument for a “deliberative system” need to address. Personality is primarily rooted in one’s genetics and is largely unchanging through one’s life (Costa and McCrae 1988; Matthews, Deary, and Whiteman 2003, Ch. 6). As such, the results of this chapter suggest that an ideal deliberative system may exclude a certain population because their biologically-determined personality leaves them less apt to deliberate.