Deliberation and Attitude Change - 2
The idea of face-to-face public deliberation has considerable appeal. Given the
intensity of many public disputes and the high cost of divisive--even violent--political
conflict, the notion that warring factions might sit down together, talk through their
disagreements, and arrive at a common understanding is quite attractive. Thus, many
proponents of deliberation have identified it as an appropriate means of addressing deep
moral conflicts (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996; Pearce & Littlejohn, 1997). Moreover,
deliberation holds out the promise of numerous indirect benefits, such as increasing
participants’ sense of community identity, their habituation toward political dialogue,
their civic communication skills, their political knowledge, and their sense of self-
efficacy (Burkhalter, Kelshaw, and Gastil, in press).
But as Mendelberg (2002) notes, “Not everyone is taken with deliberative
prescriptions to the ills of democracy” (p. 152). Mendelberg and other critics (e.g.,
Anderson, 1998; Pellizzoni, 2001; Sanders, 1997) have suggested that deliberation must
relinquish its exalted status as a foolproof form of political talk. Following the advice of
these critical views, we must come to understand more precisely what deliberation is,
how it works, and what effects it has on participants.
Fortunately, as public deliberation has become a more commonplace political
concept, a modest body of empirical work on deliberation has begun to emerge. The
focus of much of this work has been on how deliberation influences the attitudes of
participants in deliberative forums, be they face-to-face or on-line. One of the most
widely reported attempts at deliberation, the 1996 National Issues Convention, has
received conflicting accounts as to whether participants changed their opinions on the
Convention