John Gastil

A Definition and Illustration of Democratic Leadership

Renewed calls for democracy make it imperative that we understand the nature of democratic leadership. Existing definitions of democratic leadership are inconsistent and inadequate, so this essay provides a clear definition that applies to social groups both large and small. As defined herein, democratic leadership is conceptually distinct from positions of authority; rather, it is defined as the performance of three functions: distributing responsibility among the membership, empowering group members, and aiding the groups decision-making process. Many, most, or all members of a group serve these functions, regularly exchanging the roles of leader and follower. A limited number of practical and moral considerations are identified for assessing the appropriateness of the democratic leadership model for different groups. In addition, the National Issues Forums program is used to illustrate the model, and suggestions are made for future research on democratic leadership.

Generic Pronouns and Sexist Language: The Oxymoronic Character of Masculine Generics

This experiment investigated the propensity of the generic he to evoke images of males relative to he/she and the plural they. Undergraduates read sentences aloud and verbally described the images that came to mind. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that the generic he evokes a disproportionate number of male images. Results also suggest that while the plural they functions as a generic pronoun for both males and females, males may comprehend he/she in a manner similar to he. Theoretical implications for a critique of sexist language and prescribing generic pronoun usage are considered.

Civic Awakening in the Jury Room: A Test of the Connection between Jury Deliberation and Political Participation

Deliberative democratic theory posits that civic discussion leads to increased involvement in public affairs. To test this claim, this study explored the link between jury deliberation and electoral participation. It was hypothesized that empanelled jurors who reach verdicts are more likely to vote in subsequent elections than empanelled jurors who fail to reach a verdict or even begin deliberations. Data collected in Thurston County, Washington, supported this hypothesis. Controlling for other trial features and past voting frequency, citizens who served on a criminal jury that reached a verdict were more likely to vote in subsequent elections than were those jurors who deadlocked, were dismissed during trial, or merely served as alternates.

Is Face-to-Face Citizen Deliberation a Luxury or a Necessity?

A broad range of democratic theorists recognize deliberation as a central feature of the democratic process, but only a minority argue that such deliberation must take place among citizens in a face-to-face setting. Advocates of face-to-face citizen deliberation will remain the minority in the debate on deliberation unless they can make a convincing argument for its necessity. First, it must be demonstrated that deliberation among citizens contributes to democratic governance above and beyond the deliberation conducted by officeholders and professional communicators. Second, face-to-face politics will appear increasingly quaint as populations continue to expand, international bodies continue to grow in power, and the Internet continues to widen its reach and improve its features. If research cannot identify any special virtues of face-to-face deliberation, it is hard to justify its expense and inconvenience relative to computer-mediated citizen discussion.

The Aims, Methods, and Effects of Deliberative Civic Education Through the National Issues Forums

This essay examines the goals, teaching methods, and educational impact of deliberative civic education. Brief descriptions of three current deliberative education programs are followed by an in‐depth analysis of the National Issues Forums (NIF). A summary of NIF materials clarifies the programs basic educational goals and methods. A review of qualitative and quantitative studies gauges NIFs effectiveness. Results show that NIF can bolster participants’ political self‐efficacy, refine their political judgments, broaden their political conversation networks, and reduce their conversational dominance; however, NIF may have no direct effect on political participation, and it may heighten participants’ skepticism about the efficacy of group‐based political action.

Undemocratic Discourse: A Review of Theory and Research on Political Discourse

This essay begins by suggesting that political discourse analysis should identify the inadequacies of existing discourse relative to an ideal model of democratic deliberation. Modern writings on political discourse are then reviewed, connecting related concepts and theories from a variety of academic disciplines. The review discusses lexicon (vocabulary, technical words, imprecise words, euphemisms and loaded words), grammar (speech acts, implicature, syntax, pronouns and naming conventions), rhetorical strategies (integrative complexity, rituals, metaphors and myths) and conversational tactics (turn-taking and agenda-setting). The conclusion offers suggestions for future theory and research on political discourse.

Adult Civic Education Through the National Issues Forums: Developing Democratic Habits and Dispositions Through Public Deliberation

Adult educators stress the importance of civic education, but few studies have theorized and measured the impact of such educational programs. This study presents a social cognitive model of political participation that posits connections among deliberative education, civic dispositions, and political conversations. The validity of this model was tested using two field studies of National Issues Forums participants, and the results provided partial support for the model. The first investigation indicated that deliberative civic education had a negative relationship with participants’ group efficacy and conversation dominance and positive associations with the ideological and demographic diversity of participants’ conversation networks. A second study demonstrated that civic dispositions and behaviors were positively associated with forum experiences that involved higher levels of reading, listening, observing, and enactment. These findings suggest the potential value of deliberative forums as a means of civic education, but they also demonstrate that forums vary considerably in their educational impact.

The Second National Risk and Culture Study: Making Sense of - and Making Progress In - The American Culture War of Fact

Cultural Cognition refers to the disposition to conform ones beliefs about societal risks to ones preferences for how society should be organized. Based on surveys and experiments involving some 5,000 Americans, the Second National Risk and Culture Study presents empirical evidence of the effect of this dynamic in generating conflict about global warming, school shootings, domestic terrorism, nanotechnology, and the mandatory vaccination of school-age girls against HPV, among other issues. The Study also presents evidence of risk-communication strategies that counteract cultural cognition. Because nuclear power affirms rather than threatens the identity of persons who hold individualist values, for example, proposing it as a solution to global warming makes persons who hold such values more willing to consider evidence that climate change is a serious risk. Because people tend to impute credibility to people who share their values, persons who hold hierarchical and egalitarian values are less likely to polarize when they observe people who hold their values advocating unexpected positions on the vaccination of young girls against HPV. Such techniques can help society to create a deliberative climate in which citizens converge on policies that are both instrumentally sound and expressively congenial to persons of diverse values.

The Cultural Orientation of Mass Political Opinion

Most Americans lack any substantial degree of ideological sophistication (Kinder 1998), yet they often manage to express coherent views across a range of issues.The conventional explanation for this is that people rely on judgmental shortcuts (e.g., Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). These “heuristics” permit individuals with sufficient political sophistication to sort and filter incoming messages to form relatively consistent views that align with preexisting values (Zaller 1992). If the key cueing device in such models is the source credibility heuristic (Mondak 1993), how do people who lack the time and ability to become actual policy experts have the time and capacity to figure out which policy experts are credible? How does this theory explain the coherence some have found in the views of those with limited political knowledge (Goren 2004)? We approach these two questions with the perspective offered by Mary Douglas (1982) and Aaron Wildavsky’s (1987) cultural theory. In brief, we argue that most peoples neither have the time, inclination, and ability to derive policy positions from abstract ideological principles, nor do they have the inclination or resources at-hand to sort through the empirical claims advanced in technical policy debates. Instead, as Wildavsky (1987, 8) said, “ordinary folk” use the orienting force of culture “to generate miles of preferences” from only “inches of fact.” To make the case for this conception of public opinion, we begin with a theoretical overview of how this process, which we call the Wildavsky Heuristic Model, relates to existing accounts of mass political opinion, particularly those featuring ideology. Then, we test some of this model’s core propositions using original national survey data, and finally, we draw out the theoretical and practical implications of those results.

A meta-analytic review of the productivity and satisfaction of democratic and autocratic leadership

There exists a wealth of research examining the effects of democratic and autocratic leadership on group productivity and member satisfaction; however, past reviews of this literature have not systematically integrated the results of available quantitative studies. This essay uses a meta-analysis to provide such an integration. Analysis reveals no correlation between democraticdautocratic leadership style and productivity, except when taking into consideration the influence of study setting and task complexity. Results also suggest that democratic leadership has a moderate positive correlation with member satisfaction, but this relationship may be moderated by task complexity. The conclusion discusses the limits of experimentally manipulating democratic leadership and the need for conceptual refinement.