Kimmo Grönlund

Deliberation and civic virtue: lessons from a citizen deliberation experiment

This paper focuses on the “side-effects” of democratic deliberation. More precisely, we analyse the potential of deliberative mini-publics to enhance political knowledge, efficacy, trust as well as political and other collective action. The empirical analysis is based on a deliberative experiment on nuclear power. This “citizen deliberation” was held in November 2006. Our initial finding is that the volunteers who were willing to take part in the experiment were more inclined to act politically than those who did not volunteer; they also possessed a higher level of internal political efficacy and had more trust in the parliament and politicians. When it comes to the impact of deliberation, participation in the experiment increased energy related knowledge but reduced slightly internal political efficacy. The sense of external political efficacy was not directly affected, but the participants‟ trust in parliament and politicians did rise. Interpersonal trust increased slightly as well as the participants‟ willingness to take a particular kind of collective action (electricity saving). However, deliberation did not to increase the participants‟ preparedness to act politically.

In Honest Officials We Trust Institutional Confidence in Europe

This article analyzes trust in public institutions. In both theoretical literature and empirical research, a link between social trust and institutional trust has been established. Our aim is to cast additional light on this relationship. In particular, we test whether institutional trust is dependent on citizens’ perceptions of how well institutions live up to normative expectations held by the public. The focus on such normative expectations, such as incorruptibility and honesty, is different from much of the previous empirical work which often predominantly focuses on policy outputs, such as economic performance, as a determinant of political support. Two main hypotheses derived from the theoretical discussion are tested in the analysis: Generalized social trust is positively associated with institutional trust (Hypothesis 1) and Institutional trust depends on people’s perceptions of the extent to which institutions live up to such normative expectations as incorruptibility and honesty (Hypothesis 2). Using data from the European Social Survey, the analyses are first carried out at a country level and later at an individual level. Even though the hypotheses are verified to a large extent, the most powerful determinant of institutional trust proves to be satisfaction with policy outputs. Institutional trust is associated with social trust as well as with the perception that public officials act honestly, and the pattern is similar regarding trust in both parliament and the legal system. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the societies’ average levels of social trust and corruption do not affect the causal mechanisms of institutional trust at the individual level.

Online Deliberation and Its Outcome—Evidence from the Virtual Polity Experiment

ABSTRACT In this article, findings are presented from a pilot experiment carried out online via a platform designed specifically for citizen deliberation. The purpose of the experiment was to assess how online deliberation works in practice and also to test several hypotheses concerning the effects of taking part in an online deliberation has on participants. Additionally, an examination is made to ascertain whether a variation in the deliberative procedure affects the outcome. The findings show that carrying out an online deliberation has its problems—especially technical ones. Moreover, the effects of deliberation are somewhat modest. Knowledge gains and opinion changes were indeed traced, but regarding other potential effects, only a few significant changes were found. The article also comes up with some recommendations regarding the organization of online discussions.

Cross-Pressures and Voting in the Finnish Presidential Election in 1994

Abstract Cross-pressures are social value-conflicts that affect individuals politically. The cross-pressures hypothesis insinuates that these value-conflicts have a passivating effect on voters. In this article I use data from the Finnish presidential election in 1994 and analyse four situations where voters should have experienced cross-pressures. The t -test is used in order to measure whether there is a significant difference in the electoral turnout between the cross-pressure municipalities and the rest of the municipalities. The results show that in one of the test cases cross-pressures have a passivating effect, whereas the hypothesis is falsified in three cases. Since the only verified test case represents a situation where neither of the candidates was evaluated positively by the voters in the context, the results imply that negative cross-pressures passivate voters .

What drives the polarisation and moderation of opinions? Evidence from a Finnish citizen deliberation experiment on immigration

In the study of deliberation, a largely under-explored area is why some participants polarise their opinion after deliberation and why others moderate them. Opinion polarisation is usually considered a suspicious outcome of deliberation, while moderation is seen as a desirable one. This article takes issue with this view. Results from a Finnish deliberative experiment on immigration show that polarisers and moderators were not different in socioeconomic, cognitive or affective profiles. Moreover, both polarisation and moderation can entail deliberatively desired pathways: in the experiment, both polarisers and moderators learned during deliberation, levels of empathy were fairly high on both sides, and group pressures barely mattered. Finally, the low physical presence of immigrants in some discussion groups was associated with polarisation in the anti-immigrant direction, bolstering longstanding claims regarding the importance of presence for democratic politics.

Does Deliberation Breed an Appetite for Discursive Participation? Assessing the Impact of First-Hand Experience:

Various deliberative practices have been argued to constitute viable supplements to traditional representative decision making. At the same time, doubts have been raised as to whether ordinary citizens want to be involved in such demanding forms of political participation. This question has been difficult to resolve since few citizens have had the chance to take part in genuine deliberative practices. For this reason, we examine how participation in a deliberative mini-public affected attitudes towards discursive participation as a supplement to representative decision making. Moreover, we investigate how group composition and individual-level factors affect these developments. Our data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged in Finland in 2012. The results suggest that the participants grew more positive towards the use of deliberative practices regardless of individual socio-demographic resources, whereas the effects of prior political engagement depend on the composition of the group the participants were assigned to.

Voter turnout in politically homogeneous and dichotomous contexts: A comparison of two electoral systems

Abstract The article analyses the impact of the local political context on voter turnout. Two specific situations are studied, i.e. contexts where one political party dominates and contexts where the political support is evenly split between two large parties. Voter turnout in these two constellations is compared with communities where the vote is fragmented between several parties. Moreover, the electoral system is treated as an intervening variable and two countries with different electoral systems are included in the study. All democratic parliamentary elections in Finland (PR) and Great Britain (FPTP) are studied. Thus, the time span covers eight decades from 1918 to 2001. The theoretical approach model is based on hypotheses of social gravity and cross-pressures. It is established that the local political context affects voter turnout clearly in the plurality system, whereas the effects in the proportional system are less apparent.

Do discussions in like-minded groups necessarily lead to more extreme opinions? Deliberative democracy and group polarization

In today’s society, we can easily connect with people who share our ideas and interests. A problem with this development is that political reasoning in like-minded groups easily becomes lop-sided since there is little reason to critically examine information that everyone seems to agree with. Hence, there is a tendency for groups to become more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. We designed an experiment to test whether introducing deliberative norms in like-minded discussions can alleviate such group polarization. Based on their attitudes toward a linguistic minority, participants were divided into a positive and a negative opinion enclave. Within the two enclaves, the participants were randomly assigned to group discussions either with or without deliberative norms. Both face-to-face and online discussions were arranged. We found that free discussion without rules led to group polarization in like-minded groups, whereas polarization could be avoided in groups with deliberative norms.

Talking with like-minded people—Equality and efficacy in enclave deliberation

Abstract Enclaves of like-minded people are often seen as problematic from a democratic point of view, as they have been found to lead to both group polarization and an amplification of cognitive errors. Nevertheless, enclaves can also act as protected spaces have the opportunity to discuss politics with their peers. As a result, people who are less well-endowed to face political disagreement can find it easier to engage in politics. In order to study the ‘empowering’ potential of enclave deliberation, we use data from a population-based experiment (n = 207). The participants were randomly allocated to two treatments. Some participants deliberated in groups consisting of people with similar baseline views on immigration (like-minded treatment), whereas others deliberated in groups where both restrictive and permissive participants were present (mixed treatment). We hypothesize that (1) discussion in like-minded groups is more equal than in mixed opinion groups and that (2) participants with lower resources feel politically more efficacious after deliberation in like-minded than in mixed groups. Our results suggest that people with higher resources tend to be more active regardless of treatment. Nevertheless, we also find that among those with lower resources deliberation in like-minded groups generates a higher sense of equality than discussion in mixed opinion groups.

Empathy in a Citizen Deliberation Experiment

Despite increased scholarly attention, there is still limited knowledge on how empathy works in democratic deliberation. This article examines the role of empathy in citizen deliberation with the help of a deliberative experiment on immigration. First, a random sample of citizens was surveyed regarding their opinions on immigration. Based on their opinions, they were then divided into a permissive or a non-permissive enclave, and randomly assigned into like-minded or mixed-opinion groups for deliberation. After deliberation, they were surveyed anew. The study analyzes: (a) empathy differences between permissive and non-permissive participants; (b) changes in outgroup empathy toward immigrants as a result of deliberation; and (c) differences in prosocial behavior (i.e., donating to charity). The results show that the permissive respondents had more empathy, especially toward immigrants, than the non-permissive respondents. Among participants, outgroup empathy increased during deliberation. Regarding prosocial behavior, the permissive participants donated more often to charity at the end of the experiment.