Democratic Deliberation and Impartial Justice

Theories of deliberative democracy maintain that outcomes of democratic deliberation are fairer than outcomes of mere aggregation of preferences. Theorists of impartial justice, especially Rawls and Sen, emphasize the role of deliberative processes for making just decisions. Democratic deliberation seems therefore to provide a model of impartial decision-making applicable in the real world. However, various types of cognitive and affective biases limit individual capacity to see things from others’ perspectives. In this paper, two strategies of enhancing impartiality in real world decision-making are discussed. The first involves decision-making processes which detach decision-makers from their particular interests, whereas the second aims to enhance the quality of democratic deliberation and empathetic reasoning. We conclude that new forms of democratic deliberation may be necessary if we hold on to the aspiration of making decisions which are both democratic (responsive) and impartial

Tarvitaanko politiikassa empatiaa?

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Miten valitaan äänestyssääntöjä?

Vaalijärjestelmä on yksi keskeisimmistä demokraattisen järjestelmän instituutioista, joka vaikuttaa merkittävästi siihen, kuka vaalit voittaa ja kuka häviää. Eerik Lagerspetz analysoi kirjassaan Social Choice and Democratic Values laajasti äänestyssääntöjen vaikutusta demokraattisiin päätöksiin. Lagerspetzin teos on tärkeä monestakin syystä, mutta erityisesti siksi, että se yhdistää harvoin keskenään keskustelevia normatiivisen demokratiateorian ja sosiaalisen valinnan teorian perinteitä. Pohdin artikkelissani äänestysmenettelyjen valintaa. Keskityn siihen, millä säännöillä äänestysmenettely valitaan, en niinkään sitä, ketkä valinnan tekevät. Tarkastelen aluksi sitä, miten äänestyssäännön valinta poikkeaa muista poliittisista valinnoista. Tämän jälkeen pohdin, millä menettelyillä valinta voidaan tehdä ja lopuksi tarkastelen kahta empiiristä tutkimusta siitä, miten äänestysmenettelyjä valitaan

Experimental methods

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Are we what parties we support? Personality traits and party support in a multi-party system

There is relatively little evidence about the association of personality to political behavior in multi-party systems. We analyze the association of two personality traits to party support in a multi-party system, where parties are differently aligned along the economic left-right axis and the GAL-TAN axis, that extends from green, alternative and libertarian to traditional, authoritarian and nationalist values. Machiavellianism refers to a manipulative and cynical personality, whereas Perspective-Taking is a tendency to see things from others’ perspective. We ask whether the left-right or the GAL-TAN axis is more relevant to the association between the personality traits and party support. We observed that the nationalist and conservative Finns party supporters score higher on Machiavellianism and lower on Perspective-Taking in comparison to the environmental and liberal Greens party supporters. These two parties are located at the opposite ends of the GAL-TAN axis. We do not see corresponding results on parties at the opposite ends of the left-right axis. The result suggests that personality traits may be more relevant for supporting parties that are best characterized by their location on the GAL-TAN axis.Peer reviewe

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

The Mode of Communication as a Driver of Sustainable and Equitable Asymmetric Common Pool Resource Use

Most experimental studies on common pool resource usage focus on situations in which actors are in symmetric positions when they use the resource. Many real-world cases do not fit this scenario because users are in asymmetric positions regarding their ability to benefit from the resource. Examples range from irrigation systems to climate change mitigation. Moreover, while there is large evidence on the effects of communication on social dilemmas, few studies focus on different modes of communication. We compare the effects of unstructured and structured communication on the provision of an infrastructure for a common pool resource and appropriation of the provided resource. tructured communication applied rules that are based on the ideals of democratic deliberation. Participants made contribution and appropriation decisions in an incentivized experiment. In the experiment, both communication and deliberation increased contributions in comparison to a baseline. Interestingly, deliberation attenuated the effect of the player position more than communication. Our results suggest that deliberation may be useful for overcoming asymmetric commons dilemmas in the field.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Accountability as a Warrant for Trust: An Experiment on Sanctions and Justifications in a Trust Game

Accountability is present in many types of social relations; for example, the accountability of elected representatives to voters is the key characteristic of representative democracy. We distinguish between two institutional mechanisms of accountability, i.e., opportunity to punish and requirement of a justification, and examine the separate and combined effects of these mechanisms on individual behavior. For this purpose, we designed a decision-making experiment where subjects engage in a three-player trust game with two senders and one responder. We ask whether holding the responder accountable increases senders’ and responders’ contributions in a trust game. When restricting the analysis to the first round, the requirement of justification seems to have a positive impact on senders’ contributions. When the game is played repeatedly, the experience of previous rounds dominates the results and significant treatment effects are no longer seen. We also find that responders tend to justify their choices in terms of reciprocity, which is in line with observed behavior. Moreover, the treatment combining punishment and justification hinders justifications that appeal to pure self-interest. </p

Can politicians and citizens deliberate together? : Evidence from a local deliberative mini‐public

In a deliberative mini‐public, a representative number of citizens receive information and discuss given policy topics in facilitated small groups. Typically, mini‐publics are most effective politically and can have the most impact on policy‐making when they are connected to democratic decision‐making processes. Theorists have put forward possible mechanisms that may enhance this linkage, one of which is involving politicians within mini‐publics with citizens. However, although much research to date has focussed on mini‐publics with many citizen participants, there is little analysis of mini‐publics with politicians as coparticipants. In this study, we ask how involving politicians in mini‐publics influences both participating citizens' opinions and citizens' and politicians' perceptions of the quality of the mini‐public deliberations. We organised an online mini‐public, together with the City of Turku, Finland, on the topic of transport planning. The participants (n = 171) were recruited from a random sample and discussed the topic in facilitated small groups (n = 21). Pre‐ and postdeliberation surveys were collected. The effect of politicians on mini‐publics was studied using an experimental intervention: in half of the groups, local politicians (two per group) participated, whereas in the other half, citizensdeliberated among themselves. Although we found that the participating citizens' opinions changed, no trace of differences between the two treatment groups was reported. We conclude that politicians, at least when they are in a clear minority in the deliberating small groups, can deliberate with citizens ithout negatively affecting internal inclusion and the quality of deliberation within mini‐publics.publishedVersionPeer reviewe