Book Review

Theorists have argued that discussion and disagreement are essential components of sound public opinion, and indeed that both are necessary for effective democracy. But their putative benefits have not been well tested. Consequently, this article examines whether disagreement in political conversation contributes to opinion quality--specifically, whether it expands one's understanding of others' perspectives. Data are drawn from a survey of the American public ( N = 1,684) conducted in February and March 2000. Open-ended survey measures of "argument repertoire"--reasons people can give in support of their own opinions, as well as reasons they can offer to support opposing points of view--are examined in light of numerous explanatory variables, including the frequency of political conversation and exposure to disagreement. Results confirm the hypothesis that exposure to disagreement does indeed contribute to people's ability to generate reasons, and in particular reasons why others might disagree with their own views.     

Argument Repertoire as a Reliable and Valid Measure of Opinion Quality: Electronic Dialogue During Campaign 2000

A new measure of opinion quality that we name "argument repertoire" (AR) is introduced and evaluated. AR refers to the relevant reasons that one has for one's own opinions and the relevant reasons that others with opposite opinions might have. The measure is shown to be reliable and to have construct validity. Those with elevated AR also were more likely to attend on-line deliberative groups during the presidential election and to contribute to those conversations. Those who participated in online deliberations tended to have higher AR scores on particular issues that were discussed. The role of AR in deliberative political groups is explored.     

The Practice of Deliberative Democracy: A Study of 16 Deliberative Organizations

This article investigates 16 organizations that attempt to foster better public deliberation in local and national communities. It develops a typology of these organizations and discusses them in the context of the scholarly literature on deliberative democracy. It particularly focuses upon the contributions these organizations may make to debates within the literature between advocates of relational and rational modes of deliberation. It finds that, much like the literature, practitioners of deliberative democracy wrestle with the competing demands of inclusiveness and group cohesion. Organizations attempt to solve this dilemma by stressing group action. However, this emphasis on action raises another dilemma associated with the relation between deliberative and representative models of politics. The essay concludes by suggesting that these organizations have accepted the challenge of improving public life through discourse that has been laid down by deliberative democratic theory. As such, they represent a natural experiment in deliberative democracy that deserves the serious attention of the scholarly community.     

Attention to Counter-Attitudinal Messages in a State Election Campaign

Research following the "selective exposure" model has focused on avoidance of political messages with which a person might disagree. But positive attention to such "counter-attitudinal" messages is worthy of study, in part because normative theories of democracy value exposure to information that might disturb citizens' political predispositions. Surveys of youth (N = 417) and parents (N = 430) examine attention to newspaper, television, and Web messages about candidates. While there is somewhat more attention to messages about and for a person's favored political candidate or party, forms of political involvement (knowledge, curiosity, and discussion) that predict this "attitude-consistent" attention also predict counter-attitudinal attention at least as strongly. Parents' education and students' exposure to civics lessons also predict both kinds of attention. These results suggest that attention to counterattitudinal political messages is worthy of further study as an important goal of political socialization and a criterion of citizen performance in democracy.     

Setting the Public Sphere in Motion: The Rhetoric of Political Bumper Stickers in Israel

Most members of the public have little opportunity to express political opinions via a mass medium. Political automobile bumper stickers provide such a possibility and can constitute a revival of Habermas's notion of the public sphere. This article examines how such bumper stickers function in the case of Israel, where political bumper stickers have become a ubiquitous medium of communication, expressing complex national-ideological messages that reflect individual opinions on a mass scale. Four elements have combined to bring about the development of this openly accessible political medium for the expression of public opinion: Israel's volatile political situation, a cultural predisposition to verbal expression on political topics, dramatic changes in the communication climate, and the particular status of cars and attitudes toward driving in the country. This mobile rhetoric has been used to set the public sphere in motion, reflecting five factors that account for the dynamism of the medium: the physical circulation of the messages on cars; the dialogic interaction and renegotiation of previously established ideological premises; the reflection, introduction, and maintenance of topics on the public agenda; the taking of power by the people; and the performative act of public expression.     

Democratic engagement in the digital age: youth,social media and participatory politics in Kenya

As the communication world becomes more complex and participatory, social networking sites (SNSs) have emerged as a platform with the potential to invigorate democracy and political engagement. However, the value of SNSs in politics remains contested among researchers. The study reported on in this article was based on a survey of 600 university students, aged between18 and 35, to examine the relationship between social media use and political engagement among the youth in Kenya. The study focused on the extent to which SNSs facilitate consumption of political information and the role of SNSs in influencing political interest, knowledge and behaviour among the youth. The study found that reliance on SNSs is positively associated with political participation; however, this influence is limited, and though useful, it does not radically transform political engagement. Therefore, the capacity of SNSs to shape opinion and influence political preferences is limited but internet based political activities like posting and distributing campaign information and consumption of political content have a bearing on political participation. The study concluded that while SNSs do not seem to have a major direct impact on political choices among users, politicians and other campaign actors cannot ignore the opportunity provided by these platforms in the voter mobilisation process.     

Internet applications in the political sphere: perceptions and views of political institutions in South Africa

Abstract

The study described in this article consisted of a survey that was conducted among a sample of South African political institutions and organisations, and that was aimed at investigating their views and perceptions with regard to the use of the Internet. The main research question posed by the current study was: What are the views of politically orientated institutions in South Africa on their use the Internet, and what are their perceptions on how the Internet could impact on democratic processes in the country? The aim of this exploratory research study was to obtain information that could cast light on the issue of how likely it was that the Internet would contribute to a deliberative democracy in South Africa. The survey revealed that the Internet was perceived to have a significant role to play with regard to political and democracy issues in South Africa. However, if certain problems (the lack of access, the lack of basic and computer literacy, and the lack of training) were not adequately addressed by means of an integrated government Internet strategy, the ability of the Internet to impact positively on democracy in South Africa would be very limited.     

Elections and political change in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article examines attempts to use electoral politics to promote substantive political change in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 1990 elections have been a key part of virtually all negotiated agreements to end civil wars. The utility of democracy for building peace is often asserted but rarely backed with long-term commitment and resources on the ground. Bosnia since 1996 is a rare exception. There, international actors sought not only to establish a democratic political system but to use electoral democracy as a tool with which to transform the nature of politics in Bosnia in short order. This article focuses on efforts to shape the development of political parties and the party system, assesses the degree to which it has succeeded and examines the broader implications of Bosnia's experience for other state-building efforts of its kind.     

Predicting Deliberative Conversation: The Impact of Discussion Networks,Media Use,and Political Cognitions

This study explores the meaning and origins of deliberative political conversation, characterized by an openness to political conflict, the absence of conversational dominance, clear and reasonable argument, and mutual comprehension. Adapting McLeod, Scheufele, and Moy's (1999) McLeod, J. M., Scheufele, D. A. and Moy, P. 1999. Community, communication, and participation: The role of mass media and interpersonal discussion in local political participation. Political Communication, 16: 315–336. [CSA][CROSSREF][Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] model of democratic engagement, we posit a series of relationships among discussion networks, media use, political cognition, and public participation. Using two divergent samples—one consisting of 149 adult literacy students and another comprising 130 public forum participants—we test the model's utility as a predictor of deliberative conversation. Structural equation modeling indicates that network characteristics had mixed effects. Print media use and interpersonal discussion tended to enhance deliberative conversation, and television news viewing hindered both the reasonableness of one's arguments and the comprehension of others' views. Taken together, these results suggest that the deliberative quality of public talk has a complex relationship with common predictors of other political communication behavior.     

Popular understanding of democracy in contemporary China

By taking the official state ideology into consideration, this article seeks to contribute to the study of public opinion of democracy under non-democratic regimes by analysing both qualitative and quantitative evidence collected in China. An examination of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s discourse on democracy reveals that the CCP endorses popular sovereignty and political participation while denying political contestation. Meanwhile, the concept of democracy can have three distinctive meanings among ordinary Chinese: democracy as freedom, democracy as political participation to ensure government accountability, and democracy as good socio-economic performance. Survey data show that the majority of informed Chinese respondents treat democracy as political participation to ensure government accountability, which indicates that Chinese understanding of democracy has reached to a certain degree of consensus that is closer to universally-shared idea of democracy rather than being culturally distinctive.     

Expanding the Conversation: Multiplier Effects From a Deliberative Field Experiment

Do formal deliberative events influence larger patterns of political discussion and public opinion? Critics argue that only a tiny number of people can participate in any given gathering and that deliberation may not remedy—and may in fact exacerbate—inequalities. We assess these criticisms with an experimental design merging a formal deliberative session with data on participants’ social networks. We conducted a field experiment in which randomly selected constituents attended an online deliberative session with their U.S. Senator. We find that attending the deliberative session dramatically increased interpersonal political discussion on topics relating to the event. Importantly, after an extensive series of moderation checks, we find that no participant/nodal characteristics, or dyadic/network characteristics, conditioned these effects; this provides reassurance that observed, positive spillovers are not limited to certain portions of the citizenry. The results of our study suggest that even relatively small-scale deliberative encounters can have a broader effect in the mass public, and that these events are equal-opportunity multipliers.     

Individual Motivations,Perceived Media Importance,and Political Disaffection

Mass media have been blamed for distancing people from the political process by increasing cynicism and voter apathy. A telephone survey of 592 registered voters in Washington state tested a set of relationships among political involvement, perceived media importance, political disaffection, and efficacy. As hypothesized, political involvement was positively associated with the perceived importance of newspapers and radio talk shows. These, in turn, were negatively associated with cynicism and positively associated with efficacy. Cynicism was negatively associated with efficacy, while efficacy was positively associated with involvement. The results suggest that involvement is a key variable in the political decision making process through its relationships with orientations toward information sources. Thus, media can serve as a catalyst for involved citizen decision making. Scholars should attend to the motivational context individuals bring to the media when examining the role of the media in political decision making.     

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important from a theoretical perspective, it reveals the intrinsic forces of family adaptation that can make the home a powerful incubator of citizenship. Political growth occurs when the family system adjusts to reestablish equilibrium in response to exogenous factors or developmental needs that propel change. The ultimate purpose of this essay is to propose a functional model of family political communication. We apply theoretical perspectives from developmental literature to illustrate how political communication serves the family goals of autonomy and cohesion during various stages of the family life cycle.     

Democratic theory,the courts and the press

Powerful social forces block the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Economic, political and social stability has not yet been achieved. The corporatist political and social structures have not been transformed to allow the vast majority to enjoy the basic necessities that ensure a life of dignity. Institutional structures of government, such as an independent judiciary, must be developed and stabilized. The rule of law and the guarantees of due process have to be consolidated and become an accepted, basic requirement of social interaction. Creating a specific kind of deliberative democracy based on the epistemic value of democratic decision making and discussion is the only way forward. This justificatory theory is more likely to allow for equal participation and rational discourse among all segments of the population. Objective information on important societal issues is a necessary prerequisite for such participation. This requires an independent press that adequately performs its democratic functions. Moreover, an independent judiciary has an indispensable role to play in this process, particularly in protecting the free flow of information to the people so that they can make informed choices on issues crucial to a democracy.     

Political culture in Turkey: Connections among attitudes toward democracy,the military and Islam

Against the background of Turkey's continuing but unconsolidated democratic transition, this article examines the nature and determinants of attitudes toward democracy held by ordinary Turkish citizens. Using data from the World Values Survey conducted in Turkey in 1997, it seeks to contribute to a growing body of literature concerned with the relationship between political culture and democratization. Although this relationship has not been fully explicated, the authors share the view of those scholars who believe that the existence of democratic attitudes and values among a country's population is no less important than are democratic institutions and procedures for advancing and eventually consolidating a democratic transition. Accordingly, the study seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: To what extent does the Turkish population hold attitudes supportive of democracy? What are the most important determinants of popular support for democracy? What factors account for any observed variance in relevant political attitudes? What is the relationship between attitudes toward the military and attitudes toward democracy and governance? What is the relationship between personal religious attachments and attitudes toward democracy and governance?     

Law,interrupted: on legislative disruption and deliberative democracy

This commentary piece teases out a theme that runs through the articles collected in this special issue: the relationship between legislative disruption and deliberative democracy. The practice of legislative disruption appears to go against the normative aspirations of deliberative democracy, but our discussion identifies several respects in which this mode of engagement can function to reinstate a deliberative environment in certain contexts. Drawing on the articles in this special issue, our analysis also brings to the fore certain inadequacies in deliberative democracy as a framework for evaluating legislative disruption.     

Public Opinion Infrastructures: Meanings,Measures, Media

A model of public opinion is presented that incorporates and highlights historical knowledge. This model suggests that public opinion is best viewed as an infrastructure consisting of measurement tools, media, and conceptions of public opinion. Using this model, it is possible to gauge opinion, reading "backward" from analysis of cultural artifacts (e.g., film or art) and thereby detecting conceptions of public opinion at work in a given period. The usefulness of this model is demonstrated in a brief analysis of the American film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which can be treated as a register of a particular infrastructure of public opinion operative in the 1930s.     

Transnational Partnerships: What Democracy? Whose Justice?

This article establishes that transnational partnerships should no longer be conceived as peripheral mechanisms of global governance. They have now become increasingly embedded in the multilateral system and a central component in the architecture of global governance. The intellectual progenitors of the partnership discourse have commonly justified governance by partnering as a means to close democratic deficits in global governance. Deliberative conceptualisations, on the other hand, view in the practice of partnering the emergence of a transnational public sphere populated by equal deliberative agents. This article argues that the ideas of democracy and justice ingrained in liberal and deliberative arguments for partnering are at odds with the concrete workings of these mechanisms of governance, which, above all, reflect asymmetrical configurations of power. Drawing on the insights of neo-Gramscian international political economy (IPE), it suggests that partnerships can be best conceptualised as sites of contested authority and frail legitimacy.     

Popular perceptions of political regimes in East and Southeast Asia

Political regimes in East and Southeast Asia run the full spectrum from liberal democracy through various hybrid democratic-authoritarian types and on to full-blown authoritarianism and totalitarianism. While political scientists have invested much effort and ingenuity in creating typologies of regimes to better understand the empirical diversity of political structures and processes, much less attention has been paid to what the citizens think. How do people in East and Southeast Asian countries perceive their own institutions and performance of governance? This article uses public opinion data derived from the AsiaBarometer 2006 and 2007 Surveys of 12 East and Southeast Asian countries to map what citizens actually think about their structures, processes, and outcomes of governance and compare these with the regime classifications of political scientists. The results revealed universal commitment to elections but disillusionment with political practice, positive estimations of the institutions of governance in Southeast Asia but much less enthusiasm in East Asia, and a preference for moderate opinions. There is no clear overall correlation between regime type and popular perception.     

Values,Communication Behavior,and Political Participation

This article examines how communication patterns mediate the influences of values on political participation. We find that the positive effects of postmaterial values on participation are mediated through reading public affairs content in newspapers. In contrast, materialist values negatively affect participation through watching television entertainment. Interpersonal discussion in which disagreement occurs mediates both the positive effect of reading public affairs and the negative effect of materialism on political participation. We also provide what may be a better explanation of the influence of communication patterns on political participation by going beyond acquisition of factual political knowledge. We show that individuals' efforts to think about news and search for additional information and perspectives modify what people "get from" media. Reflecting about news and integrating information from various sources promote better understanding of the political world and may provide a stronger cognitive base for political participation than factual political knowledge.