Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Effect of Democratic Deliberation on Political Tolerance

公众应该在多大程度上参与政治是民主理论的一个持久问题。 协商民主理论家支持参与，因为它可以教育公民。 然而，他们不相信扩大所有形式的政治活动。 相反，审议理论家支持扩大他们所谓的民主审议-一种特殊形式的政治讨论，是合作的，非强制性的，在平等的不同意见之间。 总体而言，审议理论家认为，审议延伸公民教育超出了课堂。 审议的一个可能的教育效果是提高政治容忍度。 政治宽容是个人对扩大公民自由的态度，如言论自由和集会自由，以潜在的不受欢迎的少数群体。 然而，审议是否真的可以增加个人的容忍度，还没有被研究过。 为了开始评估美国政治中的商议与宽容之间的关系，本研究进行了一个模拟商议的实验，以考察其对宽容的影响。 实验的受试者将被要求参与一个竞争性或合作性的讨论，讨论针对不受欢迎群体的特定政策。 我们的期望是，合作讨论小组中的受试者将更有可能收敛于他们的态度，变得更加宽容，而在竞争性讨论中的受试者的初始态度将得到加强。 换句话说，就政策问题进行政治讨论可能会导致态度的改变，尽管讨论的主题是政策而不是态度。 这个实验允许研究者创造一个尽可能接近深思熟虑的环境，以确定如果它在美国被更大程度地采用，它可能会产生什么样的影响。

How much the public should be involved in politics is an enduring question for democratic theory. Deliberative democratic theorists support involvement because it can educate citizens. However, they do not believe in expanding all forms of political activism. Instead, deliberative theorists support expanding what they call democratic deliberation - - a special form of political discussion that is cooperative, noncoercive, and among equals with diverse opinions. Overall, deliberative theorists argue that deliberation extends civic education beyond the classroom. One possible educative effect of deliberation is enhancing political tolerance. Political tolerance is the attitude of individuals towards extending civil liberties such as freedom of speech and assembly to potentially unpopular minority groups. However, it has not been examined whether deliberation actually can increase individuals' tolerance. To begin to assess the relationship between deliberation and tolerance in American politics, this study conducts an experiment that simulates deliberation in order to examine its effect on tolerance. Subjects for the experiment will be asked to engage in either a competitive or cooperative discussion about a particular policy towards and unpopular group. The expectation is that subjects in the cooperative discussion groups will be more likely to converge on their attitudes and become more tolerant while the subjects' initial attitudes in the competitive discussions will be reinforced. In other words, engaging in political discussion about a policy issue may lead to attitude change, eventhough it is the policy and not the attitude that is the topic of discussion. This experiment allows the investigator to create an environment that is as close to deliberation as possible in order to ascertain what its effects might be if it were adopted to a greater extent in America.