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永恒问题。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，协商理论家支持扩大他们所谓的民主协商——一种特殊形式的政治讨论，它是合作的、非强制性的、平等的、有不同意见的。总体而言，审议理论家认为审议将公民教育扩展到课堂之外。审议的一个可能的教育效果是增强政治宽容。政治宽容是指个人对将言论和集会自由等公民自由扩展到可能不受欢迎的少数群体的态度。然而，还没有研究过深思熟虑是否真的能增加个人的容忍度。为了开始评估美国政治中深思熟虑和宽容之间的关系，本研究进行了一个模拟深思熟虑的实验，以检验其对宽容的影响。实验对象将被要求参与一项针对不受欢迎群体的特定政策的竞争或合作讨论。期望在合作性讨论组中的被试更有可能趋同于他们的态度，变得更宽容，而在竞争性讨论组中的被试最初的态度将得到加强。换句话说，参与关于政策问题的政治讨论可能会导致态度的改变，即使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，以便确定如果在美国更大程度上采用它可能会产生什么影响。

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.