Who Wants to Continue Deliberating?

Deliberative democratic theory presents an alternative to traditional political decision making through representative structures. According to the proponents, engaging citizens in deliberative dialogues where the emphasis is on the quality of arguments that support demands provides a viable alternative to the traditional representative processes that emphasise aggregating citizens’ preferences for deciding on outcomes. Nevertheless, others question ordinary people’s willingness to take part in political deliberation and therefore also their practical feasibility. Public deliberation is a time-consuming form of political participation that requires you to engage in an argumentative exchange with people who may hold opinions very different from your own. Involvement in political discussions where your beliefs are challenged is taxing and may actually induce people to become negative towards deliberative practices. For this reason, some scholars contend that citizens generally prefer to leave political decision making to the politicians. We contribute to this research agenda by examining how taking part in a deliberative experiment affected attitudes towards using discussions involving ordinary citizens for political decision making. While previous research has examined whether citizens are willing to engage in public deliberation, it is still not clear whether they remain willing to do so after having taken part in a deliberative exercise. Following participatory democratic theory, it is generally believed that being politically active creates more positive attitudes towards involvement, thereby creating a virtuous cycle. However, if the sceptics are right in claiming that the experience is far from pleasant, the developments are likely to be more negative. We here examine how taking part in a deliberative process affects participants’ attitudes towards deliberative practices and whether there are differences in the attitudinal developments for participants depending on their individual characteristics. The data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged 2012 in Finland.