Can Deliberation Reduce Political Misperceptions? Findings from Deliberative Experiment on Immigration

Political misperceptions are a topical issue. Along with the populist surge that has taken place in many Western democracies, there has been an increase in political rhetoric that often blurs the line between facts and perceptions. Consequently, researchers have recently become more interested in political misperceptions, i.e. confidently held false beliefs about politics. Widespread political ignorance among ordinary citizens has been well documented by empirical research for several decades. More recent findings from the field of political sophistication suggest that misperceptions are very resistant to change. Experimental research has concluded that corrections typically fail or even exacerbate false beliefs. At the same time, the highly influential theoretical strand of deliberative democracy suggests that when engaging in deliberation participants will critically examine different views and therefore uncover falsehoods and misunderstandings and adjust their views accordingly. Deliberative discussions therefore potentially offer a way to correct false beliefs, although other methods have failed to do so. Findings from deliberative forums indicate that deliberation with others indeed can bring about opinion change and increased levels of political knowledge. That said the potential of deliberation to reduce misperceptions has not received much attention in empirical research. We make use of a deliberative experiment on immigration conducted in Finland in 2012 where participants engaged in either mixed and likeminded groups in order to estimate the potential for deliberation to reduce misperceptions. We measure misperceptions with two open-ended items where participants were asked to estimate the unemployment level among immigrants and unemployment benefits after having received a permit of residence. The data allows us to analyze pre- and post-deliberation misperceptions, as well as to compare them with a control group.