Barriers and Innovative Drivers of Learning Dynamics in Democratic Deliberations: A Systematic Review of the Literature and a Research Agenda

Deliberations, between citizens, between elected officials, or between citizens and elected officials, are central in all classic and newer forms of democracy. In deliberations, the process through which participants reinforce or revise their beliefs and preferences, based on social interactions with other participants, is crucial but not easy: people can talk but do not necessarily understand or even listen to each other. To the best of our knowledge, the academic evidence on such “learning” dynamics, in contexts of democratic deliberations, is still lagging behind or, at least, scattered and unclear. How do participants learn from each other, in deliberative contexts? What are the barriers that impede learning processes among them? What are the democratic innovations that overcome those barriers and foster learning dynamics? What are, ultimately, the effects of mutual learning on deliberation processes and outcomes? In order to take stock of existing academic knowledge about these important questions, a systematic review using the PRISMA approach was conducted. A total of 40 peer-reviewed articles in political and social science were analyzed. Our findings demonstrate a growing interest in this issue, especially regarding the analysis of learning barriers while, in contrast, research on the institutional, social or technical innovations driving learning is still limited. More specifically, we detail three sets of barriers that can impede collaborative learning among deliberation participants, namely, cognitive barriers (e.g., time and resources), attitudinal barriers (e.g., reason-giving, tolerance etc.), and social barriers (e.g., partisanship). Our results also point to the innovative drivers (e.g., specific rules, priming, a software etc.) that are susceptible to overcome these barriers. Finally, the review provides evidence that effective learning is desirable for deliberation: it accelerates the development of shared understandings and mutual agreements, transform relationships among parties and, ultimately, facilitates decision-making. We conclude with some implications and an agenda for future research.