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Deliberation, single-peakedness, and the possibility of meaningful democracy: evidence from deliberative polls

List, Christian ORCID: 0000-0003-1627-800X, Luskin, Robert, Fishkin, James and McLean, Iain (2013) Deliberation, single-peakedness, and the possibility of meaningful democracy: evidence from deliberative polls. Journal of Politics, 75 (1). pp. 80-95. ISSN 0022-3816

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Identification Number: 10.1017/S0022381612000886

Abstract

Majority cycling and related social choice paradoxes are often thought to threaten the meaningfulness of democracy. Deliberation can protect against majority cycles—not by inducing unanimity, which is unrealistic, but by bringing preferences closer to single-peakedness. We present the first empirical test of this hypothesis, using data from Deliberative Polls. Comparing preferences before and after deliberation, we find increases in proximity to single-peakedness. The increases are greater for lower- versus higher-salience issues and for individuals who seem to have deliberated more versus less effectively. They are not merely a by-product of increased substantive agreement (which in fact does not generally increase). Our results are important, quite apart from their implications for majority cycling, because single-peakedness can be naturally interpreted in terms of an underlying issue dimension, which can both clarify the debate and allow a majority-winning alternative to be interpreted as a median choice and thus as an attractive “compromise.”

Item Type: Article
Official URL: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jop/current
Additional Information: © 2012 Southern Political Science Association
Divisions: Government
Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
CPNSS
Subjects: J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited: 17 Oct 2012 09:24
Last Modified: 25 Feb 2024 04:12
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/46863

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