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Deliberation and Infotopia

By Cass Sunstein

Sunstein_infotopia_9780195189285What happens when people deliberate with one another? Do they arrive at the truth? Do they go toward the middle? Can we predict the effects of deliberation?

A few months ago, I tried to find out, collaborating with David Schkade (of the University of San Diego) and Reid Hastie (of the University of Chicago). We organized a kind of Deliberation Day in Colorado. Two cities were chosen. The first was Boulder, a predominantly liberal area. The second was Colorado Springs, which is generally Bush country.

Over 60 citizens were brought together to explore three of the most controversial issues of the day: affirmative action, an international treaty to control global warming, and civil unions for same-sex couples. People in Boulder deliberated with others from Boulder, and people from Colorado Springs deliberated with people from Colorado Springs. Thus people were generally sorted into groups of like-minded people. Citizens expressed their views in three ways: anonymously, before deliberation began; in small groups, which deliberated and tried to reach consensus; and anonymously, after deliberation concluded.

Our key question was this: What would be the effect of deliberation on people’s views? There were three major findings.

(1) Liberals in Boulder became distinctly more liberal on all three issues. Conservatives in Colorado Springs become distinctly more conservative on all three issues. The result of deliberation was to produce extremism — even though deliberation consisted merely of a brief (15 minute) exchange of facts and opinions!

(2) The division between liberals and conservatives became much more pronounced. Before deliberation, the median view, among Boulder groups, was not always so far apart from the median view among Colorado Springs groups. After deliberation, the division increased — by a lot.

(3) Deliberation much decreased diversity among liberals; it also much decreased diversity among conservatives. After deliberation, members of nearly all groups showed, in their post-deliberation statements, far more uniformity than they did before deliberation. (For a PDF file with detailed results from the experiment, click on the link below.)

It’s true that this experiment might seem a bit artificial. On most days, people who agree with one another do not come together into deliberating groups. But much of the time, political discussion does occur among like-minded types — and the consequences of their interactions are often to increase extremism, intensify polarization, and squelch internal disagreement.

The Internet (and, more recently, the blogosphere) has inspired many people, including me, to imagine a future information utopia (infotopia for short): a perfect aggregation of the widely dispersed information that individuals have. If an Infotopia is the goal, there are some pretty sure ways of not getting us there. One of those ways is captured in the Colorado experiment. Unfortunately, the Colorado experiment is echoed in many events in the real world — among Democrats, among Republicans, in the White House, on corporate boards, and even in the blogosphere.

Click here to read the entire article by David Schkade, Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie, “Political Deliberation and Ideological Amplification: An Empirical Investigation” (.pdf).


Cass Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, a contributing editor at the New Republic and the American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to such publications as The New York Times and The Washington Post. His latest book is Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge.

Recent Comments

  1. Carlos Trebbau

    The phenomenon is captured by the old proverb about birds of a feather sticking together. For me though, I find more disturbing the de facto segregation created by unregulated market forces: the rich live in “bubbled” enclaves while the poor are constantly pushed to the periphery; and since there is racism underlying the economy and society, segregation along racial lines also occur.
    Nonetheless, it must be said, it’s not all bad: it also results in new arguments, whatever their merit.
    The situation demands a conscious effort to brake down this barriers. Affirmative action cannot go at it alone and much less the illusion that an unfettered market will tend to eliminate racial practices. An institutional framework must be established that encourages interaction among these groups and wherever possible to make it a pareto type improvement i.e. a win-win situation

  2. Ben Quinn

    Dear Cass,
    I was extremely please to read your book Nudge, co-authored by you and Richard Thaler.
    The issue’s raised there were extremely interesting and pertinent too a problem that the Conservative Party has here in the UK.

    Can I ask you for an opinion on how this referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU should be worded, as such a Referendum has been promised by October 2017.

    I feel sure that the Conservative party has been in contact with you about this exit option.

    The majority of the Conservative Party are against leaving the EU as they feel that it will have too detrimental an affect on business and profits. They have a low skilled

    non-unionised labour force, willing to take low wages and work long hours to draw from. (Many of these worker’s are recruited directly from Poland and other countries in

    Eastern Europe.)

    The consensus of opinion in the general public is that due to European legislation there are to many Immigrants coming into the UK from Eastern Europe taking jobs, housing,

    and causing over crowding in school’s and health care. The general public thinks that it will be given a straight In/Out choice. (You and I know life is not like that!)

    David Cameron has said that the “default” situation for him is that the UK stays in Europe but as stated above he has promised a referendum on the matter by late 2017.

    My question to you is how do you think the referendum question will be raised in the ballot, as regards choice option’s too favour the Governments desire to stay in the EU

    against the general public’s consensus of opinion that the UK should leave the European Union.

    My initial thought on the matter is that “Peer” pressure will be put forward as regards future work and wage prospects to influence a no exit vote.

    Many thanks if you can help me with this issue.

    Ben Quinn

  3. stan fullerton

    wife Samantha crooked snake–violating American citizens rights

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