The Micropolitics of Deliberation

Deliberation is now widely regarded as central to democracy in both theory and practice. However, political scientists currently know little about how individuals actually experience deliberative settings, and the way policy preferences, value judgments, and beliefs change in these contexts. The project will investigate how individuals respond to different kinds of institutions, and the variety of ways in which both plurality of opinion and consensus can be produced in deliberative democracy. The project will contribute to democratic theory and identify exactly how institutional design can lead to authentic deliberation.