In Defense of Exclusionary Deliberation: Communication and Voting with Private Beliefs and Values
| Published date | 01 July 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629807077572 |
| Date | 01 July 2007 |
| Author | Adam Meirowitz |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
IN DEFENSE OF EXCLUSIONARY DELIBERATION:
COMMUNICATION AND VOTING WITH
PRIVATE BELIEFS AND VALUES
Adam Meirowitz
ABSTRACT
We analyze strategic communication and voting when agents do not necessa-
rily have common beliefs and values. The potential for some pairs of partici-
pants to have opposed preferences makes truthful revelation difficult to
support. Nonetheless, truthful equilibria are shown to exist for some parame-
terizations in which non-common values are likely. Truthful equilibria exist if
and only if participants of all possible preference types are optimistic that a major-
ity of the group has their preference type. In settings in which truthful equilibria
exist for all population sizes, asymptotic efficiency attains. The probability that
the collective choice corresponds to that which a majority would choose with full-
information approaches one as population size tends to infinity. In many settings,
however, truthful equilibria exist only for small groups. In these cases, we charac-
terize a natural partially revealing equilibrium; asymptotic efficiency fails in these
equilibria. Interestingly, we find that larger groups need not outperform smaller
groups as truthful equilibria are easier to support with small deliberative bodies.
Thus, the design of deliberativeinstitutions involves a trade-off between the statis-
tical benefit of more participantsand the difficulty in supporting information trans-
mission in larger settings. For many reasonable cases,the latter effect is dominant
and excluding randomlychosen participants is desirable.
KEY WORDS .committees .deliberation .information aggregation .infor-
mation transmission
1. Introduction
There are again two methods of removing the causes of fraction: the one, by
destroying the liberty ..., the other, by giving every citizen the same opinions, the
same passions, and the same interests.... The second expedient is as impractical
as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and
I appreciate comments from Chris Achen, John Duggan, Mark Fey, William Keech, John Patty,
Tom Romer, Roberto Weber, participants at the 2003 APSA and MPSA meetings, an anonymous
reviewer, and the editor. I thank Natasha Zharinova and Raymond Hicks for their assistance.
Journal of Theoretical Politics 19(3): 301–327 Copyright 2007 Sage Publications
DOI: 10.1177/0951629807077572 Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
http://jtp.sagepub.com
he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the con-
nection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions
will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to
which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from
which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uni-
formity of interests.... The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of
man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity,
according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opi-
nions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well
as speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously con-
tending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose for-
tunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind
into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more
disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.
(Madison, in Hamilton, [1788]1961, Federalist 10: 131–2)
Equally important, the republican belief in the subordination of the private inter-
ests to the public good carries a risk of tyranny and even mysticism. The belief is
also threatening to those who reject the existence of a unitary public good, and
who emphasize that conceptions of the good are plural, and dependent on perspec-
tive and power. (Sunstein, 1988: 1540)
In many collective choice settings, like legislatures, town hall meetings, corpo-
rate board meetings, advisory committee meetings, and faculty meetings, indivi-
duals can freely communicate prior to formal voting procedures. The possibility
of argument, debate and even reasoned discourse offered by these deliberative
settings has not escaped the attention of prominent deliberative theorists. In
recent scholarship, Sunstein (1988), for instance, argues that deliberation
can lead to ‘uniquely correct outcomes’, and Gutmann and Thompson (1996)
‘believe that a deliberative perspective can help resolve some moral disagree-
ments in democratic politics’ and ‘... help citizens treat one another with
mutual respect as they deal with the disagreements that invariably remain’
(p. 9). Fishkin (1991) defends several reforms that introduce deliberation by ran-
domly selected masses to various stages of the republican system. Despite its
broad appeal to normative scholars, deliberation has been challenged by several
authors
1
and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of deliberation is mixed.
Mendelberg (2002) summarizes the evidence, ‘Group discussion sometimes
meets the expectations of deliberative theorists, other times falls short. Partici-
pants can, as theorists wish, conduct themselves with empathy for others, equal-
ity and open-mindedness. But attempts to deliberate can also backfire’ (p. 151).
Despite the presence of an extensive literature, few scholars of deliberative
1. For example, Sanders (1997) notes that inequities in persuasiveness may translate into inequita-
ble conclusions.
302 JOURNAL OF THEORETICAL POLITICS 19(3)
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