Scholars have increasingly urged researchers to evaluate prior findings through replication studies that can help test, refine, and extend claims made in previous research. We agree that this is an important aspect of social science that deliberative scholarship has underutilized. To help fill this lacunae, we test our previous findings from an analysis of data from Citizen Initiative Reviews (CIRs) in 2016 by replicating our methodology on data from CIRs in 2018. We set out to determine if the patterns we discovered earlier and developed into the Deliberative Procedures Frame theory appeared again in 2018 CIRs. We find repeating across the two sets of data, including consistent levels of enthusiasm, slow rising happiness, and the relationships between certain emotions on the final day and participants’ evaluations of deliberative quality, and these indicate that our theory remains a viable explanation for emotions in mini-public deliberation. We remain confident that the sources of anger and frustration identified in our previous analysis remains correct. On the basis of this replication, we clarify that what we call the Procedures Frame enables the identification of the most likely time points during deliberation when the threat to democratic legitimacy and the risk to quality deliberation will most likely arise and result in expressions of emotion. Finally, our study reinforces how important deliberative design is to the role of emotions in the success of mini-publics.

Psychological phenomena have long been a focus of research on democratic deliberation, particularly concerning policy knowledge and attitudes and other issues addressed in conventional scholarship on political psychology. Yet in recent years, the subject matter of psychological research on deliberation has expanded to include a wider array of issues, ranging from lay conceptualizations of deliberation, to phenomena not foregrounded in traditional political psychology scholarship, including emotions, social identity, communication goals, relational schemata, and social learning. This essay summarizes key findings from prior research on psychological dimensions of deliberation, and then delineates recent deliberative scholarship that explores a broader range of psychological phenomena. Finally, this essay introduces the six new articles that make up this special issue. These articles offer novel theoretical and empirical insights on a number of current themes concerning psychological aspects of deliberation, while expanding knowledge concerning established areas of inquiry.

Objective Emotions in deliberative democratic practices have been of interest to researchers and practitioners of democracy for years. Yet, scholars have not fully analyzed emotions in this context. We advance this discussion in terms of both data collection and analysis with respect to Citizens' Initiative Reviews (CIRs) in Arizona, Oregon, and Massachusetts in 2016. We respond to four central research questions: (1) What discrete emotions do participants report experiencing during mini‐public deliberation? (2) How do the reported emotions vary across the period of deliberation? (3) How do the expressed emotions affect the deliberation? and (4) What work do expressed emotions do in mini‐publics in terms of helping or hindering deliberation? Methods To ensure a comprehensive analysis of the data we were able to collect, we employ a mixed‐methods design and use both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results and Conclusion Ultimately, we contend that the activities and tasks of the group, as well as the behaviors of participants and relationships among them, are all important factors that shape how people experience emotion, but that the CIR procedures have the greatest influence in mediating emotions to serve the ends of deliberation in these mini‐publics.

As illustrated in the introduction, the special issue ends with a ‘collective interview’ to some distinguished scholars that have given an important contribution to the study of New England Town Meetings. The collective interview has been realized by submitting three questions to our interviewees, who responded individually in written. The text of the answers has not been edited, if not minimally. However, the editors have broken up longer individual answers in shorter parts. These have been subsequently rearranged in an effort to provide, as much as possible, a fluid structure and a degree of interaction among the different perspectives provided by our interviewees on similar issues. The final version of this interview has been edited and approved by all interviewees.

One key idea in the history of deliberative theory is that citizens must listen to one another, though the fullest accounts of listening come from the broader field of democratic theory. Bickford’s (1996) theory is enlightening, but more compatible with agonistic democracy. Dobson’s (2014) exhortations to take listening seriously are important, even if he distances himself from deliberation. In practice, scholars of mini-publics have examined the importance of moderators, structures, and dispositions, including empathy, for outcomes related to listening. Studies using the Deliberative Quality Index reveal factors that improve listening in legislatures. Research examining reciprocity utilize measures that could help us better understanding deliberative listening. Work by Hendriks and Sercan (2017) has even directly examined listening in deliberation. Notwithstanding these developments, we must continue refining the conceptualization and operationalization of listening if we are to understand this aspect of a successful deliberative democracy.

Comme annonce dans l’introduction, ce numero special de Participations se clot sur un entretien collectif, mene par Paula Cossart et Andrea Felicetti, rassemblant certains des plus eminents representants de la recherche sur les town meetings de Nouvelle-Angleterre. Trois ensembles de questions ont ete soumis a chaque interviewe, qui y a repondu individuellement par ecrit. Hors corrections mineures, le texte des reponses n’a pas ete modifie ; mais il a parfois ete segmente de maniere a rendre la lecture plus fluide, et a mettre en evidence les interactions entre les differentes perspectives presentes dans ces lignes. La version finale de ce texte a ete editee et approuvee par les chercheurs interroges.

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I believe that empathy is important for democracy. To make this case, I investigate the history of the concept of empathy from its origins in 19 th Century German aesthetic philosophy, identifying the three key components of emotion, projection and understanding. The confusion surrounding empathy today arises from its use by later scholars in the psychoanalytic and social psychological tradition. As an alternative, I adapt a multi-dimensional model called the Process Model of Empathy. Empirical research demonstrates that the process of empathy can help individuals overcome various biases and affect outgroup evaluations; these are essential for democratic decisions to give equal consideration to all citizens. I then argue that these findings are important for Chantal Mouffe's theory of agonistic pluralism, making two claims. First, agonistic pluralism cannot function without putting the process of empathy at its heart; second, this implies that agonistic pluralism places too much emphasis on conflict. As an alternative, some combination of agonism and deliberation may be preferable, though whatever theory remains persuasive, the process of empathy must play a central role in democracy.

Deliberative democracy offers one of the most fruitful areas for developing connections between normative theory and empirical research, from which the discipline of political science can only benefit (for some examples among the many that available see Barabas 2004; Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs 2004; Gastil 2004; Luskin, Fishkin, & Jowell 2002; Mendelberg 2002; Mutz 2006; Neblo 2005; Rosenberg 2005; Trenel 2009; and Walsh 2004 and 2006). Some democratic theorists have concluded that, theoretically, deliberative democracy has now fully developed (e.g., Chambers 2003), but the empirical question of what contributes to successful deliberation is still an open one. In this paper, I attempt to bring together normative theory and empirical research to gain a better understanding of deliberation. I do so by examining one particular condition that I believe must exist if deliberative publics are to count as deliberative: reciprocity. In the present studies, I examine what influence empathy and winning and losing have on participants’ perceptions of reciprocity and their commitment to further deliberation. Research from social psychology on biases demonstrate how they threaten reciprocity, and thus, successful deliberation. I argue that the process model of empathy I have developed elsewhere (Morrell 2010) offers one of the best models to test whether empathy can help overcome these biases. It also provides a finer understanding of empathy so that we can evaluate its various components. I also posit that winning and losing at the end of deliberation should have a significant effect on perceptions of reciprocity. While there is still much work we must do to discover the best ways to insure reciprocity, I provide an initial assessment demonstrating the empathy and winning and losing have significant impacts on deliberative reciprocity. It is my hope that the findings of these experiments will aid both theorists and empirical researchers in understanding the complex nature of deliberation. This understanding is vital for without reciprocity, deliberation simply cannot exist.

Journal Article Direct Democracy Worldwide by David Altman Get access Direct Democracy Worldwideby David Altman. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2010. 264pp. $90.00. Michael E. Morrell Michael E. Morrell University of Connecticut Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, Volume 126, Issue 4, Winter 2011, Pages 719–720, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2011.tb02214.x Published: 25 March 2013

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