Cognitive Deliberation, Electoral Decision Making, and Democratic Health

David C. Barker

Social Science Quarterly, 2018, vol. 99, issue 3, 962-976

Abstract: Objective I examine the democratic consequences (on turnout, vote quality, and representation) of being encouraged to think more deliberately about political preferences. Methods A nationally representative survey experiment randomly exposes some respondents to a treatment designed to encourage greater cognitive deliberation; I observe the treatment effects on (1) a measure of the ideological consistency of candidate preferences, (2) preference certainty, and (3) intentions to turn out, dividing the sample according to age, gender, and political knowledge in order to observe hypothesized conditional effects. Results The treatment tended to reduce voting incentives among those who tend to be less engaged—women, the young, and low‐knowledge citizens. It did not, however, predict preference consistency significantly. Conclusion Encouraging greater cognitive deliberation may not only shrink the electorate, but may produce a more biased one as well, a normatively undesirable outcome that does not appear to be counterbalanced by any increase in “correct voting.”

Date: 2018
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