A major programme of research on cognition has been built around the idea that human beings are frequently intuitive thinkers and that human intuition is imperfect. The modern marketing of politics and the time‐poor position of many citizens suggests that ‘fast’, intuitive, thinking in many contemporary democracies is ubiquitous. This article explores the consequences that such fast thinking might have for the democratic practice of contemporary politics. Using focus groups with a range of demographic profiles, fast thinking about how politics works is stimulated and followed by a more reflective and collectively deliberative form of slow thinking among the same participants. A strong trajectory emerges consistently in all groups in that in fast thinking mode participants are noticeably more negative and dismissive about the workings of politics than when in slow thinking mode. A fast thinking focus among citizens may be good enough to underwrite mainstream political exchange, but at the cost of supporting a general negativity about politics and the way it works. Yet breaking the cycle of fast thinking – as advocated by deliberation theorists – might not be straightforward because of the grip of fast thinking. The fast/slow thinking distinction, if carefully used, offers valuable new insight into political science.

As political polarization increases across many of the world's established democracies, many citizens are unwilling to appreciate and consider the viewpoints of those who disagree with them. Previous research shows that this lack of reflection can undermine democratic accountability. The purpose of this paper is to study whether empathy for the other can motivate people to reason reflectively about politics. Extant studies have largely studied trait‐level differences in the ability and inclination of individuals to engage in reflection. Most of these studies focus on observational moderators, which makes it difficult to make strong claims about the effects of being in a reflective state on political decision making. We extend this research by using a survey experiment with a large and heterogeneous sample of UK citizens (N = 2014) to investigate whether a simple empathy intervention can induce people to consider opposing viewpoints and incorporate those views in their opinion about a pressing political issue. We find that actively imagining the feelings and thoughts of someone one disagrees with prompts more reflection in the way that people reason about political issues as well as elicits empathic feelings of concern towards those with opposing viewpoints. We further examine whether empathy facilitates openness to attitude change in the counter‐attitudinal direction and find that exposure to an opposing perspective (without its empathy component) per se is enough to prompt attitude change. Our study paints a more nuanced picture of the relationship between empathy, reflection and policy attitudes.

Research suggests that the rightist discourse on immigration appeals to left‐leaning citizens with lower levels of education. The opposite is, however, not true for right‐wing voters with lower educational levels, and this asymmetry leaves left‐wing parties at a disadvantage compared with the right on immigration and integration issues. Deliberative theory promises that discussion, information and reflection can promote a more balanced political discussion and a more enlightened citizen. This article assesses the extent to which deliberative polling increases the ideological awareness of citizens with lower educational levels. More specifically, it gauges the extent to which especially less well educated left‐wing voters – those whose attitudes research finds to be particularly out of tune with their ideological predispositions regarding immigration and integration – adjust their attitudes as a consequence of deliberate exposure to informational input and the presentation of two‐sided arguments. Use is made of unique data generated during the first European‐wide deliberative polling project, ‘EuroPolis’, held in 2009. The results indicate that less well educated left‐wing voters indeed have slightly more negative attitudes towards immigrants than leftist voters with secondary or post‐secondary educational levels. Turning to the micro‐mechanisms of attitude change in a deliberative setting, the analyses show that both levels of education and ideological predispositions play a role in the extent to which participants of the deliberative poll adjust their attitudes. In three out of four models, evidence is found that less well educated left‐leaning citizens are indeed most likely to adjust their attitudes on immigration and integration after being presented with a more balanced discussion of the topic.

Despite some prominent critics, deliberative democrats tend to be optimistic about the potential of deliberative mini‐publics. However, the problem with current practices is that mini‐publics are typically used by officials on an ad hoc basis and that their policy impacts remain vague. Mini‐publics seem especially hard to integrate into representative decision making. There are a number of reasons for this, especially prevailing ideas of representation and accountability as well as the contestatory character of representative politics. This article argues that deliberative mini‐publics should be regarded as one possible way of improving the epistemic quality of representative decision making and explores different institutional designs through which deliberative mini‐publics could be better integrated into representative institutions. The article considers arrangements which institutionalise the use of mini‐publics; involve representatives in deliberations; motivate public interactions between mini‐publics and representatives; and provide opportunities to ex post scrutiny or suspensive veto powers for mini‐publics. The article analyses prospects and problems of these measures, and considers their applicability in different contexts of representative politics.

Deliberative forums, such as citizens’ assemblies or reference panels, are one institutionalization of deliberative democracy that has become increasingly commonplace in recent years. MASS LBP is a pioneer in designing and facilitating such long-form deliberative processes in Canada. This article provides an overview of the company’s civic lottery and reference panel process, notes several distinctive features of MASS LBP that are relevant to addressing challenges to democratic deliberation, and outlines possible areas for future research in deliberative democracy applied in both private and public settings.

Sartori (1970) warned a long time ago of the danger of concept stretching for effective and cumulative theory building. Such concept stretching has happened with regard to deliberation, which has become a very faddish term. For theoretically well-founded empirical research it is better conceptually to distinguish clearly between strategic bargaining and deliberation, although in the empirical political world the two concepts are usually heavily intertwined.

Steiner's principal objection to our paper is that deliberators in a committee are permitted to speak strategically whereas deliberative theory requires ‘that actors do not lie but are truthful and authentic in their statements’. In this response we observe that such a prescription is relevant only to the extent that individuals might be expected to behave otherwise. Our paper explores conditions under which deliberators' strategic (descriptive) incentives are aligned with the (prescriptive) advice to tell the truth.

Can deliberative mini‐publics contribute to deepening the democratic dimensions of electoral democracies? The question is framed in this article using a problem‐based approach to democratic theory–to count as democratic, political systems must accomplish three basic functions related to inclusion, communication and deliberation, and decision making. This approach is elaborated with an analysis of a real‐world case: a deliberative mini‐public with a citizens’ assembly design, focused on urban planning convened in Vancouver, Canada. This example was chosen because the context was one in which the city's legacy institutions of representative democracy had significant democratic deficits in all three areas, and the mini‐public was a direct response to these deficits. It was found that Vancouver's deliberative mini‐public helped policy makers, activists and affected residents move a stalemated planning process forward, and did do so in ways that improved the democratic performance of the political system. Depending on when and how they are sequenced into democratic processes, deliberative mini‐publics can supplement existing legacy institutions and practices to deepen their democratic performance.

This article makes three key contributions to debates surrounding the effectiveness of democratic innovation, deliberation and participation in representative political systems. In the first instance, it argues that more attention should be paid to the role that participation actually plays in governance. The literature on democratic institutional design often neglects concern about the effects of innovative institutional designs on more traditional representative fora, at the expense of concerns about their internal procedures. Second, the article argues that despite limitations, replicable systematic comparison of the effects of institutional design is both necessary and possible even at the level of national governance. A comparative analysis of 31 cases of National Public Policy Conferences (NPPCs) in Brazil is presented. Finally, the article shows that popular deliberative assemblies that vary in their familiarity and their policy area of interest, and that organise their structure and sequence deliberation in different ways can be associated with differential effects on both option analysis and option selection stages of the policy process, respectively.

Recently, a focus on democratic innovations emphasising an increasing and deepening citizen participation in political decision-making has been evident. Deliberative Walks offer a participatory–deliberative process in which the participants, by deliberating in small groups and joining facilitated walks, tackle a complex policy issue that has highly intertwined social and physical dimensions. Deliberative Walks builds on the principle that two participatory methods, citizens’ juries and development walks, are combined. Deliberative Walks are influenced by place-based learning. And like in outdoor pedagogy, learning by moving between the abstract and concrete, as well as transforming experience into knowledge through reflection and communication, is encouraged. We analyse an implemented education-oriented version, Studentlab Deliberative Walks, with nineteen university students. The results, based on questionnaires, interviews and essays, indicate that it is fruitful to experience an issue with all senses. The development walk was seen as more important than the citizens’ jury. Participating in Deliberative Walks promoted inclusion in the decision-making process, enhanced learning, boosted self-confidence and developed feelings of empowerment.

Are televised election debates (TEDs) a blessing for democracy, educating citizens and informing them of their electoral options? Or should they be viewed as a curse, presenting superficial, manipulating rhetoric in one-way communication? In this article, I evaluate TEDs from a deliberative point of view, focusing on the potential positive and negative outcomes of framing by politicians, as well as on the pros and cons of displaying emotions in debates. I argue that the use of these two rhetorical devices in TEDs is potentially helpful in inspiring deliberation, perspective-taking and subsequent reflection in both politicians and voters. This leads me to conclude that televised election debates should be critically approached as communicative venues with potential deliberative qualities.

This article combines the fields of deliberative theory and citizenship studies. Drawing from a deliberative experiment on foreigner political rights with almost 300 German citizens, we find that a short virtual deliberative treatment produced a clarification effect, whereby especially those with already negative views increased their scepticism. Participants in our deliberative treatment displayed higher levels of argument repertoire and integrative complexity, underlining that the treatment led to well‐considered opinions. A qualitative analysis of participants’ substantive rationales unravels traces of what De Schutter and Ypi dub ‘mandatory citizenship’, implying that political rights must be attached to obligations. These results have wide ranging implications: They indicate that the practice of deliberation is not quasi‐automatically programmed to progressive outcomes (as some have argued) but can have a communitarian dimension (where preferences are determined on the basis of existing communal values and self‐understandings); this suggests that participatory practices may not always advance progressive reforms.

In the midst of the great recession, the Spanish Socialists Worker’s Party (PSOE) lost the Government and experienced a process of instability while trying to reconnect with its electorate. The party’s strategic response was embracing highly inclusive deliberations on both key institutional and policy issues that eventually sparked tensions and division. These internal debates led to the introduction and implementation of other democratic innovations, such as direct votes and consultations that substantially transformed key features of the PSOE’s organizational model. The article discusses the main features and problems of such deliberations and democratic innovations, and their wider consequences.

This article takes issue with Steiner's polemic against the usage of ‘deliberation’ in rational choice scholarship. I show (i) that the reproach that rationalists do not allow for preference change is mistaken; (ii) that Steiner does not sufficiently distinguish between normative and positive contributions and (iii) that he shields his preferred model against systematic comparisons with strategic models of deliberation. In my view, we need more competing model evaluations rather than misleading attacks against imagined heretics.

This article challenges the prevalent interpretation of John Dewey as a forefather of deliberative democracy, and shows how Dewey's theory can help turn democratic theory toward participatory democracy, which is widely seen as having been incorporated by deliberative democracy. I argue that Dewey would find deliberative principles to be abstracting from our unequal social conditions by attempting to bracket the unequal social statuses that individuals bring with them to the deliberation. Dewey traces the deficiencies of current political debate to these unequal social conditions, and he thus claims that democratic theorizing should focus on enacting effective plans for overcoming social inequality, plans that may require nondeliberative practices that compel concessions from advantaged social interests. Deliberative democrats have increasingly aimed to account for such practices, but I claim that participatory democrats can draw on Dewey to illustrate how their theory can more comfortably accommodate these practices that directly attack inequality than can deliberative democracy.

This critical reply addresses William Caspary’s commentary on my use of John Dewey to elevate the theory of participatory democracy above deliberative democracy within contemporary democratic thought. In this reply I will defend my reading of Dewey against Caspary’s claim that Dewey is not the supporter of “nondeliberative” direct action that I take him to be. I will also explore the similarities and differences between my and Caspary’s views on the consonance of participatory democracy with practices of direct action, and I will expand on my own critique of deliberative democratic thought.

Deliberative democracy is a growing branch of democratic theory. It suggests understanding and assessing democracy in terms of the quality of communication among citizens, politicians, as well as between citizens and politicians. In this interview, drawing on his extensive research on deliberative practice within and beyond parliaments, André Bächtiger reflects on the development of the field over the last two decades, the relationship between normative theory and empirical research, and the prospects for practicing deliberation in populist times.