Men as They Might Be? Democratic Theory Meets Political Psychology

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

At least since Plato’s Republic, political thinkers have based their construction of political ideals on speculations about human psychology. Whether the purpose of political institutions is to cultivate virtue or excellence among citizens, or to channel citizens’ existing virtues to their best (or least bad) effect, arguments for political ideals often depend on claims about human psychology that are – at least in principle – empirically falsifiable. These include, for example, claims about whether individuals rationally respond to incentives, how individuals develop interests and preferences, how individuals process information, how individuals form social identities and relationships, how these identities shape individuals’ attitudes and behavior, how individuals internalize social norms, and how much agency individuals have in changing their own behavior in accordance with norms they endorse [among many, many others.]

The role of these empirical claims in supporting institutional ideals and norms of citizenship suggests rich opportunities for exchange and collaboration among normative political theorists and empirical scholars of political psychology. In recent decades, for example, some of the most fruitful developments in democratic theory have come from the uptake of literature on cognitive biases and information processing in ideals of citizenship and civic obligation, from the uptake of ideas from deliberative democratic theory in designing research on belief and judgment formation in different environments, and from collaborations among empirical scholars and normative theorists to study the effects of institutional innovations (most notably “deliberative mini-publics.”)

The first of the four papers on this panel sits at this intersection between empirical scholarship and normative democratic theory. “A Conceptual Framework for Successful Bias Intervention in Political Decision-Making” shows how normative theory can inform not only the research questions that empirical researchers ask, but also the conceptual categories that we use to describe behavioral phenomena. Miller and Jung argue that the standard categorization of cognitive bias types limits our understanding of these biases and their political implications. They argue for an alternative framework that categorizes biases based on the kinds of interventions to which they are amenable.

The remaining three papers in this panel expand beyond these conversations to explore how emerging or underappreciate areas of research in political psychology can inform democratic theory. Brookes Brown’s paper “Do I need to read the news? Citizenship, Ethics, and the Psychology of Care” articulates a novel account of the duty of citizens to become informed. Drawing heavily on moral psychology, Brown argues that this duty is not grounded in the instrumental value of information, but in its more basic link to citizens’ duties of care.

In “Mechanisms of Constructive Representation,” Charles de la Cruz advances the emerging theory of constructive representation. De la Cruz draws from a range of empirical literatures on political behavior to understand and articulate the specific activities that constitute constructive representation. This specification of the model of constructive representation, in turn, allows researchers to evaluate political institutions geared toward facilitating democratic forms of constructive representation.

Finally, Emilee Chapman’s paper “Party Democracy and the Ideal of Non-factionalism” critiques the way that recent defenses of parties and partisanship have characterized the distinction between parties and factions. Chapman argues that recent scholarship on the relationships among social and political identities shows the standard formulation of the party/faction distinction to be unworkable. At the same time, though, these literatures point to an alternative account of non-factionalism as an ideal of political systems that facilitate the contestation of social and political identities and produce more identity “cross-pressure.”

All of the papers on this panel involve critical and sustained engagement with a body empirical research to elucidate a set of findings which have substantial practical or conceptual importance for major debates within democratic theory. One of the major goals of bringing these papers together is to enable a methodological discussion among the authors and audience members situated within different fields about best practices for incorporating empirical findings into normative arguments. The relevant issues include how non-experts should navigate methodological disputes within a discipline, and how to interpret and frame conflicting empirical findings. The papers on this panel all grapple with these and other methodological issues, and by bringing the authors together on this panel, and in conversation with an empirically-oriented discussant, we hope to foster an ongoing discussion about these questions.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 54: Ideas, Knowledge and Politics

Individual Presentations

• Party, Democracy, and the Ideal of Non-Factionalism - Emilee Chapman, Stanford University

• Mechanisms of Constructive Representation - Charles de la Cruz

• Human Biases, Social Science, and Collective Political Knowledge - Matt Grossmann, Michigan State University

• A Conceptual Framework for Bias Intervention in Political Decision-Making - Benjamin Miller, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Seyoung Jung, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Chair

• Eric Beerbohm Harvard University

Discussant

• Lilliana Hall Mason University of Maryland, College Park