How Collective Deliberation Affects Democratic Outcomes: Theory and Experiment

• In Event: Theory and Experimental Evidence of Cooperation and Coordination

Abstract

A critical feature of democratic processes is deliberation through representative voices. In the committee context, members often deliberate before voting. On the one hand, collective deliberation facilitates information aggregation and coordinates voting among committee members. In scenarios in which every committee member is sufficiently informed, deliberation may increase the likelihood that the committee collectively chooses the welfare-maximizing policy. On the other hand, collective deliberation affects the committee members’ willingness to be informed in the first place, following a logic of backward induction. Relative to scenarios in which there is no communication, I predict the following: First, collective deliberation improves the committee’s likelihood of collectively choosing the welfare-maximizing policy when the average level of information expertise is sufficiently high but undermines this likelihood when most members are uninformed. Second, under unanimity voting where every member can effectively veto, or in scenarios in which there are veto players who can reject the choice of the majority, collective deliberation either undermines or has no effect on the likelihood of choosing the welfare-maximizing policy when at least one veto player is uninformed. However, when all veto players are informed, regardless of the average level of information expertise of non-veto players who cannot veto, collective deliberation improves the committee’s voting outcomes. I examine these theoretical predictions in the laboratory and find supporting evidence.

Author

• Kai Ou, Florida State University