I quote the abstract:

The rise of the blogosphere raises important questions about the elicitation and aggregation of information, and about democracy itself. Do blogs allow people to check information and correct errors? Can we understand the blogosphere as operating as a kind of marketplace for information along Hayekian terms? Or is it a vast public meeting of the kind that Jurgen Habermas describes? In this article, I argue that the blogosphere cannot be understood as a Hayekian means for gathering dispersed knowledge because it lacks any equivalent of the price system. I also argue that forces of polarization characterize the blogosphere as they do other social interactions, making it an unlikely venue for Habermasian deliberation, and perhaps leading to the creation of information cocoons. I conclude by briefly canvassing partial responses to the problem of polarization.

The argument about Hayek’s information markets is simple and easily understandable. The blogosphere has no market pricing mechanisms or anything like it, thus there is no market-like aggregation of information. I can easily accept that argument. The argument against a Habermasian public sphere is about group polarization. Conservative bloggers read conservative blogs and become more conservative as a consequence. The same is supposedly the case for other groups. Does this correspond with perceived reality? I’m not quite sure what to think. I lean clearly to the left in what I read, but I do read and cite quite a bit of right-oriented material too I think. What about you? Do bloggers get drawn to writing about blogs with the same views as themselves? Does this mean we really have a blogosphere with little real discussion? I need to think on this a little.

1. Sunstein, Cass R. (2007) “Neither Hayek nor Habermas” Public Choice 134(1-2), Springer Netherlands, pp. 87-95. Available online in fulltext through SpringerLink for those with acess: http://www.springerlink.com/content/b8167107l4662l47/

I start off with posting the last rewrite of the outline of my thesis:

Thesis outline

I start out with a belief that deliberation is important to democracy and that our current systems of democracy are in several ways detrimental to good deliberation. I believe that this affects the quality and outcome of political decisions without actually empowering the people in the way supposed by much of current thought.

I do however realize that my beliefs are not very important to anyone but myself. My beliefs have no relevance to scientific debate if I cannot transform them from beliefs into complete scientific arguments. I am furthermore of the impression that current thought on deliberation, although far advanced, suffers a lack of credence in the social sciences because of weak empirical underpinnings.

This has led me to single out three research topics, each of which will be devoted a separate section of this thesis. The topics are separate and will be handled with different methodical approaches, but will hopefully constitute a meaningful totality. My main goal is to effectively argue that deliberation is important to democracy and to contribute in the search of effective ways to strengthen that idea through empirical research.

I) Why deliberation is important in representative democracy

The first research question is the simplest, but also easily the most controversial. But it is my opinion that one cannot start a theoretical debate without first asking “why?” What makes this a relevant topic of research? That is what I will try to answer in the first part of my paper.

I will not try to argue that deliberative democracy is a completely different type of democracy, one that is superior to and inconsistent with the current trend of liberal representative democracy. Quite the contrary, I will try to argue that deliberation is neither inconsistent with liberalism nor the ideals of representative democracy, but are in fact necessary parts of any working system of democracy. Following this I will not argue for the overthrow of the modern style of democracy, rather just to highlight some potential problems so that they may in the future be properly addressed, and some of the potential harmful effects remedied.

This section will mostly be a theoretical argument, drawing upon the classics of democratic thought, the major liberal thinkers and the recent day theorists concerned with deliberation.

II) How some aspects of our current institutions serve to discourage deliberation

Although I will not argue the overthrow of the current institutions of democracy, I will try to show how the current system doesn’t facilitate good deliberation, but in some instances actually discourages it. In particular I will examine the formation and power of political parties, and how we can expect these to have a particularly detrimental effect on deliberation within the political system.

This section will also to a large degree be theoretical in focus. I will however try to supplement theory with existing empirical research to the degree this is available.

III) How deliberation may be studied empirically

Studies of deliberation, despite having spawned a rather rich theoretical literature over the last few decades seem to have had a disproprtionally weak impact on the mainstream of political science. I attribute much of this to a view of deliberation as a utopian concept that has so far belonged mostly to the realm of philosophy with too little empirical research. In particular, its perceived non-quantitative nature seems to be at odds with the dominant naturalistic methodoligcal paradigm of current political science. This thesis aims to remedy some of that through exploring possibilities for empirical studies of deliberation.

Using two Norwegian student political bodies as the basis, I will apply a method developed by Jürg Steiner et al. in their book Deliberative politics in action, the most promising method yet to see extensive empirical testing. This comparative study will be used as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of this method for testing the effect of political parties on deliberation as well as its general applicability to studies of deliberation.

If this is true, it is nothing short of an outrage. No democracy is possible if public figures are to be protected by such strict laws. Merely being impolite can’t be a reason to clamp down on free speach. I didn’t believe a democratic Western European country like France could employ such policies…

This is my first serious attempt at blogging, and I’ve been going now for a few months. It has been both fun and educational even if I don’t think I’ve revolutionized the way the world thinks just yet. I’m working on it, though.

Looking back on the blog so far, both in terms of content and stats, I think I’ve been to concerned about being scientific. I’ve been too concerned with not posting something until I’ve thought about it long enough to say something meaningful about it from a social science perspective. That was also my main motivation for starting blogging – to make my small, obscure scientific contributions accessible. I won’t stop doing that, but I do think I’ll be a bit more relaxed when it comes to also posting just simple thoughts and observations on things related to political science. That’s what I’ve noticed that I like to read on other blogs, and that’s some of the posts that have got the most hits on my blog as well.

So, to conclude: From now on there will not be less scientific stuff, but I will be more relaxed in slipping less scientific stuff in between. Stay tuned!