Does Discussion Lead to Opinion Change within Political Science Students? A Pedagogical Exercise of Deliberative Democracy

Abstract

While the model of deliberative democracy gives a crucial role to dialog, empirical evidence has not yet established if discussion helps to reach a better understanding of political issues and, above all, if individuals are prepared to change their views. It is still unclear when the deliberative model, and more specifically discussion, could be usefully employed as a teaching tool, to improve students’ knowledge. This article presents an exercise performed within the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the LUISS University of Rome. Students were asked to discuss in the classroom the issues related to the course, and to cast a vote on selected issues before and after deliberation. Although our sample is not representative, we have gathered evidence from the same population on a rather large number of issues. Students changed their view in 24.6% of cases, and they agreed that discussion increased their understanding, while those with strong ex-ante views resulted more reluctant to change their opinions because of discussion. The analysis also showed the presence of individuals that are more likely to be permeable to discussion while others that are more likely to be impermeable.

Keywords:

• Active learning
• critical thinking
• experiential learning
• political learning
• small-N studies

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Daniele Santoro, coconvenor of the “Global Justice” class where this experiment has taken place, to all students for the participation in the surveys, to Mario Paolucci and Daniele Vilone for suggestions on the questionnaire, to Alessandra Bavastrelli for data processing, to Silvia Sopranzetti for her insightful methodological suggestions, and to the two anonymous reviewers for their precious comments. We also wish to thank the participants to the IRPPS-ISTC Seminar held in Rome on 6 November 2014 for the comments provided. In the design, the development and the implementation of this exercise, we have followed the research ethics guidelines of our institutions, as well as an adequate human subject protection consistent with the APSA Ethical Guidelines.

Notes

1 Reachable at the Stanford University Centre for the Deliberative Democracy website. See http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/docs/summary/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniele Archibugi

Daniele Archibugi is a Research Director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR-IRPPS) in Rome, and Professor of Innovation, Governance and Public Policy at the University of London, Birkbeck College. He works on the economics and policy of science, technology and innovation and on the political theory of international relations. He has worked at the Universities of Sussex, Cambridge, London School of Economics, Harvard and Rome LUISS and gave courses at the SWEFE University of Chengdu and at the Ritsumeikan University of Kyoto. In 2006 he was appointed honorary professor at the Sussex University. In the field of international political theory, he has advocated a cosmopolitan democracy (co-editing Cosmopolitan Democracy. An Agenda for a New World Order, Polity Press, 1995; and Re-imagining Political Community. Studies in Cosmopolitan Democracy, Polity, 1998; and authoring The Global Commonwealth of Citizens, Princeton UP, 2008). He has also worked on a greater involvement of transnational citizens to counter-balance the power of governments in world politics (editing Debating Cosmopolitics, Verso, 2003). His latest books are a critical assessment of international criminal justice (with Alice Pease, Crime and Global Justice. The Dynamics of International Punishment, Polity, 2018) and a plea to shape the European citizenship strategy (with Ali Emre Benli, Claiming Citizenship Rights in Europe. Emerging Challenges and Political Agents, Routledge, 2017).

Martina Bavastrelli

Martina Bavastrelli obtained a master’s degree in international Relations at the LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, with a thesis focused on deliberative democracy theory. She worked as an intern at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) – Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies (IRPPS), conducting research on deliberative democracy and opinion change. Currently, she works in the communication and marketing business.

Marco Cellini

Marco Cellini is a research fellow at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) – Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies (IRPPS). He obtained in a Ph.D. in Political Science at the LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, with a thesis focused on the relation between democracy and inequality. He collaborated with the Italian National Research Council (CNR) Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies (IRPPS), for the research area “Globalization, Research and Innovation, Global Governance and Cosmopolitan Democracy (GLOBAT)”. His research focuses on democratic theory, inequality, European policies, Asylum and Refugee studies, and globalization and global governance.