Civic Counteraction: Listening, Speaking, and Deciding in Polarized Times

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The capability of ordinary citizens to engage meaningfully in the democratic process has been systematically doubted for decades within the political science literature. Elite, realist, and epistocratic theories of democracy continue to reveal lapses in political judgement and knowledge among a wide range of citizens. These findings are exacerbated by well-established trends of increasing ideological and affective polarization. Given the dual headwinds of political incompetence and polarization, this panel investigates the specific counteracting mechanisms, logics, and possibilities of everyday political actions taken by ordinary citizens in times of deep division. Each paper on this panel identifies a unique type of counteraction (i.e. speech, listening, decision making) and theoretically explores ways in which citizens can (and often do) act counter to predominant polarizing political trends. In attending to specific actions of ordinary citizens, this panel investigates themes related citizenship responsibility with regard to differentially situated others. What is more, this panel moves beyond theories of judgment and persuasion found deliberative democracy theory. In so doing, it identifies specific institutional contexts in every day political life in which actions are taken by ordinary citizens and thereby significantly adds to, and contrasts with, the debate about civic participation that has been fostered within highly structured mini-public deliberative settings.

Sub Unit

• Division 38: Political Communication

Individual Presentations

• When Parents Govern: Countering Interest and Ideology in a Polarized World - Jacob Garrett, Sciences Po

• Getting Democracy Just Right - Molly Scudder, Purdue University

• An Interactionist Perspective on Counterspeech in Polarized Societies - Corrado Fumagalli, University of Genoa

• The Broken Promise of Free Expression - Tyler Leigh, University of Pennsylvania

Chair

• Diana C. Mutz University of Pennsylvania

Discussant

• Shalini Satkunanandan University of California, Davis