Deliberation, Internet and Extremism

Transcription

1 Deliberation, Internet and Extremism Cass R. Sunstein 1 Article publié dans une traduction de Solange Chavel dans Raison publique, n 2, avril 2004, pp Every society contains innumerable deliberating groups. Political parties, church groups, dissident organizations, legislative bodies, regulatory commissions, courts, faculties, student organizations, those participating in talk radio programs, Internet discussion groups, and others engage in deliberation. It is a simple social fact that sometimes people enter discussions with one view and leave with another, even on political and moral questions. Emphasizing this fact, many recent observers have embraced the aspiration to deliberative democracy, an ideal that is designed to combine popular responsiveness with a high degree of reflection and exchange among people with competing views. But for the most part, the resulting literature has not been empirically informed. It has not much dealt with the real-world consequences of deliberation, and with what generalizations hold in actual deliberative settings, with groups of different predispositions and compositions. My principal purpose is to investigate a striking but largely neglected statistical regularity that of group polarization -- and to relate this phenomenon to underlying questions about the role of deliberation in the public sphere of a heterogeneous democracy. In brief, group polarization means that members of a deliberating group typically move toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by the members 1 Cass R. Sunstein est professeur de jurisprudence à la faculté de droit et au département de sciences politiques de l Université de Chicago.

2 predeliberation tendencies. 2 When like-minded people meet regularly, without sustained exposure to competing views, extreme movements are all the more likely. This point illuminates many topics, including the sources of ethnic, racial, and cross-national antagonism; the well-springs of terrorism; the effects of political deliberation; the ambiguous results of freedom of association; and the consequences of new communications technologies, including the Internet. An understanding of group polarization also raises several problems for democratic theory. It suggests that serious risks -- of misunderstanding, fragmentation, and even violence -- will arise when citizens sort themselves into like-minded groups. How and Why Groups Polarize Group polarization is among the most robust patterns found in deliberating bodies, and it has been found all over the world and in many diverse tasks. The result is that groups often make more extreme decisions than would the typical or average individual in the group. Consider some examples of the basic phenomenon, which has been found in over a dozen nations. 3 (a) A group of moderately profeminist women will become more strongly profeminist after discussion. 4 (b) After discussion, citizens of France become more critical of the United States and its intentions with respect to economic aid. 5 (c) After discussion, whites predisposed to show racial prejudice offer more negative responses to the question whether white racism is responsible for conditions faced by African-Americans in American cities. 6 (d) After discussion, whites predisposed not to 2 See Roger Brown, Social Psychology: The Second Edition (New York: The Free Press, 1986); Cass R. Sunstein, Why Societies Need Dissent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003). 3 See Brown, supra, at 222. These include the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, and France. See, e.g., Johannes Zuber et al. Choice Shift and Group Polarization, 62 J Personality and Social Psych. 50 (1992) (Germany); Dominic Abrams et al., Knowing What To Think By Knowing Who You Are, 29 British J Soc. Psych. 97, 112 (1990) (New Zealand). Of course it is possible that some cultures would show a greater or lesser tendency toward polarization; this would be an extremely interesting area for empirical study. 4 See D.G. Myers, Discussion-Induced Attitude Polarization, 28 Human Relations 699 (1975). 5 Brown, supra note, at D.G. Myers and G.D. Bishop, The Enhancement of Dominant Attitudes in Group Discussion, 20 J Personality and Soc. Psych. 286 (1976), 2

3 show racial prejudice offer more positive responses to the same question. 7 As statistical regularities, it should follow, for example, that those moderately critical of an ongoing war effort will, after discussion, sharply oppose the war; that those who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to hold that belief with considerable confidence; that people tending to believe in the inferiority of a certain racial group will become more entrenched in this belief as a result of discussion; that those tending to condemn the United States will, as a result of discussion, end up condemning the United States with some intensity. There have been three main explanations for group polarization, all of which have been extensively investigated. Information. The initial point is that human beings respond to the arguments made by other people -- and the set of arguments, in any group whose members have a predisposition in one direction, will inevitably be skewed toward that predisposition. A group whose members tend to think that Israel is the real aggressor in the Mideast conflict will hear many arguments to that effect. Just as a matter of statistical likelihood, members of the same group will hear relatively fewer opposing views. It is inevitable that the members will have heard some, but not all, of the arguments that emerge from the discussion. Having heard all of what is said, there is likely to be further movement in the anti-israel direction. The same point holds for any position that is favored by a majority of group members. Confidence. People with extreme views tend to have more confidence that they are right, and as people gain confidence, they become more extreme in their beliefs. 8 The basic idea here is simple: Those who lack confidence, and who are unsure what they should think, tend to moderate their views. It is for this reason that cautious people, not knowing what to do, are likely to choose the midpoint between relevant extremes. Confidence increases if other people seem to share one s view. As a result, group members, having had their view corroborated, tend to move in a more extreme direction. In a wide variety of experimental contexts, people s opinions have been shown to become 7 See id. 8 See Robert Baron et al., Social Corroboration and Opinion Extremity, 32 J Experimental Soc. Psych. 537 (1996). 3

4 more extreme simply because their view has been endorsed, and because they have been more confident after learning of the shared views of others. 9 Social comparison. Most people want to be perceived favorably by other group members, and also to perceive themselves favorably. Sometimes our views are, to a greater or lesser extent, a function of how we want to present ourselves. Once we hear what others believe, some of us will adjust our positions at least slightly in the direction of the dominant position, to hold onto our preserved self-presentation. Suppose, for example, that the group members believe that they are somewhat more concerned about global warming than are most people. Such people might shift a bit after finding themselves in a group of people who are greatly concerned about global warming, simply to maintain their preferred self-presentation. The phenomenon occurs in many contexts. Of course group polarization does not always occur. It is a statistical regularity, no more and no less. Sometimes a minority view will prevail, in part when because its members speak with clarity and confidence. Sometimes an external shock, in terms of new incentives or new information, will lead group members toward moderation. Political parties often move to the middle because they cannot otherwise survive. Moreover, several factors can heighten group polarization; and their absence will make polarization less likely. Affective connections are quite important in group deliberation, and such connections will significantly influence polarization. If group members are linked by bonds of affection, dissent is significantly less frequent. The existence of affective ties thus reduces the number of divergent arguments and also intensifies social influences on choice. People are less likely to shift if the direction advocated is being pushed by unfriendly group members; the likelihood of a shift, and its likely size, are increased when people perceive fellow members as friendly, likeable, and similar to them. In the same vein, physical spacing tends to reduce polarization; a sense of common fate and intragroup similarity tend to increase it. The same is true for the introduction of a rival outgroup, which heightens the group s sense of an internal connection and tends to stifle dissent. 9 Baron et al., supra note. 4

5 In a refinement of particular importance to social deliberation and the theory of democracy, it matters whether whether people think of themselves, antecedently or otherwise, as part of a group having a degree of solidarity. If they think of themselves in this way, group polarization is all the more likely, and it is likely too to be more extreme. Thus when the context emphasizes each person s membership in the social group engaging in deliberation, polarization increases. This finding is in line with more general evidence that social ties among deliberating group members tend to suppress dissent and in that way to lead to inferior decisions. Extremists are especially prone to polarization. 10 It is more probable that they will shift and it is probable that they will shift more. When people start out at an extreme point, and are placed in a group of like-minded people, they are likely to go especially far in the direction with which they started. 11 There is a lesson here about the sources of terrorism and political violence in general. Many extremists might be said to suffer from a crippled epistemology, 12 simply because they know such a small subset of what there is to know. When this is true, it is largely because of social dynamics. And the point is hardly limited to the most obvious extremists. Members of a corporate board, inclined to take unusual risks, will fall in the same category. So too for members of a student organization committed, say, to gay rights or to reducing a university s investments in some foreign nation. So too for a nation s leadership that is determined to avoid, or to make, war. The Internet, Communications Policy, and Mass Deliberation An understanding of group polarization raises a number of issues about processes of social influence on the mass media and the Internet. Some people, for example, have celebrated the emergence of the Daily Me, in the form of a personally designed 10 For evidence, see John Turner et al., Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory (London: Blackwell, 1987). 11 See Sunstein, supra note. 12 Russell Hardin, The Crippled Epistemology of Extremism, in Political Rationality and Extremism 3, 16 (Albert Breton et al. eds., Canbridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 5

6 communications package. 13 If everyone can personalize or customize a communications experience, then people can see and hear about topics and opinions that they like. At the same time, they can avoid topics and opinions that they find annoying or offensive. From one point of view, this is an enormous gain. A free society respects freedom of choice, and perhaps freedom is best exemplified by complete liberty to control the material to which one is exposed. We can sharpen the point by noticing that in most places in the world, people continue to have access to a small number of television channels. If most people are hearing and seeing the same thing, a system of communications can increase conformity, perhaps of a stifling kind. The Internet greatly broadens the set of available options, operating as a kind of antidote to the restricted number of topics and opinions that are available elsewhere. These are valid and important points, and I do not mean to suggest that on balance, the Internet is undesirable on democratic grounds. On the contrary, the Internet is mostly an asset to democracy, not an obstacle. But an understanding of group polarization raises many doubts about the apparently utopian vision of a Daily Me. A serious risk involves fragmentation, with certain people hearing more and louder versions of their own preexisting commitments, thus reducing the benefits that come from exposure to competing views and unnoticed problems. With the greater specialization made possible by new technologies, people are increasingly able to avoid general interest newspapers and magazines, and to make choices that reflect their own predispositions. The Internet is making it possible for people to design their own highly individuated communications packages, filtering out troublesome issues and disfavored voices. Of course people can use new technologies to broaden rather than to narrow their horizons; and many people choose to do exactly that. What I am urging is that the opposite route is also possible. All over the world, citizens of various kinds are using the Internet to live in a kind of echo chamber to expose themselves, over and over again, to versions of what they antecedently see. Much of social misunderstanding, within and across nations, is product of processes of this kind. Without taking a stand on the merits, for example, we can safely say that the sharp division of opinion on the Iraq war, between the United States and France, was heightened by the fact that the citizens of 13 See Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital 153 (1995). 6

7 each nation were speaking and listening, most of the time, to one another. In fact a fragmented communications market may create extremely serious problems. 14 A plausible hypothesis is that the Internet-like setting is most likely to create a strong tendency toward group polarization when the members of the group feel some sense of group identity. 15 If certain people are deliberating with many like-minded others, views will not be reinforced but instead shifted to more extreme points. This cannot be said to be bad by itself perhaps the increased extremism is good but it is certainly troublesome if diverse social groups are led, through predictable mechanisms, toward increasingly opposing and ever more extreme views. It is much too early to offer a confident account of the consequences of group deliberation via computer and on the Internet. The Internet makes it possible for group members to hear countless repetitions of one another s thoughts; but it also greatly increase the ease with which people can hear a remarkably wide range of views. But what has been said thus far should be sufficient to show that group polarization may be especially pronounced during on-line discussions, in a way that magnifies mistakes and biases. In these circumstances, it is easy to imagine a large social role for professional polarizers, or polarization entrepreneurs, that is, political activists who have, as one of their goals, the creation of spheres in which like-minded people can hear a particular point of view from one or more articulate people, and also participate, actually or vicariously, in a deliberative discussion in which a certain point of view becomes entrenched and strengthened. For those seeing to promote social reform, an extremely promising strategy is to begin by using available technologies to promote discussions among people who tend to favor the relevant reform; such discussions are likely to intensify the underlying convictions and concerns. Feuds, Ethnic and International Strife, and War Group polarization is inevitably at work in feuds, ethnic and international strife, and war. One of the characteristic features of feuds is that members of feuding groups tend to talk only to one another, fuelling and amplifying their outrage, and solidifying 14 See Cass R. Sunstein, Republic.com (2001). 15 See Patricia Wallace, The Psychology of the Internet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 7

8 their impression of the relevant events. It is not too much of a leap to suggest that these effects are sometimes present within ethnic groups and even nations, notwithstanding the usually high degree of national heterogeneity. In America, sharp divergences between whites and African-Americans, on particular salient events or more generally, can be explained by reference to group polarization. The same is true for sharp divergences of viewpoints within and across nations. Group polarization occurs within Israel and among the Palestinian Authority; it occurs within the United States and among those inclined to support, or at least not to condemn, terrorist acts. Consider Timur Kuran s discussion of the phenomenon of ethnification, with special reference to developments in post-communist Eastern Europe: For decades, the groups that formed Yugoslavia lived side by side, worked together, and socialized in ethnically mixed settings. Moreover, substantial numbers embraced the diversity of Yugoslav culture as a source of nationals strength. 16 It was only after the disintegration of the nation that group differences became important, as group polarization increasingly led group members to identify themselves in ethnic terms. While ethnic strife is often thought to reflect long-simmering animosities, it is frequently a product of the very recent past, in the form of polarization pressures initiated by a few influential people.a large part of the perennial question, Why do they hate us lies not in ancient grievances or individual consciences but in the social processes influences emphasized here. Of course the media play a large role. Deliberative Trouble For democracies, the central problem is that widespread error and social fragmentation are likely to result when like-minded people, insulated from others, move in extreme directions simply because of limited information and parochial influences. If the effect of deliberation is to move people toward a more extreme point in the direction of their original tendency, why is it anything to celebrate? If people are shifting their position in order to maintain their reputation and self-conception, before groups that may or may not be representative of the public as a whole, is there any reason to think 16 Timur Kuran, Ethnic Norms and Their Transformation Through Reputational Cascades, 27 J Legal Stud 623, 648 (1998). 8

9 that deliberation is making things better rather than worse? To the extent that shifts are occurring as a result of partial and frequently skewed argument pools, the results of deliberative judgments may be far worse than the results of simply relying on predeliberation judgments. The most important point here is that those who emphasize the ideals associated with deliberative democracy tend to emphasize its preconditions, which include political equality, an absence of strategic behavior, full information, and the goal of reaching understanding. 17 In real-world deliberations, behavior is often strategic, and equality is often absent in one or another form. But the existence of a limited argument pool, strengthening the existing tendency within the group, will operate in favor of group polarization even if no individual behaves strategically. By itself this will produce group polarization whether or not social influence is operating. On the other hand, the social context of deliberation can make a large difference. The goal should be to produce an institutional design that will increase the likelihood that deliberation will lead in sensible directions, so that any polarization, if it occurs, will be a result of learning, rather than group dynamics. Of course we cannot say, from the mere fact of polarization, that there has been a movement in the wrong direction. Perhaps the more extreme tendency is better; group polarization is likely to have fuelled the antislavery movement, the attack on apartheid in South Africa, the movement for women s equality, and many other movements that deserve widespread approval. Extremism should hardly be a word of opprobrium; everything depends on what extremists are arguing for. But when group discussion tends to lead people to more strongly held versions of the same view with which they began, and when social influences and limited argument pools are responsible, there is little reason for great confidence in the effects of deliberation. The simplest lesson here involves both individual susceptibility and institutional design. For many people, mere awareness of the role of limited argument pools and 17 See Jurgen Habermas, A Theory of Communicative Action 99 (1984). Thus Habermas distinguishes between strategic and communcative action and stresses the cooperatively pursued goal of reaching understanding ; compare the treatment in Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), emphasizing the idea of reciprocity, which emphasizes the desire to justify one s position by reference to reasons. 9

10 social influences might provide some inoculation against inadequately justified movements of opinion within groups. More important, institutions might well be designed to ensure that when shifts are occurring, it is not because of arbitrary or illegitimate constraints on the available range of arguments. This is a central task of constitutional design, and in this light a system of checks and balances might be defended, not as an undemocratic check on the will of the people, but as an effort to protect against potentially harmful consequences of group discussion. To explore some of the advantages of heterogeneity, imagine a deliberating body consisting of all citizens in the relevant group; this may mean all citizens in a community, a state, a nation, or the world. By hypothesis, the argument pool would be very large. It would be limited only to the extent that the set of citizen views was similarly limited. Social influences would undoubtedly remain. Hence people might shift because of a desire to maintain their reputation and self-conception, by standing in a certain relation to the rest of the group. But to the extent that deliberation revealed to people that their private position was different, in relation to the group, from what they thought it was, any shift would be in response to an accurate understanding of all relevant citizens, and not a product of an accidental skewed group sample. This thought experiment does not suggest that the hypothesized deliberating body would be ideal. Perhaps all citizens, presenting all individual views, would offer a skewed picture from the normative point of view; in a pervasively unjust society, a deliberating body consisting of everyone may produce nothing to celebrate. Perhaps weak arguments would be made and repeated and repeated again, while good arguments would be offered infrequently. As we will see below, it is often important to ensure enclaves in which polarization will take place, precisely in order to ensure the emergence of views that are suppressed, by social influences or otherwise, but reasonable or even right. But at least a deliberating body of all citizens would remove some of the distortions in the group polarization experiments, where generally like-minded people, not exposed to others, shift in large part because of that limited exposure. Hence the outcomes of these deliberations will not be a product of the arbitrariness that can be introduced by limited or slanted argument pools. 10

11 Enclave Deliberation and Suppressed Voices I have yet to focus on the potential vices of heterogeneity and the potentially desirable effects of deliberating enclaves, consisting of groups of like-minded individuals. It seems obvious that such groups can be extremely important in a heterogeneous society, not least because members of some demographic groups tend to be especially quiet when participating in broader deliberative bodies. In this light, a special advantage of what we might call enclave deliberation is that it promotes the development of positions that would otherwise be invisible, silenced, or squelched in general debate. While this is literally dangerous in numerous contexts, it can also be a great advantage; many desirable social movements have been made possible through this route. The efforts of marginalized groups to exclude outsiders, and even of political parties to limit their primaries to party members, can be justified in similar terms. Even if group polarization is at work indeed because group polarization is at work enclaves can provide a wide range of social benefits, not least because they greatly enrich the social argument pool. And modern communications technologies are a great ally of enclave deliberation. As a result of the Internet, websites, listserves, and can provide connections among people, all over the world, who thought that they were isolated or unique, and who can easily band together and share concerns. The central empirical point here is that in deliberating bodies, high-status members tend to initiate communication more than others, and their ideas are more influential, partly because low-status members lack confidence in their own abilities, partly because they fear retribution. 18 For example, women s ideas are often less influential and sometimes are suppressed altogether in mixed-gender groups, 19 and in ordinary circumstances, cultural minorities have disproportionately little influence on 18 See Caryn Christenson and Ann Abbott, Team Medical Decision Making, in Decision Making in Health Care (Gretchen Chapman and Frank Sonnenberg eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), at 267, Id. at

12 decisions by cultural mixed groups. 20 Interestingly, there is evidence that with changes in gender norms, some tasks show no gender differences in influence on groups, evidence confirming the claim that people s role in group deliberation will be influenced by whether social norms produce status hierarchies. In these circumstances, it makes sense to promote deliberating enclaves in which members of multiple groups may speak with one another and develop their views. New communications technologies are extremely useful here. But there is a serious danger in such enclaves. The danger is that through the mechanisms of social influence and persuasive arguments, members will move to positions that lack merit but are predictable consequences of the particular circumstances of enclave deliberation. In the extreme case, enclave deliberation may even put social stability at risk. And it is impossible to say, in the abstract, that those who sort themselves into enclaves will generally move in a direction that is desirable for society at large or even for its own members. There is no simple solution to the dangers of enclave deliberation. Sometimes the threat to social stability is desirable. From the standpoint of institutional design, the problem is that any effort to promote enclave deliberation will ensure group polarization among a wide range of groups, some necessary to the pursuit of justice, others likely to promote injustice, and some potentially quite dangerous. In a nation in which most people are confused or evil, enclave deliberation may be the only way to develop a sense of clarity or justice, at least for some. But even in such a nation, enclave deliberation is unlikely to produce change unless its members are eventually brought into contact with others. In democratic societies, the best response is to ensure that any such enclaves are not walled off from competing views, and that at certain points, there is an exchange of views between enclave members and those who disagree with them. It is total or neartotal self-insulation, rather than group deliberation as such, that carries with it the most serious dangers, often in the highly unfortunate (and sometimes literally deadly) combination of extremism with marginality. 20 C. Kirchmeyer and A. Cohen, Multicultural Groups: Their Performance and Reactions With Constructive Conflict, 17 Group and Organization management 153 (1992). 12

13 In this space, it would be too ambitious to see how this point might bear on democratic design or communications policy. I have emphasized the importance of having access to a wide range of topics and ideas. But it should be clear that in wellfunctioning democracies, freedom of choice is an inadequate foundation for policymaking, and unfettered freedom of association should be viewed with a degree of ambivalence. Self-government itself depends on a large number of unanticipated, unchosen exposures to both topics and ideas. If it is to be self-governing, a free society cannot be content with a situation in which citizens sort themselves into echo chambers of their own design. 13