Michael Neblo, Kevin Esterling, and David Lazer raise many interesting issues. However, they seriously misconstrue my position about mass participation in deliberative democracy. I present the “trilemma of democratic reform” to dramatize the challenge, even in theory, of combining three fundamental democratic principles—political equality, deliberation, and mass participation. But they neglect to say that the principal point of Part IV of the book is that I propose a solution—scenarios that combine Deliberative Polling and Deliberation Day. I present this as a contribution to the design of deliberative systems. I also describe a main element of our current research program—piloting this solution with online versions of deliberation brought to scale with video-based discussions with diverse others in large numbers of small groups. Deliberative Polling produces representative results; Deliberation Day brings the dialogue with the same issues to scale.
Second, the reviewers criticize the Deliberative Poll for collecting the fruits of deliberation via secret ballots or confidential questionnaires. I am concerned to insulate the measurement of considered judgments from all forms of social pressure. A jury verdict or push for a consensus statement does not offer this insulation. They claim that my position somehow means I am not concerned with the reasoning behind the deliberation, just with tabulating support or opposition to proposed policies. This is not correct. Our projects go to great lengths to study the reasons supporting the judgments, with explanatory variables (values, empirical premises) that will shed light on support or opposition and with the transcripts of the small group discussions (and coding of those statements). These concerns should be evident in the four case studies presented in the book, as well as in other work I reference.
Third, they invoke four methodological concerns: First, “does the assignment to the deliberative condition . . . matter for outcomes”? Our projects investigate that with controlled experiments, some of which are discussed in the book, some published elsewhere. Second, do the projects “face selection, noncompliance, and nonresponse” issues? Such issues are always challenges for field experiments, but by collecting data from nonparticipants, from appropriate comparison groups, and control groups, and by working hard to get the highest response rates possible, these issues are manageable. Or so I argue, in the cases in the book and elsewhere. Lastly, they question “whether assignment of others to one’s discussion group aggravates the intrinsic path dependence of deliberation.” We have analyzed and continue to analyze the small group processes and the differences among the small groups, and we sometimes change the unit of analysis to the group or study level. We are aware of these issues and collect the data so that they can be studied.
Of course, the same issues apply to other minipublics, including the “deliberative town halls” in Politics with the People. From their book, we know very little about their “diverse cross sections,” their attitudinal representativeness, how they match up to comparison groups, and so on about the proposed topic (immigration). They characterize results from their own confidential questionnaires before and after deliberation from their 19 small group discussions (p. 97). Assignment to one small group of 30 rather than another may affect the participant deliberations. This can be studied in their case, just as it can be studied in the Deliberative Polling small groups.
There is one fundamental difference, however. In my view, one-sided persuasion is not deliberation. Arguments offered must be answered. In the book by Neblo, Esterling, and Lazer, the representative offers arguments for his or her position, and the authors view it as a success that the participants move systematically in the direction advocated by the representative (p. 99). There is no apparatus in this design for balanced argumentation. The root of deliberation is “weighing.” In my view, “deliberative town halls” should weigh competing arguments if they are to be deliberative. Hopefully, as the design of these important experiments evolves, they will find more room for the balance of competing arguments so that both representatives and their constituents will be better engaged in deliberation.
