2026/06/23 by Eric Kramon · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Social Media and Politics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Climate Change Communication and Perception
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1537592725104313
openalex publication_date 2026/06/23 · openalex created_date 2026/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/25
Deliberative democracy advocates argue that deliberation can strengthen democracy in part by reducing partisan hostility and affective polarization. Yet whether and why this holds remains relatively underexamined. This paper demonstrates that deliberation can reduce partisan animus by promoting engagement with out-partisan policy perspectives. This engagement builds cognitive empathy, increasing positive affect and tolerance toward out-partisans. Evidence is from an experiment in Honduras. Deliberators were randomly assigned to defend policies with which they agreed (own perspective) or disagreed (out-partisan perspective). Deliberation reduced affective polarization and out-partisan animus. These reductions were concentrated and more persistent in the out-partisan perspective group, while polarization increased modestly in the own-perspective group. The findings demonstrate that engagement with out-partisan policy viewpoints is an important causal mechanism driving deliberation’s impact while also highlighting the potential limits of deliberation and discussion in the absence of active engagement with out-group points of view.