Unleashing the Transformative Power of Deliberation With Contextual Citizens

TL;DR

This paper explores how citizens with diverse, context-dependent opinions can reach consensus through deliberation, modeled using quantum cognition, emphasizing the importance of willingness to understand different perspectives and facilitation.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum cognitive model to analyze deliberation with contextual opinions and demonstrates how consensus can be achieved without information gain, highlighting the role of facilitation.

Findings

Disagreeing citizens with contextual opinions can reach consensus without new information.

Diversity of thinking frames enables overcoming initial disagreements.

Facilitation is necessary for consensus to emerge in deliberation.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate deliberation procedures that invite citizens with contextual opinions to explore alternative thinking frames. Contextuality is captured in a simple quantum cognitive model. We show how disagreeing citizens endowed with contextual opinions, can reach consensus in a binary collective decision problem with no improvement in their information. A necessary condition is that they are willing to (mentally) experience their fellow citizens' way of thinking. The diversity of thinking frames is what makes it possible to overcome initial disagreement. Consensus does not emerge spontaneously from deliberations: it requires facilitation.