Different Arenas, Different Deliberative Quality? Using a Systemic Framework to Evaluate Online Deliberation on Immigration Policy in Germany

Abstract

One major strand of contemporary research on political participation addresses online deliberation. Over time, online deliberation has become increasingly pluralistic. Our study applies a framework derived from systemic deliberative theory to evaluate different online deliberation processes on German immigration policy. A crucial premise of the systemic deliberative theory is that the quality of deliberation varies systematically between different arenas within a political system. We differentiate between highly formal, semi-formal, and informal deliberative arenas (arenas 1–3) and develop seven theory-driven hypotheses concerning the quality of deliberative procedures in arenas 1–3 that we test through quantitative content analysis. Our study confirms the overarching expectation: processes’ deliberative quality varies systematically between arenas. The highest level of (aggregated) deliberative quality is displayed in arena 1—deliberations, that is, on the government-run consultation platform. The more fine-grained analysis of different dimensions of deliberative quality reveals that the patterns observed with regards to certain dimensions of deliberative quality (e.g., constructiveness and reciprocity) do not conform with our theory-driven hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings. Future collaborations of theoretical and empirical scholars of deliberative democracy must address the specifics of online communication and the function of emotional communication in different deliberative arenas.