Rational and Compassionate Information Processing: A Conceptual Framework for Authentic Dialogue

• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12277

Public

Administration

and the

Disciplines

Taehyon Choi is assistant professor

of public administration and policy in the

Graduate School of Public Administration

at Seoul National University. His current

research focuses on learning and decision

making in collaborative governance, trust,

citizen participation, and deliberation.

E-mail: taehyon@snu.ac.kr

726 Public Administration Review • November | December 2014

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 74, Iss. 6, pp. 726–735. © 2014 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12277.

Rosemary O’Leary, Editor

Taehyon Choi

Seoul National University, South Korea

Authentic dialogue is a key component of deliberative

democracy. Public administration scholars and practi-

tioners have focused on institutional settings for authentic

dialogue, but they have paid less attention to behavioral

aspects, especially the emotional component, of authentic

dialogue.  e author proposes a conceptual framework

for authentic dialogue that highlights the three dimen-

sions of its social-behavioral foundation: epistemic, social,

and compassionate information processing motivation.

 e article reviews the discourse on authentic dialogue

in public administration and provides a conceptual

framework for authentic dialogue, with a discussion of

the three behavioral dimensions, their relationships, and

their ef‌f ects.  is framework may be used in empirical

analysis of authentic dialogue and the design of institu-

tions for deliberative democracy.

Many scholars have emphasized the impor-

tance of authentic dialogue for successful

democratic decision making in various

settings, such as collaborative governance and plan-

ning (Fung and Wright 2001; Healey 2006; Innes

and Booher 2010; Roberts 2002). Researchers argue

that public decision making will be democratic,

rational, and desirable when stakeholders success-

fully engage in authentic dialogue. Without authentic

dialogue, public deliberation easily dissolves into

political co-optation or mere negotiation of interests

(Innes and Booher 2010).  erefore, researchers view

authentic dialogue as crucial to successful deliberative

democracy.

 e public administration literature on authen-

tic dialogue has paid attention to the institutional

settings utilized to facilitate public deliberation,

including diversity, leadership, freedom from external

control, and equal opportunity to participate (see

Fishkin 1995; Gastil and Levine 2005;  ompson

2008; Weeks 2000). Compared with the attention

given to the institutional side of authentic dialogue,

however, less attention has been devoted to the

nature of human communicative behaviors in terms

of dialogue. It is implicitly assumed that when the

ideal institutional settings for authentic dialogue are

met, the conversation among stakeholders will move

closer to authentic dialogue. Although this assump-

tion could be true, treating the human behavioral

dimension as a black box has inhibited scholars from

developing a more sophisticated understanding of

authentic dialogue.  e social psychology literature

has revealed many information processing biases and

overarching motivations that could prevent partici-

pants from engaging in authentic dialogue even in

the absence of institutional constraints (Brodbeck

et al. 2007; De Dreu, Nijstad, and Van Knippenberg

2008). Rigorous research about information process-

ing calls our attention to these biases and the need to

understand human nature in communication and its

ef‌f ects on authentic dialogue and public deliberation.

Furthermore, while focusing on reasoned delibera-

tion for collective decision making, the literature on

authentic dialogue has not adequately considered

the emotional aspect of authentic dialogue. Young

criticizes contemporary deliberation theories for being

biased toward the modern Western style of speech,

which values being “dispassionate and disembodied”

(1997, 64).  e increasing interest in the role of

compassion (Tsui 2013) provides insight into theori-

zation of the emotional aspect of authentic dialogue.

Compassion may function in a collective decision-

making situation in which a complex societal problem

is confronted in such a way that stakeholders need an

“emotional rather than a logical choice or commit-

ment” (Barbalet 1998, 48).  is type of af‌f ective con-

sideration of others’ preferences also encompasses the

concept of authentic dialogue, as it is often described

by terms such as “open-mindedness,” “egalitarian,”

and “care.”

In this article, we propose a conceptual framework for

authentic dialogue that considers epistemic, social,

and compassionate information processing as three

dimensions of dialogue that incorporate reason and

emotion. First, we review the literature on authentic

dialogue, distinguishing the concept of authentic

Rational and Compassionate Information Processing:

A Conceptual Framework for Authentic Dialogue