The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need To Know?

• Author: Joseph, Anne M.
• Position: Review

The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need To Know? By Arthur Lupia & Mathew D. McCubbins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. 282. $19.95.

In a 1996 Washington Post poll, an astoundingly low six percent of Americans could name the Chief Justice of the United States,(1) and only sixty percent of respondents could identify the Vice President.(2) The responses deeply trouble some. Without grasping such basic facts, how can "the people" participate in a democratic system of government?(3) But the responses do not faze others. Voters, jurors, and even legislators may not possess adequate information; yet, so long as they take cues from other sources, they will likely make eminently reasonable decisions.(4) In The Democratic Dilemma,(5) Lupia and McCubbins tease out this latter story of reassurance--examining, in theory and in practice, how individuals decide to follow or ignore particular sources of advice.

Lupia and McCubbins argue that uninformed citizens may use cues or shortcuts such as opinion leaders, party identification, and the media in their decisions. They are not, however, the first to do so.(6) Rather, the authors' main contribution to the contentious debate over citizen ignorance and its repercussions(7) lies in their provision of needed theoretical analysis of how and what people learn from cues. After analyzing how individuals select which cues to believe, they apply their theoretical framework of information and persuasion to assess the efficacy of a wide range of institutional mechanisms in fostering trustworthy sources.

Mired in a theory that examines only individual choices between two options, the authors show how individuals, faced with incomplete information, may draw rationally on cues to satisfy given preferences. This may be reassuring in many circumstances. These references to cues--while rational for individuals--may impose, however, external costs, from the inability of cues to form or change individuals' preferences to stunted deliberation among individuals.

I

Culling from economics, cognitive science, psychology, and political theory, Lupia and McCubbins first advance a multi-part theory to explain how "the people" (classified as voters, legislators, and jurors) make decent choices. They then present a series of experiments to buttress their formal model before briefly commenting on how institutions can be structured to encourage persuasive, but not deceptive, cues to uninformed citizens.

In narrative form,(8) the theory--detailing the "specific conditions under which people who have limited information can make reasoned choices"(9)--is compelling. Lupia and McCubbins presume that individuals do not have sufficient relevant information to make educated judgments. The authors contend, however, that individuals need not possess full information to choose wisely. Even when they are unable to pay attention to information, individuals substitute the advice of others. Acquiring this advice is problematic since there is a tradeoff between the costs of acquiring information and the risk of being deceived by others. Institutions may mitigate this tradeoff by structuring, through penalties and rewards, the incentives of those who provide advice to align with the objectives of individuals seeking advice.

According to Lupia and McCubbins, this process of learning from others can result in one of three outcomes: (1) enlightenment; (2) deception; or (3) lack of any learning.(10) The first two outcomes mandate that the listener (to advice) be persuaded.(11) Persuasion requires the perception that the speaker (the one doling out the advice) both possesses the needed information and is trustworthy.(12) Rather than depending on Aristotelian notions of personal connection and character assessment for persuasion,(13) Lupia and McCubbins rely on the presence or absence of institutional structures, which they term "incentive-altering external forces": mechanisms of verification, penalties for lying, and the ability to observe costly efforts.(14) For example, jurors, who enter a trial uninformed about the case, are likely to believe witnesses whom they do not even know. Lawyers verify or undermine witness testimony through cross-examination, and witnesses may face prosecution for perjury if they lie under oath.(15) These external credibility mechanisms help encourage listeners to perceive common interests.(16)

The authors build their theory through a technical model, accompanied by diagrams and mathematical proofs. They modify Crawford and Sobel's...