Part of the symposium, "For a Better Democracy: Proportional Representation."
What would Americans really think about possible reforms to our democracy and electoral processes if they had a chance to weigh the options under good conditions? Researchers James Fishkin, Alice Siu, and Larry Diamond of the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL), in collaboration with Helena and various partners, have just conducted a national Deliberative Poll® to find out.
America in One Room: Democratic Reform is the third installment of America in One Room (A1R), a Deliberative Polling® project designed to explore Americans’ perspectives on some of our country’s most contentious issues, including voter access, non-partisan election administration, protection against election interference, Supreme Court reform, and more. With the 2024 election on the horizon, the findings from this comprehensive deliberative poll have the potential to reshape the discourse surrounding these important topics.
In a joint press release, DDL shared that poll results showed increased movement toward bipartisan support on a set of previously polarizing issues that are already beginning to drive political debates and candidate platforms as we head into Election 2024.
Before deliberations, participants across party lines reported feeling dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the U.S., with 65% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans, and 72% of participants overall reporting dissatisfaction. However, deliberating together about potential reforms reduced discontent, with the overall percentage of dissatisfaction dropping 18 points to 54%, and party dissatisfaction dropping 11 points for Democrats and 31 points for Republicans.
Across specific democratic reform topics, there were often strong party differences before deliberation. Discourse resulted in significant depolarization and increased cross-party support on several key issues, including voting rights and ballot access.
Below, Fishkin, the director of DDL; Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI; and Siu, a senior research scholar and the associate director of DDL, reflect on their findings and what the results indicate about the path forward in strengthening American democracy.
Jim Fishkin: In normal times, the issues of how we register to vote, how and when we cast our ballots, and how we can avoid partisan interference in the elections would not be big issues. But we live in a period of fierce partisan division about our elections, and I was gratified to see this affirmation of basic American values about the non-partisan guardrails of democracy. The movement by Republicans on issues like voting rights for felons was large and surprising. The willingness of Democrats to embrace audits with random samples of ballots and paper records of the votes confirmed by the voter (initially Republican positions) also showed the capacity of dialogue to move opinion.
Larry Diamond: One of the biggest takeaways was the consistent majority support for Ranked Choice Voting in all of its different potential applications. After deliberating, majorities of our sample consistently supported the use of RCV for all kinds of elections — local, state, and national, and in both primaries and in general elections. While Republicans were more wary of this reform, up to 45% of Republicans supported some use of it, for example, in local elections, and 43% of Republicans liked the "final four" or "final five" version, as in Alaska, where there is a single non-partisan primary and then the top four finishers contest in a general election using RCV. I was also struck by the openness to some other electoral reform proposals and the strong gains in support for these (including proportional representation) after deliberation. I was not surprised by how far apart Democrats and Republicans remained on the Electoral College — there is an obvious divergence in partisan interest there.
Alice Siu: We can never predict what participants' opinions will be after deliberation. What surprised me the most was the increase in satisfaction with democracy after deliberation. Prior to deliberation, only 27% of participants expressed satisfaction with the current way democracy is working in the US. After deliberation, this percentage increased to 54%. Furthermore, when looking at satisfaction levels by political parties, we found that Republicans' satisfaction increased from 18 to 50% and Democrats increased from 34 to 46%. We have to keep in mind that participants deliberated together for 12 hours over the course of a weekend or a few weekday evenings. Together after engaging in thoughtful and structured deliberation, they developed a greater satisfaction with democracy, just showing that what our society needs are opportunities to talk and listen to each other.
Diamond: Over and over (this is now our third "America in One Room"), we find that ordinary Americans are hungry for thoughtful and civil discussions with their fellow citizens about the issues we face. And it is possible to have these discussions if you set good conditions and ensure that everyone has access to the same body of balanced and objective information, with a fair presentation of the pro and con arguments for each proposal. Americans do narrow their differences when they can deliberate in this way. But more than that — and quite stunning to us — they also became more hopeful about American democracy. The percentage of Americans who say they are satisfied with the way democracy is working in the US increased from 27% before deliberation to 45% after. And satisfaction among Republicans doubled — from 24% to 50%.
Siu: Headlines often lead with how polarized our society is, but what they fail to tell us is that if people had the opportunity to engage with diverse others, people are capable of having respectful conversations. In fact, after deliberation, agreement with the statement 'I respect their point of view though it is different from mine' increased from 57 to 75%. Among Democrats, this percentage increased from 49 to 73%, and among Republicans, this increased from 73 to 84%. The headlines amplify the perceived polarization in our society, but what it misses is how deliberation can bring our society together in a respectful way.
Fishkin: Dialogue across differences can activate the fundamental values of our democracy and show the way for constructive solutions. The increased support for ranked choice voting and for non-partisan redistricting commissions was particularly noteworthy.
Fishkin: This project identifies practical reforms that have a claim on the values and concerns of the American public if they focus on the issues. I think it can be invoked for non-partisan redistricting commissions, for ranked-choice voting in various contexts, for ethics reform of the Supreme Court, and a host of other issues.
Diamond: It may not have much impact on the 2024 presidential election, but it will give momentum to reformers who are working to expand voting rights, ensure a more transparent non-partisan administration of elections, and institute Ranked Choice Voting and related electoral reforms. I think our results show that people can be persuaded, even across party lines, and it points to certain types of reforms that are more broadly appealing than others. As we analyze the transcripts of the discussions, we will also learn what kinds of arguments resonated with voters and which did not.
Siu: One of the striking results from this installment of A1R is people's concerns about voting accessibility. From restoring voting rights to citizens with felony convictions to strengthening federal standards for election machines and requirements for reporting security incidents, we hope that policymakers see the priorities that registered voters have for ensuring that our elections are fair and transparent.
Siu: This installment of A1R, along with the previous A1R Deliberative Polls, have shown that deliberation can, in fact, reduce political and affective polarization. We must all understand that for our society and for any society around the world, listening to each other, whether we agree or disagree, is really not an option.
Diamond: We now have a second major demonstration in the US of the dramatic utility of the Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, developed by Stanford Professor Ashish Goel and his Crowdsourced Democracy Team. This was the second "America in One Room" to deploy this platform very successfully. When people can deliberate online, it cuts costs dramatically, and yet still, it brings about reductions in polarization and constructive changes in public opinion on many issues. Now the challenge is to figure out how we can scale up deliberation to much larger numbers of Americans and apply the tool to a wider range of issues in jurisdictions across the US as well as globally. International demand for the framework and tools of the Deliberative Democracy Lab keeps growing.
Fishkin: With our technology, we have hopes of spreading this kind of dialogue. I was struck that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all supported fostering deliberation on contentious topics.
"America in One Room: Democratic Reform" polled participants before and after deliberation to gauge their opinions on democratic reform initiatives, including voter access and voting protections, non-partisan election administration, protecting against election interference, Supreme Court reform, and more. The results show many significant changes toward bipartisan agreement, even on the most contentious issues.
The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis co-organized a closed-door roundtable on the extent, causes, and implications of China’s current property sector slowdown. The roundtable focused on China’s property sector, which has been a major engine of economic growth in China for over three decades. Through its large impact on local government revenues, the financial sector, household wealth, and employment, the property sector plays an outsized role in China’s economy – far more than in most other countries.
By 2021, however, there were signs that China’s property sector may be reaching a peak, and even beginning to contract, potentially signifying wider distress in the economy. The property sector exemplifies an investment-driven growth model that China has pursued for the past few decades, and the policy responses to the current property downturn also has implications for how and whether China can transition toward an alternative, high-quality growth model less reliant on the property sector.
The summary report of the roundtable, conducted under the Chatham House Rule, details the in-depth discussion that centered on four key questions:
What can China do to offset risks and negative consequences associated with the property slowdown?
In partnership with Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis
The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis co-organized a closed-door roundtable on the extent, causes, and implications of China’s current property sector slowdown and produced a summary report of the discussion.
Governance is the way that societies make decisions and solve problems. Good governance is difficult when a society is divided in its values, when trust in governing institutions is low, when political participation is biased along various social lines, and when there is not enough reliable information and structured debate in the media. Complicating matters further, governments may not be able to reach important decisions when there are too many veto points that enable small groups to delay or stop decisions, regardless of their merit or public support. Finally, even after a decision is made, governmental agencies may lack the personnel and capacity to implement and administer policies.
While California’s governance system has solved many problems, its governance system suffers from significant challenges in many areas. These include: hard problems (with large-scale challenges associated with climate change, housing, poverty, and more), multiple veto points in public decision-making, partisan division, and polarization, lack of trust in institutions, biased participation in public decisions, and the need to accelerate the modernization and strengthening of civil service in state and local government.
The following are presented as four possible scenarios for California’s governance, media, and civil society future.
A California 100 Report on Policies and Future Scenarios
The United States is currently undergoing a period of massive change in its economy, which is being spearheaded by three major pieces of federal infrastructure and industrial policy legislation: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). These new programs represent not only a massive investment in select parts of the US economy, but also significant changes in how the US invests and manages its economy through the use of industrial policy.
This chapter reviews these changes in the “how” of US industrial policy and federal investment and discusses two of the challenges that the US government faces as it attempts to orchestrate major changes to its economy. The first is a regulatory system designed to slow or otherwise constrain capital investment and growth. The second consists of unique aspects of US governance and its role in the global economy that will make state-led direct investment and other industrial policy programs challenging to implement.
Chapter in Enhancing Resilience in a Chaotic World: The Role of Infrastructure, an ISPI-McKinsey & Company REPORT
Friday, November 17, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
China’s draconian response to COVID-19 drew considerable criticism, with many suggesting that intense digital surveillance and harsh lockdowns triggered the unusual public dissent seen in China in late 2022. However, we argue that rather than backfiring, digital surveillance may have legitimized the government’s overreaction by making uncertain threats appear certain. We collected data on daily counts of lockdown communities and COVID cases from 2020 to 2023. Using a difference-in-differences approach with World Value Surveys (China 2012, 2018) and a nationwide online survey in 2023, we show that real-world lockdowns significantly reduced public perception of respect for human rights and trust in the government; however, these effects are moderated by the pervasiveness of COVID surveillance, proxied by cellphone usage. To establish causality, we use a survey experiment to show that digital surveillance indeed increases support for COVID lockdowns by making citizens more likely to believe they are close contacts. In contrast, surveillance cannot justify protest crackdowns. Our findings suggest that uncertainty in threats to public safety may foster support for state surveillance and coercion.
Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.
Xu Xu is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Xu studies digital authoritarianism, political repression, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on China. He is currently working on a book entitled Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance. His other ongoing projects examine the political aspects of artificial intelligence, social media propaganda, public opinion on state repression, and state-society relations in China. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, among other peer-reviewed journals.
He received his Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State University in 2019, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2020 to 2021.
A NOTE ON LOCATION
Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
We study the effect of a victimization narrative on national identity and public opinion in China experimentally. Previous research has suggested that governments can shape public opinion by guiding citizens’ collective memories of historical events, but few studies have established a clear causal link. By conducting an online survey experiment among 1890 urban Chinese citizens, we examine the causal impact of historical narratives on political attitudes. We find that, compared to control conditions, a narrative focusing on China’s humiliating past in the late Qing significantly reinforces respondents’ attachment to the victim side of the Chinese national identity, raises suspicion of the intention of foreign governments in international disputes, stimulates preference for more hawkish foreign policies, and strengthens support for China’s current political system. These effects are particularly strong among respondents without a college degree.
Hicham Alaoui, Robert Springborg, Lindsay Benstead, Glenn E. Robinson, and Sean Yom join ARD to discuss their recently released book, Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges ... and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner, 2023). To order, click here.
Why, given the enormous resources spent by the US and Europe on security assistance to Arab countries, has it led to so little success? Can anything be done to change the disheartening status quo? Addressing these thorny questions, the authors of this state-of-the-art assessment evaluate the costs and benefits to the main providers and recipients of security assistance in the MENA region and explore alternative strategies to improve outcomes for both.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Hicham Alaoui is the founder and director of the Hicham Alaoui Foundation, which undertakes innovative social scientific research in the Middle East and North Africa. He is a scholar on the comparative politics of democratization and religion, with a focus on the MENA region. In the past, he served as a visiting scholar and Consulting Professor at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He more recently served as postdoctoral fellow and research associate at Harvard University. He was also Regents Lecturer at several campuses of the University of California system. Outside of academia, he has worked with the United Nations in various capacities, such as the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. He has also worked with the Carter Center in its overseas missions on conflict resolution and democracy advancement. He has served on the MENA Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch and the Advisory Board of the Carnegie Middle East Center. He served on the board of the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University and has recently joined the Advisory Board of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. He holds an A.B. from Princeton University, M.A. from Stanford University, and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. His latest book is Pacted Democracy in the Middle East: Tunisia and Egypt in Comparative Perspective (Palgrave, 2022). His memoirs, Journal d'un Prince Banni, were published in 2014 by Éditions Grasset, and have since been translated into several languages. He is also co-author with Robert Springborg of The Political Economy of Arab Education (Lynne Rienner, 2021), and co-author with the same colleague on the forthcoming volume Security Assistance in the Middle East: Challenges and the Need for Change (Lynne Rienner, 2023). His academic research has been widely published in various French and English journals, magazines, and newspapers of record.
Robert Springborg is a Scientific Advisor of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and Adjunct Professor at SFU School for International Studies (Vancouver). Formerly he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations; the holder of the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute; the Director of the American Research Center in Egypt; University Professor of Middle East Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia; and assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at the University of California, Berkeley; the College of Europe; the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po; the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London; and the University of Sydney. In 2016 he was Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, Middle East Initiative, Kennedy School, Harvard University. His publications include Mubarak’s Egypt. Fragmentation of the Political Order (1989); Family Power and Politics in Egypt (1982); Legislative Politics in the Arab World (1999, co-authored with Abdo Baaklini and Guilain Denoeux); Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East first and second editions, (2001 and 2010, co-authored with Clement M. Henry); Oil and Democracy in Iraq (2007); Development Models in Muslim Contexts: Chinese, ‘Islamic’ and Neo-Liberal Alternatives(2009) and several editions of Politics in the Middle East (co-authored with James A. Bill). He co-edited a volume on popular culture and political identity in the Gulf that appeared in 2008. He has published in the leading Middle East journals and was the founder and regular editorialist for The Middle East in London, a monthly journal that commenced publication in 2003.
Lindsay J. Benstead is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) at Portland State University. Her research on women and politics, public opinion, and survey methodology has appeared in Perspectives on Politics, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Governance, and Foreign Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and served as a doctoral fellow at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University. For more on her research, see https://pdx.academia.edu/LindsayBenstead.
Glenn E. Robinson is Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California, and is also affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He retired from NPS after 30 years in December 2021. He has authored or co-authored four books on Middle East politics as well as over 150 journal articles, book chapters, government reports and conference papers. His most recent book, Global Jihad: A Brief History, was named by both Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy as a "Best Book of 2021." He has won awards for his teaching at both Berkeley and NPS. Robinson has been active in policy work, especially for USAID and DOD, and in his professional work for the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and (as a Founding Board Member and Treasurer) for the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS).
Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Senior Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington, DC. He is a specialist on regimes and governance in the Middle East, especially in Arab monarchies like Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco. His research engages topics of authoritarian politics, democratic reforms, institutional stability, and economic development in these countries, as well as their implications for US foreign policy. His publications include the books From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2016); the co-edited volume The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings (Oxford University Press, 2022); and articles in print journals like Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Journal of Democracy.
Online via Zoom
The Twitter Files Are a Missed Opportunity
Renée DiResta, Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory
The Atlantic, 12/15/22
Strengthen Oversight of Risky Research on Pathogens
David Relman, Senior Fellow at FSI
Megan Palmer, CISAC Affiliate
Science, 12/08/2022
The Russia-Ukraine War and its Ramifications for Russia
Steven Pifer, Affiliate at CISAC
Brookings, 12/08/22
Why Countries That Usually Don't See Dissent Are Now Seeing Their People Protest
Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI
NPR | All Things Considered, 12/03/22
80 Countries Just Signed a Declaration on Protecting Civilians in War
Naomi Egel, Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC
Washington Post, 11/29/22
How Will America Deal with Three-way Nuclear Deterrence?
Rose Gottemoeller, Steven C. Házy Lecturer at CISAC
NBC News, 11/28/22
It's taken a while to work out the COVID protocols – such as what distance do the inspectors have to keep from others? What kind of masks do they have to wear? All those little details have to be worked out and agreed upon.
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Key policy takeaways from Renée DiResta on the need to understand how platforms moderate content, David Relman and Megan Palmer on strengthening regulations on risky pathogen research, Steven Pifer on the ramifications of the Ukraine-Russia war on the Kremlin, Larry Diamond on the protests in China, Iran, and Russia, Naomi Egel on protecting civilians during war, and Rose Gottemoeller on U.S. nuclear negotiations with Russia.
The Leadership Network for Change (LNC) is an expansive group that encompasses over 2,100 up-and-coming leaders and change-makers from all corners of the globe. This diverse and widespread network is comprised of alumni of three practitioner programs based at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL): the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program, Leadership Academy for Development, and the Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program (formerly the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program). These practitioner-based training programs engage emerging civic leaders and social entrepreneurs who are working to achieve or deepen democracy and social justice in some of the most challenging environments around the world.
Reunions are always marked by the distinct nostalgia of your most memorable moments with people whom you shared lengths of time with. No doubt that the Leadership Network for Change reunion held this past summer at Stanford was one such event for me. Right from walking back into Munger residence, I immediately remembered how, with newly made friends in the Draper Hills class of 2018, we chatted as we walked back and forth to our classes or spent many hours sitting on the benches talking about global events or sharing personal stories – almost always with a bottle of wine (the famous room 555 of the class of 2018 comes to mind). For most of the people I spoke to during this reunion, there was a shared sense despite our different cohorts, of how ‘not long ago’ it was since leaving (not even the occurrence of the pandemic made it seem like it was a long time ago). It felt like we’d just been there months earlier. It speaks to how impactful our time together was and the deep connections made in and out of class experiences.
Seeing the familiar faces of Larry Diamond, Francis Fukuyama, Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner, and Erik Jensen reminded me how fortunate I was to have had access to legendary global democracy shaping minds. What is always humbling, however, is when they each tell you that it is an honor for them to meet us.
Over a weekend of thought-provoking panels and lectures, we had tough conversations about the global state of democracy since COVID and more recently since Russian troops had attacked Ukraine. With the depressing reality of rising authoritarianism staring us in the face, one could only marvel at the moments of inspiration that brewed during this reunion. There was a spontaneous and very somber time when during one of the sessions fellows stood up and celebrated the alumni (by name) who were no longer with us and some who languish in prisons under the grip of dictatorships. Michael McFaul followed that by asking us to share stories of hope from our regions — igniting a crackling bonfire of hope with both tears and laughter that lifted our spirits.
Honoring the life and work of Carl Gershman, the former president of the National Endowment for Democracy, at this reunion was a moment to reflect on my own journey. Carl is a giant of his era and as he recounted his years of service in support of global democracy, it felt like a challenge to serve humanity’s fragile freedom with strategy, determination, and whatever resources are at our disposal. And that, in my humble opinion, is the enduring legacy of the CDDRL Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. It was good to be back again.
Applications for the 2023 Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program and the Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program are open now through 5:00 pm PT on January 15, 2023. Visit each program's web page to learn more and apply.
Over the weekend of August 13-15, 2022, CDDRL hosted a reunion for the LNC community on campus at Stanford. It was the first global meeting and an exciting opportunity to bring together all generations of our fellows to connect, engage, and envision ways of advancing democratic development. 2018 Draper Hills alum Evan Mawarire (Zimbabwe) reflects on the experience.
