Publication and Resources
30 results found
Motive Matters: Liberalism & Insincerity
Does political liberalism force citizens—especially religious ones—to be insincere about their deepest beliefs? This paper defends the concept of "public reason" against critics who claim it…
The Weight of Passion: A Revisionist History of Political Emotion
A historical re-examination of how political philosophers have viewed emotion. This paper challenges the traditional binary between "rational" politics and "irrational" passion, arguing that major…
Two Field Experiments on Leadership and Political Persuasion
This paper presents results from two field experiments involving twelve members of Congress. It finds that direct engagement with leaders leads to substantial persuasion across three dimensions:…
How We Do Things with Surveys: Recognizing Polls as ‘Speech Acts’ Will Improve the Science of Public Opinion
By reframing survey responses as "speech acts" rather than mere data points, this paper argues that scholars can better understand the communicative intent behind public opinion polls and improve…
An Experimental Comparison of AI-Enabled Semi-Structured Interviews and Fixed Surveys: Response Patterns, Quality, and Representation
A methodological study comparing the data quality of AI-conducted semi-structured interviews versus traditional fixed-choice surveys. The researchers evaluate response patterns and…
Thrasymachus’s Blush: Between the Science of Reason & the Politics of Emotion
This paper pushes back against "democratic realists" who argue that citizens are too irrational for democracy. By revisiting the dialogue of Thrasymachus, it argues that recent findings in…
A Theory of Deliberation as Interactive Reasoning
This paper bridges the gap between formal theory and normative deliberative democracy. It develops a model of "interactive reasoning" where participants are motivated not just by strategy, but by…
Logos, Ethos, & Pathos: Mechanisms of Persuasion in a Deliberative Field Experiment
A formal theoretical framework that models deliberation not just as talk, but as "interactive reasoning." The authors demonstrate how citizens can rationally update their beliefs through the…
Nigeria Deliberative Town Halls Baruten/Kaiama: Current Evaluations of Nigerian Democracy’s Future
A report on a hybrid deliberative town hall held in Baruten/Kaiama, Nigeria, focused on policing infrastructure. The study finds that attending the town hall significantly boosted constituents'…