Information Acquisition in Deliberative Democracies

Abstract

We examine the impact of deliberation on political learning and election outcomes. We model a rational, common-valued electorate voting between two alternatives under majority rule, after potentially acquiring costly private information and sharing it freely through public deliberation. Deliberation can lead to free-riding on information gathering and encourage the emergence of informed political experts. But deliberation may also legitimize purely electoral outcomes---we provide conditions under which the same equilibrium without deliberation can be an equilibrium with deliberation---and may yield more accurate decisions. However, deliberation may also reduce electoral accuracy. Our results contribute to the understanding of the strengths and limitations of deliberative democracies, both from a normative and a positive perspective.

Keywords: elections, information acquisition, communication

JEL Classification: D72, D82, D83