Measuring Political Deliberation: A Discourse Quality Index

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a discourse quality index (DQI) that serves as a quantitative measure of discourse in deliberation. The DQI is rooted in Habermas' discourse ethics and provides an accurate representation of the most important principles underlying deliberation. At the same time, the DQI can be shown to be a reliable measurement instrument due to its focus on observable behavior and its detailed coding instructions. We illustrate the DQI for a parliamentary debate in the British House of Commons. We show that the DQI yields reliable data and we discuss how these data could be used in subsequent analysis. We conclude by discussing some limitations of the DQI and by identifying some areas in which it could prove useful.

The sociodemographics of political public deliberation: Measuring deliberative quality in different user groups

“…The index is based on Habermas's (1984) theory of communicative action, as well as on other studies on public discourse (Gerhards, Neidhardt, and Rucht 1998; Graham and Witschke 2003;Kies 2010;Spörndli 2004;Steenbergen, Bächtiger, Spörndli, and Steiner 2003). The index thus specifies the communicative principles of understanding: reciprocity, doubts concerning the four validity claims, statement of reasons for positions taken, proposals for solutions, and expressions of respect.…”

Deliberative Democracy: An Introduction1

“…Despite increasing methodological sophistication (see Holzinger 2001;Steenbergen et al 2003), existing empirical contributions have not been able to draw a clear-cut line between true deliberative and strategic action (such as bargaining). Daniel Naurin (this issue) discusses analytical and measurement strategies that can better discriminate between bargaining and deliberation.…”

“…So far, it means grappling with in-depth content analysis and extensive reliability testing (see Steenbergen et al 2003). Judith Bara, Albert Weale and Aude Bicquelet (this issue) show that deliberative instances can also be captured via computer-assisted textual analysis (CATA).…”

“…In concrete, we need to explore whether and how deliberative outcome ideals such as meta-consensus and inter-subjective rationality are empirically related to Habermasian process standards such as justification rationality or calm and respectful debate. This could be accomplished on the basis of the Discourse Quality Index (Steenbergen et al 2003) which allows capturing instances of Habermasian process rationality. Linking process rationally to deliberative outcomes may indeed be a fruitful endeavour.…”

Sequencing Deliberative Moments

“…Still, four stages will suffice to illustrate the point. And for those purposes, it also suffices simply take the 'indices of deliberative quality' developed by Steenbergen et al (2002) as our evaluative criteria. Having gotten the point onto the table by reference to stages and standards of those familiar sorts, we can then begin to ponder how to broaden it to other stages (deliberation in civil society or the administrative process, for example) or other standards (of rhetoric, for example).…”