Persuasion and Democracy: Strategies for Increasing Deliberative Participation and Enacting Social Change

Abstract

Grassroots action can be undertaken as the result of either deliberative persuasion (a process that encourages thought, reflection, and critical analysis) or propaganda (a process that truncates thought through the use of simplistic symbols and images that play on prejudices and emotions). True democratic social change can only be accomplished by encouraging deliberative persuasion and forestalling propaganda. Effective deliberative persuasion can be accomplished when participants ave both motivated and capable of issue processing and group decision making. To that end, we examine the characteristics of the persuasion landscape, identify barriers to deliberative persuasion, and describe some techniques for promoting deliberative persuasion.