Democratic Group Cognition

Abstract

Citizens of contemporary democracies are famously uninformed about politics.They typically know little about who their representatives are, what policies those representatives support, or how the political system works. 1Social scientists and political philosophers alike often worry that this jeopardizes the normative ideal of democracy.Democracy matters, in significant part, as a way of holding policy-makers accountable to the interests and concerns of citizens.But, the argument continues, citizens cannot hold policy-makers accountable if they are woefully uninformed. 2 A common response to this pessimistic narrative insists that citizens need not know these facts about politics to hold policy-makers accountable.Instead, they can take information shortcuts.That is, citizens can form reliable political judgments by deliberating with those who are more informed than they are, 3 or simply deferring to their advice concerning which politicians, parties, or policies they should support. 4 However, this response assumes that when people seek out advice, they are trying to form accurate or reliable political judgments.But there is ample evidence suggesting that, when it comes to politics, people simply accept whatever their social group tells them to believe.Indeed, the way people go about forming political judgments is deeply shaped by group affiliations such as their race, gender, ethnicity, or party.This, critics argue, indicates that citizens are motivated not so much by the desire to form accurate political judgments, as by the desire to satisfy their emotionally charged group loyalties.In politics, it would appear, people process information less like scientists-who seek the truth-and more like sports fans-who embrace whatever views will show their team in the best light.In turn, if people acquire information in a way that is unrelated to the truth, their political judgments seem ill-suited to reliably holding policy-makers accountable.Thus, the democratic ideal, with its emphasis on accountability to the people, seems to be

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