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The public, communication and the "tyranny of the majority"

Study by CCCP researcher Jan Sauermann

[This content is not available in "Englisch" yet] Jan Sauermann

[This content is not available in "Englisch" yet]

The tyranny of the majority is one of the most frequently discussed problems of democracy in political theory. It arises when majorities are won firmly and permanently and the ability of the majority to dominate the minority is not restricted.

Communication processes play a crucial role in the establishment or prevention of such majority power. In a laboratory experiment, WiSo researcher Jan Sauerman (Cologne Center for Comparative Politics) has now been able to show that it is particularly important whether the actors communicate publicly or in private space.

From a theoretical perspective, communication can have different effects. On the one hand, communication fosters majority coalitions because it enables the coordination necessary for the formation and maintenance of associations of individuals. This effect should be particularly noticeable in the case of private communication. On the other hand, communication may also strengthen pro-social orientations in groups and may thus prevent the permanent exclusion of minorities by the majority. It is assumed that this effect dominates public discussions.

Jan Sauermann tested his theoretical considerations in a series of laboratory experiments in which five-member committees had to make distribution decisions with the help of the voting mechanism "voting by veto". The decision-making process consists of two stages: First (in addition to the existing status quo) each group member makes a proposal on the distribution of the payments. In the second stage, the group members eliminate one alternative after the other. After all group members have voted, a single winning alternative remains.

As a result, groups that had the ability to communicate in a chat that was public to all group members distributed the payouts more evenly than groups that could not communicate with each other. However, if the group members had the possibility to exclude other group members from the discussion in a private chat, majority coalitions of three group members formed, which excluded the other two group members from the distribution of benefits.

Even if the public is not always desirable in political decision-making processes (e.g. in the case of electoral secrecy), the results have shown, according to Jan Sauermann, "that public deliberations promote pro-sociality in group decisions, while private discussions favour majority results". Furthermore, it had been shown that inclusive and fair arguments predominate in public discussions, while group members predominantly voiced exclusive and selfish arguments when they had the opportunity to exclude other committee members from the discussion.

The study was published in "Social Choice and Welfare":

• Sauermann, Jan (2020): „The effects of communication on the occurrence of the tyranny of the majority under voting by veto“, Social Choice and Welfare 

[https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-020-01268-w]