7 - The Law and Legal Institutions as Agents of Persuasion

Summary

The preceding chapter dealt primarily with two specific aspects of persuasion: getting the respondents to change their minds and to adopt a new substantive position, and doing so through the use of deliberative argumentation. We have demonstrated some success at changing opinions (although we are better at creating intolerance than creating tolerance), and have gone some distance toward explaining why some people are persuadable and others are not. In general, we have found that the initial positions people take on issues of political tolerance are not necessarily the same as the positions they take after giving considered thought to the matter.

However, another form of persuasion is equally important for democratic politics. It is not always necessary to get citizens to change their own views in political disputes (see Franklin and Kosaki 1989); often it is sufficient to get citizens simply to desist their opposition to democratic policy outcomes, to acquiesce to tolerant decisions made elsewhere. Especially if either elites or political institutions are more strongly committed to democratic processes, then persuading people to “go along with” a democratic outcome may be just about as valuable as persuading them to change their minds.

Indeed, democratic cultures typically sanctify acquiescence without attitude change. Citizens in a democracy may be told how to behave, but not what to think. The right to think one's own thoughts is perhaps the dearest democratic value. Thus, citizens in democracies often reserve the right to disagree even when they agree to acquiesce to decisions that are disagreeable.