Chapter 1 introduces the motivating problem and the central contribution of the book. The chapter begins by observing that even though difference and disagreement can be valuable for liberal democracy, their expression can “overheat,” strain liberal democratic institutions, and leave the polity vulnerable to the growing influence of autocratic political forces. The chapter posits that the more citizens share in “role-based constitutional fellowship,” the more a liberal democracy can harness the benefits of difference and disagreement while sidestepping the potential perils of difference and disagreement. Under role-based constitutional fellowship, citizens share in a culture of trust where they feel united in the general effort to preserve liberal democracy. This culture of trust can emerge because citizens (perhaps unwittingly at first) observe a division of labour; they behave in different ways, according to which spheres of activity they find themselves in and according to what normative roles they find themselves occupying within those spheres. This chapter characterizes fellowship as a “negative idealistic” perspective that lies between “deliberative” and “realist” or “agonist” conceptions of democracy.

Under what conditions are people most likely to discuss politics? Our focus in Chapter 5 is on the moment of decision itself (Stage 2). We use three novel approaches to answer this question. The True Counterfactual Study asked participants to reflect upon and describe either political discussions in which they had recently engaged or political discussions in which they could have engaged, but chose to avoid. Comparing these descriptions revealed that avoided discussions had larger groups with more disagreement. We then used vignette experiments to manipulate various features of a conversation, finding that individuals were more likely to avoid a discussion if they were in the political minority, less knowledgeable than the others, or conversing with weak social ties. The Name Your Price studies asked people to report how much they would need to be paid to discuss various topics with different groups. Individuals demand more compensation to discuss both political and nonpolitical topics with those who disagree, especially when that disagreement is defined in terms of partisan identity.