What is really interesting about “Ideology, attitude change, and deliberation in small face-to-face groups” written by John Gastil, Laura Black and Kara Moscovitz (Gastil et. al 2008) is that the number of studies they referenced throughout the article sounded more like Canadian-based studies and not American-based studies. This is not to sound like I am being sanctimonious about the differences in political cultures between the counties, but to highlight an observation that Stephen Harper’s government is changing how Canadians filter information through ideology.
“After deliberating in small groups, liberal and conservative participants are likely to move apart from one another attitudinally, with the former more strongly endorsing liberal beliefs and more clearly rejecting conservative ones, and vice-versa.” (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 26).
Although the article is an exploration of how to redesign small group qualitative projects in order to best retrieve data that identifies commonalities (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 27) by recognizing personalities and the democratic deliberation process (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 26-27), I had an epiphany related to the Conservative Party. I believe the party must engage is a similar exercise when they are segmenting potential wedge issues that could motivate voters to support them.
Gastil’s paper examines a process whereby qualitative researchers use a multi-faceted method of identifying political issues that could identify areas of potential compromises between “liberals”, “moderates” and “conservatives.” (Gastil et. al, 2008). Through a combined pre and post deliberation and debating session score, as well as an observational and self-rated scoring weighting system (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34), this method could potentially make the political public sphere more productive and less divisive. Using a primarily “Liberal-supported” issue as an area to study (in this example – responding to decriminalization/treatment programs for substance abuse) (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34), this method tests policy proposals that could seek a potential compromise. Of the three proposed options of “decriminalize”, “Just say no” and “implement/increase the drug war”, liberals, moderates and conservatives found common ground where deliberation could achieve some room for agreement with the “Just say no” campaign. (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34) However, if you were a Conservative political researcher, you wouldn’t be interested in looking at the areas where both Liberals and Conservatives (with the moderates showing no significant change after a deliberation) agreed, you would go to the option that showed disagreement, ‘decriminalization,’ (Gastil et. al, 2008, p. 34) to use as a wedge issue that could shake loose some Liberal supporters.
If they haven’t done this already, the Conservatives could use this process to identify proposed and potential policy issues that their opponents are currently considering – including decriminalization of marijuana, supporting the European trade agreement, pharmacare, a carbon tax and community-based rehabilitative sentencing for white collar or non-violent crimes. It could also be used for the Conservatives to develop policy that solidifies their support by developing legislation or policy proposals that reinforce their voting base, or in this case – entrench their base into an ideological, immovable wall that could not be shaken lose if their opponents realize they could do the same thing.
Gastil, J., Black, L., & Moscovitz, K. (2008). Ideology, attitude change, and deliberation in small face-to-face groups. Political Communication, 25(1), 23 – 46. Retrieved from: http://moodle233.msvu.ca/m23/course/view.php?id=1581
Communication Theory 