Agreement and Disagreement in Democratic Politics: Patterns of Deliberation in Germany, Japan, and the United States.

An important ingredient in democratic politics is the realization of political disagreement through patterns of social communication and political discussion. If people fail to encounter contrary viewpoints, their own political views are never challenged, they are never forced to reconsider initially held preferences or opinions, and they are effectively excluded from democratic deliberation. This paper examines patterns of agreement and disagreement within the political communication networks of citizens in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Several questions are addressed. Are there cross-national differences in the patterns of agreement and disagreement that occur among citizens? To what extent are these patterns subject to individual characteristics, opinions, and attitudes? Are they dependent on the structure of citizens’ communication networks? Finally, to what extent are patterns of political agreement and disagreement affected by the levels of aggregate support for a citizen’s political preferences and opinions? The empirical analysis is based on cooperative election surveys conducted in each of the countries during the early 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]