Disagreeing About Disagreement: How Conflict in Social Networks Affects Political Behavior

At the center of debates on deliberative democracy is the issue of how much real deliberation citizens experience in their core social networks. These ―disagreements about disagreement‖ come in a variety of forms, with scholars advocating significantly different empirical approaches (e.g., Huckfeldt et al. 2004; Mutz 2006), and coming to significantly different substantive conclusions. We tackle these discrepancies by investigating the effect of conceptual and measurement differences on key findings relating interpersonal political disagreement to political attitudes and behaviors. Drawing on the 2008-2009 ANES panel study, we find evidence that different measures of disagreement have distinct effects when it comes to individuals‘ preferences, patterns of engagement, and propensities to participate. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of social influence; as interpersonal disagreement can mean different things and does not have easily characterized effects, scholars should exercise caution when making pronouncements concerning its empirical and democratic consequences.

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