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Abstract

Deliberative democracy's core practice of political discussion is often claimed to entail beneficial 'self-transformative' effects on its participants. We examine the assumption that political talk leads to 'better citizens' with a focus on democratic orientations. Drawing on extant research on political culture and participation, we conceptualize these orientations as a triad of democratic citizenship that entails three pillars: (1) the attitudinal dimension of citizens' support for the democratic political system whose members they are, (2) the normative dimension of views about 'good' citizenship, and (3) the behavioral dimension of active participation in the democratic political process. Our study aims for the 'grand picture' of how these orientations are affected by engagement and disagreement experiences in political talk across four discursive spheres: (i) informal conversations of a private nature within strong network ties (family and friends), (ii) of a semi-public nature within weak network ties (acquaintances), and (iii) of a public nature outside social networks (strangers), as well as (iv) formalized public discussions at organized events. Analyzing two high-quality surveys from Germany, we find unequivocally positive effects for engagement in informal-private and formalized public talk on political participation. The role of the semi-public discursive sphere appears ambivalent and overall weak. Strikingly, we observe strong indications that casual conversations with strangers weaken people's support for the democratic system, participatory norms, and electoral participation. For some facets of democratic citizenship, disagreement experiences matter as well, and their effects are always positive.
Schmitt-Beck, R., & Schnaudt, C. (2023). Political Talk and the Triad
of Democratic Citizenship.
Journal of Deliberative Democracy
,
19(1), pp. 1–17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16997/jdd.1359
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship
Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Christian Schnaudt
Deliberative democracy’s core practice of political discussion is often claimed to entail bene󰐬cial ‘self-
transformative’ e󰐫ects on its participants. We examine the assumption that political talk leads to ‘better
citizens’ with a focus on democratic orientations. Drawing on extant research on political culture and
participation, we conceptualize these orientations as a triad of democratic citizenship that entails three
pillars: (1) the attitudinal dimension of citizens’ support for the democratic political system whose
members they are, (2) the normative dimension of views about ‘good’ citizenship, and (3) the behavioral
dimension of active participation in the democratic political process. Our study aims for the ‘grand
picture’ of how these orientations are a󰐫ected by engagement and disagreement experiences in political
talk across four discursive spheres: (i) informal conversations of a private nature within strong network
ties (family and friends), (ii) of a semi-public nature within weak network ties (acquaintances), and
(iii) of a public nature outside social networks (strangers), as well as (iv) formalized public discussions
at organized events. Analyzing two high-quality surveys from Germany, we 󰐬nd unequivocally positive
e󰐫ects for engagement in informal-private and formalized public talk on political participation. The role
of the semi-public discursive sphere appears ambivalent and overall weak. Strikingly, we observe strong
indications that casual conversations with strangers weaken people’s support for the democratic system,
participatory norms, and electoral participation. For some facets of democratic citizenship, disagreement
experiences matter as well, and their e󰐫ects are always positive.
Keywords: Citizenship norms; Democratic citizenship; Everyday political talk; Political participation;
Political support; Public discussion events
1. Introduction
Democratic theory’s deliberative turn has spurred an
intense debate about the merits of ‘talk-centered’ (Steiner
2012: 37) democratic processes. Deliberative democracy
is advocated less as an end in itself than by dint of its
presumed instrumental value for beneficial purposes.
It is expected to give rise to two achievements: ‘better
policies’ and ‘better citizens’ (Jacquet & van der Does
2020; Pincock 2012; Steiner 2012). Our paper aims to
contribute to a deeper understanding of the latter: the
assumption that deliberative democracy’s core practice of
political discussion exerts a powerful ‘self-transformative’
effect on its participants that renders them in several ways
better suited and more capable for democratic politics
(Mansbridge 1999; Warren 1992). A sizable body of
research has examined ‘educative effects’ of political
discussion for the quality of public opinion (Pincock 2012:
144–148). We focus on another, much less developed
strand of reasoning on ‘better citizens’. It revolves around
democratic legitimacy.
As presumably ideal procedures for democratic decision-
making, discussion-centric processes are expected to
generate legitimacy for public policies as well as the
political system at large (Cohen 1989; Habermas 1996).
Accordingly, people’s involvement in political discussions
has been claimed to nurture democratic orientations like
identification with one’s political community, trust in the
political system, external efficacy, tolerance for pluralism
and diversity, and active participation in public life (Mutz
2008: 530; Pincock 2012: 148–149; Steiner 2012: 222).
Theoretically and empirically, however, this line of
scholarship is rather vaguely demarcated and not very
stringently structured. This observation applies to
both sides of the equation: the conceptualization of
citizens’ political communication with one another as
explanans, as well as citizens’ democratic orientations
as explanandum. Research on ordinary people’s political
talk has progressed in two, mostly segregated trajectories,
one focusing on casual conversations about public affairs
among citizens in their everyday lives (Conover & Miller
2018), the other on formalized discussions in deliberative
forums (Bächtiger 2016). With regard to its presumed
consequences, research resembles a ‘shopping list’
(Kuyper 2018: 3) of democratically desirable attitudes and
behaviors rather than a conceptually integrated, coherent,
and systematic body of work. The existing evidence is
Political Science, University of Mannheim, DE
Corresponding author: Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck
(schmitt-beck@uni-mannheim.de)
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship2
eclectic, patchy, and sometimes also contradictory. Against
this backdrop, we aim to assess how political talk, in all its
various guises, affects the wide range of orientations that
together constitute democratic citizenship.
To alleviate the deficiencies of extant research, our
study provides a holistic tableau of evidence that is more
systematic, broader in scope, and therefore more complete
with regard to citizens’ political talk on the one hand,
and the democratic orientations presumably affected
by its various manifestations on the other. Our findings
thus provide a comprehensive birds’ eye perspective on
the multi-faceted relationship between political talk and
democratic citizenship:
• To overcome the compartmentalization of perspec-
tives on political talk, we conceptualize citizens’ in-
volvement in this activity as a system of four distinct
discursive spheres’ (Hendriks 2006) that range from
informal private conversations over semi-public and
public, but still informal, exchanges, to formalized
public discussions at organized events (Schmitt-Beck
& Grill 2020). We focus on two crucial aspects of
citizens’ involvement in political talk: their engage-
ment in the respective discursive spheres—whether
and how often they discuss politics in these arenas;
and their encounters with disagreement—how often
they experience opinion differences during these
conversations (Nir 2017).
• We conceptualize citizens’ orientations toward
democracy as a political order, and their own roles
within it, in terms of a triad of democratic citizenship
that encompasses three pillars: citizens’ attitudes
about the democratic political system and its ele-
ments, their norms of good citizenship, and their
participation in different forms of political activity
(Pattie et al. 2004; van Deth et al. 2007).
We begin with a detailed outline of this conceptional
groundwork, from which we then develop testable
hypotheses. Our empirical contribution is based on two
complementary high-quality surveys from Germany:
the 2017/18 CoDem survey and the 2018 German
General Social Survey ALLBUS. Our analyses find marked
positive associations of conversations within family and
friendship circles as well as discussions at organized
events with democratic citizenship but only for political
participation they allow to attribute these associations to
the assumed ‘self-transformative’ effect of political talk.
Strikingly, engagement in the public discursive sphere
of casual conversations with strangers weakens rather
than strengthens people’s support for the democratic
system, citizenship norms, and likelihood of electoral
participation. Disagreement experiences are often
inconsequential, but whenever they appear relevant, their
role is beneficial.
2. Four Discursive Spheres of Citizens’ Political
Talk
To represent the various modalities of citizens’ political
talk in an integrated analytical framework, we draw on a
typology that conceives this phenomenon as a sub-system
of the overall deliberative system (Neblo 2015: 17–25)
that is differentiated into four distinct ‘discursive spheres’
(Hendriks 2006). It is derived from two dimensions
of political talk that are accorded prominent roles in
theorizing on deliberative democracy (Figure 1): the
amount of its privacy or publicity (Stevenson & Dryzek
2014: 27–28; Weintraub 1997), and whether it occurs
informally in people’s everyday lifeworld or in a formalized
fashion within organized settings (Fleuß et al. 2018;
Richards & Neblo 2022; Schudson 1997). Conceptual tools
for fine-tuning this typology are gleaned from research on
citizens’ social networks (Huckfeldt & Sprague 1995) and
symbolic interactionism (Goffman 1963).
Three of these discursive spheres concern informal
everyday political talk, the casual, non-purposive,
unstructured, spontaneous, and free-flowing conversations
about public affairs occurring in day-to-day situations
(Conover & Miller 2018). The rst discursive sphere (I) is
established through conversations within people’s core
networks (Marsden 1987). They involve persons attached
through the dense, emotionally charged, highly valued
strong ties’ of kinship and friendship (Straits 1991), and
take place in protected spaces, most notably people’s
homes. Their character is thus private.
The second discursive sphere (II) involves conversations
within the ‘weak ties’ (Granovetter 1973) that connect
mere acquaintances (Goffman 1963: 112–123), such as
co-workers or neighbors. Access to these conversations
is regulated by norms of politeness and etiquette rather
than physical and legal barriers (Goffman 1963: 151–165).
The character of these conversations is best characterized
as semi-public, as they straddle the divide between
individuals’ private lifeworld and the public sphere.
The third discursive sphere (III) is constituted by
everyday political talk between strangers. Taking place
outside people’s social networks and in completely open
settings where access cannot be controlled, its character is
unequivocally public (Goffman 1963: 124–148). Railroad
compartments are archetypical contexts for such episodic
communications between unacquainted persons that
share nothing except their accidental simultaneous
presence in the same space at the same time (Noelle-
Neumann 1974). According to theorists of the public
sphere, it is primarily in this arena, rather than within the
confines of strong or even weak network ties, that society
at large engages in a conversation with itself (Habermas
1989: 31–43; Hauser 1999).
Figure 1: Discursive spheres of citizens’ political talk.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 3
The fourth discursive sphere (IV) is also public and
likewise involves communication between strangers. But
its setting are organized discussion events, rendering its
character formal. This kind of political talk is instrumental
(Schudson 1997). It is thematically focused, typically on
a topical issue of public policy on which participants’
perspectives are invited by some organizing agency. And
it takes place at a fixed time in a structured format that
is defined by set communication rules. For deliberative
democrats, deliberative minipublics stand out as a
particularly valuable type of such events (Elstub 2014).
But conventional, and less explicitly rule-guided forms
like town hall meetings, public hearings, or campaign
assemblies are much more common, and therefore
personally experienced by considerably larger numbers of
citizens.
3. The Triad of Democratic Citizenship
In modern democracies, the notion of citizenship refers to
an individual’s membership in a polity and the associated
rights and responsibilities (Marshall 1950). It is defined by
a vertical relationship with the institutions of the state,
and a horizontal relationship to fellow citizens. Research
on democratic citizenship starts from the premise that
beyond the formal granting of citizenship rights, what
matters for the functioning of democratic systems is how
people understand and live up to their roles as citizens of
a democracy, how loyal they feel toward the democratic
political order, and to what extent they are willing to take
over the rights and responsibilities that come with the
legal status bestowed on them.
As an integrated research agenda, the study of
democratic citizenship combines two classical fields
of political science: political culture, broadly speaking
research about citizens’ orientations toward the
democratic political system of which they are members,
including views concerning this membership itself
(Almond & Verba 1963; Dalton 2008; Easton 1975), and
political participation, the study of how and why citizens
actively engage in this system’s political process (van Deth
2003; Verba et al. 1995). Recent studies have converged on
a comprehensive framework that can be characterized as
a triad of citizenship—a three-pronged conceptualization
according to which democratic citizenship encompasses
(1) an attitudinal dimension that concerns individuals’
orientations toward the democratic political system
whose members they are, (2) a normative dimension of
views about ‘good’ citizenship, and (3) a behavioral pillar
pertaining to active participation in this system’s political
process (Pattie et al. 2004; van Deth et al. 2007).
3.1 Attitudes
In the study of political culture, Easton’s (1975) notion of
political support is widely accepted as the analytically most
useful framework for conceptualizing orientations toward
democratic political systems. It encapsulates citizens’
attitudes toward a wide variety of objects within the
political system at large, based on the crucial distinction
between the system levels of the political community,
regime (subdivided between orientations toward the
regime’s principles, performance, and institutions), and
authorities (Norris 1999; Thomassen & van Ham 2017).
Positive attitudes toward the political community and
regime are particularly important for democratic systems
to thrive (Easton 1975: 439).
Support for the political community refers to ‘a
basic attachment to the nation beyond the present
institutions of government and a general willingness to
co-operate together politically’ among the citizens of a
state (Norris 1999: 10). Support for democratic regime
principles concerns citizens’ general, ‘diffuse’ preference
for a democratic regime as such, as well as the subjective
importance of specific core principles like pluralism,
freedom of expression, and the critical role of media
and the opposition, as emphasized by liberal democracy,
and the relevance of political discussion, prioritized
by deliberative democracy. Referring to the actual
implementation of democracy, ‘specific’ support for the
regime’s performance concerns citizens’ satisfaction with
how their country’s democracy works in practice. Support
for regime institutions refers to citizens’ confidence in
the core institutions of this democratic system, such
as parliaments, political parties, courts, or the public
administration. Support for political authorities, finally,
pertains to current office holders, most notably with
regard to their responsiveness to citizens’ demands (Norris
1999; van Ham & Thomassen 2017).
3.2 Norms
The second pillar concerns citizens’ normative orientations
regarding their own role in democracy—‘what people
think people should do as good citizens’ (Dalton 2008:
78). For the viability of democratic systems, the norms
and principles that govern citizens’ relationships with the
institutions of the state and their fellow citizens (Denters
et al. 2007: 90) matter because they determine which
behaviors citizens are more or less likely to engage in, and
for what reasons.
Extant research has identified four distinct facets of
citizenship norms (Dalton 2008; van Deth 2007) that
emanate from different conceptions of democracy,
ranging from elitist over liberal, communitarian and
participatory to deliberative understandings (Denters
et al. 2007: 90–92). These competing views about the
meaning and essence of democracy highlight different
normatively desirable characteristics of a good citizen.
From a deliberative democratic viewpoint citizens’
autonomy, participation, and solidarity appear especially
important. The norm of autonomy envisions a good
citizen as someone who is informed and knowledgeable
but also critical about politics, while at the same time
willing to reflect on her own opinions and to exchange
different viewpoints with fellow citizens. The facet of
participation conceives of the good citizen as a person
who is actively engaged in public affairs and willing to
participate in political and social activities. The norm of
solidarity refers to views about desirable relationships
between fellow citizens and emphasizes caring for those
in need. The norm of law abidance, finally, refers to the
acknowledgement of state legitimacy and the rule of
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship4
law. If citizens were not loyal to the laws and regulations
generated by democratic procedures, implementing
democratic decisions would require force and coercion,
and that would be diametrically opposed to the idea
of self-governance through democratic deliberation
(Schnaudt et al. 2021).
In addition, extant scholarship has highlighted tolerance
as important element of good citizenship (Leite Viegas
2007). Defined as ‘willingness to put up with disagreeable
ideas and groups in order to peacefully coexist’ (Sandoval-
Hernández et al. 2021: 150), it envisions people who
condone viewpoints they do not share, and who accept
their advocates’ right to express them even when finding
them objectionable. Lacking tolerance raises the risk of
insurmountable political and societal conflict, thus posing
a challenge to the viability of democratic systems.
3.3 Behavior
The behavioral dimension refers to people’s active
engagement in democracy’s political process. ‘Political
participation provides the mechanism by which citizens
can communicate information about their interests,
preferences, and needs and generate pressure to respond.’
(Verba et al. 1995: 1) Democracy cannot thrive if citizens are
passive and apathetic; hence, a high level of participation
is generally desirable from the perspective of democratic
citizenship. In modern democracies citizens can draw on a
multitude of ways to become politically active.
The most basic distinction refers to institutionalized
and non-institutionalized modes of participation.
Institutionalized participation concerns political activities
that take place within the confines of the institutional
process and are directly geared toward the political elites
and authorities that govern this process. The archetype
of institutionalized participation is voting. Other and
less common examples of institutionalized participation
include working for a political party and contacting
politicians. Non-institutionalized participation pertains to
political activities that take place outside the institutional
pathways of representative democracy, such as signing
petitions, boycotting, or partaking in citizen initiatives
(van Deth 2003). Due to their overt elite-challenging
character, protest activities, such as demonstrations or
(online) protest campaigns, have been identified as yet
another distinct form of (also non-institutionalized)
participation (Oser 2022).
4. Political Talk and Democratic Citizenship:
Hypotheses
Theorizing about deliberative democracy assumes that
engagement in political talk leads to ‘better citizens’ in the
sense of enhanced democratic citizenship in all three of
its dimensions—attitudes, norms, and behaviors (Kuyper
2018). Correspondingly, our analysis starts with the
baseline hypothesis that partaking in political discussions
gives rise to stronger support for the democratic political
system, more pronounced alignment with norms of good
democratic citizenship, and a higher inclination to become
active in politics (H1). While no study ever attempted
to examine the effects of political talk on the triad of
citizenship nor any of its pillars in full, some scattered
findings are in line with this basic expectation. Aspects
of political support, such as satisfaction with democracy,
trust in political institutions, or external political efficacy,
have been found to be positively related to political
discussions in social networks (Searing et al. 2007), or
deliberative minipublics (Myers & Mendelberg 2013).
Searing et al. (2007) found social network conversations
also being related to citizenship norms like law abidance
and active engagement. Other research has detected
mobilizing effects of social network communication on
turnout, and occasionally also political participation more
generally (Rolfe & Chan 2018).
At least two caveats can be raised against this
straightforward hypothesis. First, it could be argued
that beneficial implications of political talk presuppose
effective influence of this practice on public policies
(Mansbridge 1999). Due to its non-purposive character,
no such consequences should accordingly derive from
informal everyday political talk. Discussions in deliberative
forums and other public events, by contrast, are organized
to address pertinent policy problems (Schudson 1997).
Conditions might thus be more favorable for the assumed
beneficial effects in the discursive sphere of formal
discussion events than the three discursive spheres of
everyday political talk. This suggests the conditional
hypothesis that benecial consequences for democratic
citizenship result from engagement in the discursive sphere
of formal public discussion events (IV) but less so from
engagement in the various modalities (I – III) of informal
everyday political talk (H2.1). Since previous studies did
not systematically compare different modes of political
talk, so far no empirical findings on this hypothesis exist.
Complicating things further, qualitative and
experimental studies of everyday political talk suggest
that there might be something special about informal
conversations between strangers. Relying on artificial
settings where political matters are informally discussed
between persons individually recruited for research
purposes and therefore strangers to each other, these
studies consistently found political talk to converge on a
‘vernacular of political disaffection’ (Stoker et al. 2016: 10;
cf. Bøggild et al. 2021; Saunders & Klandermans 2020).
According to Stoker et al. (2016), such negativism in
political talk is a function of how its content is processed.
Formalized discussions in public settings should activate
slow,’ topically driven, careful, and reflective processing,
resulting in positive effects on democratic citizenship.
Everyday political talk, by contrast, might be more strongly
characterized by ‘fast,’ superficial processing of its content.
And ‘[i]n fast thinking mode the very nature of politics—its
conflicts, rhetoric and practices—tend to attract negative
judgments’ (Stoker et al. 2016: 16). In conversations with
strangers this tendency might be particularly pronounced.
We accordingly hypothesize that engagement in the public
discursive sphere of conversations with strangers (III)
weakens democratic citizenship (H2.2).
Apart from engagement in political talk as such it may
also matter whether individuals are confronted with
disagreeable viewpoints when discussing politics (Nir
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 5
2017; Klofstad et al. 2013). Deliberative democracy is
seen as ideal approach to deal with disagreements over
political goals in constructive and legitimate ways. It
therefore presupposes that the experience of society’s
political diversity is part and parcel of citizens’ encounters
with one another (Gutmann & Thompson 1996). Exposing
participants to heterogeneous viewpoints is therefore
integral to the design of deliberative forums. Accordingly,
in the discursive sphere of formalized public discussions
(IV), engagement and disagreement can be assumed to be
inseparably intertwined.
In casual everyday conversations, by contrast, people
can try to seek out agreeable communication partners
and avoid disagreeable ones (Huckfeldt & Sprague
1995; Huckfeldt et al. 2004). Accordingly, in the three
discursive spheres of everyday political talk (I–III) the
effects of engagement and political heterogeneity are
analytically distinguishable. Deliberative democrats tend
to expect generally positive consequences arising from
encounters with disagreement. We translate this into the
generic assumption that experiencing disagreement during
political conversations in the three discursive spheres of
everyday political talk (I–III) leads to stronger support for
the democratic political system, more pronounced alignment
with democratic norms of good citizenship, and a higher
inclination to become active in politics (H3). The available
evidence is eclectic and ambiguous. Carlson et al. (2020:
71–95) found negative rather than positive associations
of disagreement in social networks with political trust
and efficacy. According to Mutz (2006), such experiences
undermine people’s eagerness to become active in politics,
while rendering them more tolerant.
5. Data, Measures, and Strategy of Analysis
5.1 Data
Our study relies on the CoDem survey of 2017/18,1 a unique
two-wave panel study specially designed to examine
German citizens’ political talk, and the 2018 German
General Social Survey ALLBUS,2 the reference study of the
German social sciences. Both surveys were conducted face-
to-face and are based on random samples, one of them local
(CoDem), the other national (ALLBUS). They entail very
similar measures for individuals’ involvement in political
talk and numerous partly identical, partly equivalent,
and partly complementary measures for the wide range
of orientations and behaviors that together constitute
the triad of democratic citizenship, thus allowing for a
complete mapping of all relevant facets concerning the
nexus between political talk and democratic citizenship.3
5.2 Independent Variables
To register citizens’ engagement in everyday political
talk, both surveys queried the frequency of respondents’
informal political discussions in their families, with
friends, with acquaintances, and with people they did not
know. Conversations within the strong ties of family and
friendship circles (averaged across the two items) pertain
to the rst, private discursive sphere (I), talks between
acquaintances to the second, semi-public discursive sphere
(II), and talks with strangers to the third, public discursive
sphere of everyday political talk (III).4 Additional items are
used to register whether or not (coded 1 or 0) respondents
engaged in the fourth discursive sphere of formalized
public discussions (IV; CoDem: ‘Participate actively in
discussions during public meetings’; ALLBUS: ‘Take part
in public discussions at meetings’). For everyday political
talk (I–III), both surveys also included measures of the
amount of general disagreement (Klofstad et al. 2013)
encountered during these discussions (again averaged for
kin and friends).5 The Supplementary Materials document
these measures’ distributions.
5.3 Dependent Variables
To fully represent the three pillars of democratic
citizenship, we rely on 21 dependent variables across the
two data sets of which 11 refer to its attitudinal, and five
each to its normative and behavioral dimensions (see
Supplementary Materials for exact operationalizations).
Several of these variables can be analyzed with both
data sets, using partly identical and partly equivalent
operationalizations (Table 1). Wherever possible we draw
on established, tried-and-tested measures to increase
the compatibility and comparability of our study with
extant research on political culture and participation
(Norris 1999: 16–21; van Deth 2003). For the attitudinal
dimension of democratic citizenship, we make use of
established measures regularly employed in studies of
political support (Dalton 2004; Norris 1999; Thomassen
& van Ham 2017). Information on the normative
underpinnings of democratic citizenship is available in
the CoDem data only. To indicate views of what makes up
a ‘good citizen’ we draw on an item battery encompassing
the norms of autonomy, participation, solidarity, and law
abidance (Dalton 2008; Schnaudt et al. 2021; van Deth
2007). To measure tolerance, we use a count variable
indicating the number of potentially problematic groups
that according to respondents should be allowed to express
their views in public (Leite Viegas 2007). Concerning
political participation, we again draw on both CoDem and
ALLBUS data, and consider four types of participation
that reflect citizens’ political action repertories in modern
democracies: voting, institutionalized participation, non-
institutionalized participation, and protest participation
(Oser 2022; van Deth 2003).
5.4 Strategy of Analysis
Our models analyze how each of these dependent variables
is affected by seven independent variables: the frequency
of respondents’ engagement in the private (I), semi-public
(II) and public discursive spheres of informal everyday
political talk (III) as well as the extent of disagreement
experienced during these conversations, and whether
or not they engaged in the formal discursive sphere of
organized public discussion events (IV).
To obtain a complete picture of the relevance of
political talk for democratic citizenship, we run several
models on each dependent variable (with all continuous
variables normalized to range 0 to 1). Since the amount
of disagreement encountered during informal political
conversations can only meaningfully be elicited from
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship6
respondents that engage in the respective discursive sphere,
we proceed sequentially. For each dependent variable we
begin with a model that includes all respondents but
contains only the measures of engagement in the four
discursive spheres (M1). In the next step, we estimate
separate models for each discursive sphere of everyday
political talk that exclude all respondents that never
discuss politics in the respective arena (M2.I to M2.III).
These models include the disagreement variables for the
respective discursive spheres and display—for the sake
of completeness—again the effects of the frequency of
political talk (whose meaning is now different than in M1
because non-discussants are removed and disagreement
is controlled for).
We run each of these models in two versions that
together define a range within which the true effects
of our independent variables are situated: a permissive
one (P) that controls only for unequivocally exogenous
demographic characteristics (education, sex, age), and a
restrictive one (R) that additionally controls for the most
important attitudinal and behavioral predictors of political
support, citizenship norms, and political participation, as
identified by extant research (e.g., Dalton 2004, 2008;
Norris 1999; Verba et al. 1995). These include political
interest, left-right self-placement, party identification,
internal efficacy, news media consumption (newspapers,
public and private TV news), social trust, and economic
well-being (see Supplementary Materials for details of
operationalizations). Figure 2 visualizes this strategy of
research.
The pairs of estimates that result from this two-
track procedure have two alternative meanings that are
observationally equivalent. Which of them is the correct
one depends on the status of the attitudinal control
variables in the causal sequence preceding democratic
citizenship. In the literature, variables like political
interest, internal efficacy, or media use are often treated as
predictors of political talk (Schmitt-Beck & Lup 2013). But
sometimes they are also conceived as its outcomes (e.g.,
Atkin 1972; Morrell 2005; Torcal & Maldonado 2014).
If these variables are a common cause of both political
talk and democratic citizenship, the restrictive models
deliver appropriate estimates whereas the permissive
models overestimate the genuine impact of political
talk. If the latter interpretation is correct, these variables
succeed rather than precede political talk and may
CoDem Allbus 2018
Political support
Political community Attachment to Germany Identification with Germany and its
population
Diffuse support: democracy as generic
regime principle
Importance of living in democratic
country
Endorsement of democracy as idea
Diffuse Support: regime principles of
liberal democracy
• Pluralism vs. strong leadership (scale)
• Critical opposition and media (scale)
• Free speech
(Rejection of) Populism (inverted scale)
Diffuse Support: regime principles of
deliberative democracy
Importance of political discussion before
elections
Specific support of democracy Satisfaction with democracy Satisfaction with democracy
Trust in political institutions • Representative institutions (scale)
• Regulatory institutions (scale)
• Representative institutions (scale)
• Regulatory institutions (scale)
Specific support in authorities External efficacy (scale) External efficacy (scale)
Norms
Good citizenship • Autonomy (scale)
• Participation (scale)
• Solidarity (scale)
• Law abidance (scale)
Tolerance Tolerance (count variable)
Politial participation
Turnout intention • Vote intention (dummy variable)
• Turnout recall (dummy variable)
Turnout recall (dummy variable)
Institutionalized participation Taken part in institutionalized activity
(dummy variable)
Non-institutionalized participation Taken part in non-institutionalized
activity (dummy variable)
Taken part in non-institutionalized
activity (dummy variable)
Protest participation Taken part in protest activity
(dummy variable)
Taken part in protest activity
(dummy variable)
Table 1: Overview of dependent variables.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 7
therefore mediate its impact on democratic citizenship.
In that case the permissive models would capture the
true relevance of political talk whereas the restrictive
models would artificially depress its (visible) impact by
depleting it from all indirect, mediated effects (Cinelli
et al. 2022). Figure 2 accordingly visualizes both causal
sequences. Which of them is the correct one cannot be
disambiguated with our data. In this situation we opt for a
conservative interpretation that places stronger emphasis
on the restrictive models because it minimizes the risk of
overstating the impact of political talk. It should be borne
in mind, however, that the true values might nonetheless
be closer to those resulting from the permissive models.
6. Findings
6.1 Engagement in Political Talk
Political support: According to the permissive models in
Table 2a,6 most facets of political support are positively
associated with everyday political talk within strong ties
(I). However, although sometimes quite sizable, none of
these effects persist in the restrictive models. A roughly
similar pattern, though with rather small effect sizes,
emerges for engagement in public discussion events
(IV). Notably, its effects on diffuse support for democracy
in general and pluralist liberal democracy in particular
persist in the restrictive models. For conversations within
weak ties (II) inconsistent findings emerge. We see few
positive effects, and their sizes are small. However, unlike
political talk within strong ties and at public discussion
events, they appear equally strong under permissive and
restrictive model specifications. Discussing politics with
acquaintances appears to contribute somewhat more
strongly to diffuse support for democracy in general as
well as the liberal democratic assignment of a critical
role to the opposition and the media. However, we
also see negative effects. More frequent conversations
of this type appear to strengthen populist attitudes
(though only when controlling for disagreement), and
to weaken individuals’ confidence in the institutions
of representative government as well as their external
efficacy (ALLBUS). By comparison, everyday political talk
with strangers (III) appears much more influential, and
its impact is overall negative. Again, this mostly holds in
similar ways for permissive and restrictive models. Those
engaging more frequently in the discursive sphere of
informal public political talk tend to display less diffuse
support for the political community and the regime
principle of democracy, as well as more populist views.
They furthermore express less satisfaction with the
functioning of German democracy, less confidence in the
country’s representative and regulatory institutions, and
lower external efficacy (ALLBUS).
Citizenship norms: Citizens’ political talk is also
associated with their normative orientations, though
these effects are mostly weak and do not add up to a clear
pattern (Table 2b). According to the permissive models,
and partly also the restrictive models, those discussing
politics more often with family members and friends (I)
Figure 2: Framework of analysis.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship8
I. Informal – private II. Informal – semi-public III. Informal – public IV. Formal – public
M1 M2.I M1 M2.II M1 M2.III M1
Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree
Political community (C) P 0.054+ 0.061* –0.127*
R0.048+ –0.058+ –0.115*
Political community (A) P 0.082*** 0.091***
R–0.033+
Diffuse support democracy (C) P 0.042* 0.045* –0.049* 0.171*** 0.038+ 0.016+
R0.039* 0.045* –0.055* –0.166***
Diffuse support democracy (A) P 0.093*** 0.085*** 0.028* 0.033* –0.025* –0.089*** 0.026+ 0.026***
R0.028* 0.024+ –0.032* –0.086*** 0.014**
Liberal democracy: pluralism vs.
strong leader (C)
P0.112*** 0.123*** 0.064* 0.053***
R0.051+ 0.034**
Liberal democracy: critical
opposition and media (C)
P0.074** 0.060* 0.042* 0.049* 0.081**
R0.043* 0.052* 0.058*
Liberal democracy: free speech
(C)
P0.056+ 0.048+
R0.057*
Liberal democracy: Populist
attitudes (reversed) (A)
P0.096*** 0.081*** 0.033+ –0.063*** 0.059** –0.128*** 0.055** 0.015*
R–0.026+ –0.055** 0.034* –0.026+ –0.105***
Deliberative democracy: talk
before voting (C)
P0.122** 0.137** 0.046*
R
Satisfaction with democracy (C) P 0.060+ –0.175** 0.067+
R–0.130+
Satisfaction with democracy (A) P 0.066** 0.093*** –0.061** –0.147*** 0.045+
R–0.039+ –0.049* 0.054** 0.072*** –0.056** –0.098**
Trust representative
institutions (C)
P–0.064* 0.057*
R0.055* –0.039+ –0.057*
Trust representative
institutions (A)
P0.047* 0.040* –0.038+ 0.052* –0.042* –0.128*** 0.015+
R–0.029+ –0.041* –0.090**
(Contd.)
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 9
I. Informal – private II. Informal – semi-public III. Informal – public IV. Formal – public
M1 M2.I M1 M2.II M1 M2.III M1
Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree
Trust regulatory institutions (C) P 0.061* 0.051+ 0.063*
R0.046+ –0.025*
Trust regulatory institutions (A) P 0.051** 0.047** –0.049*** –0.096*** 0.037* 0.013*
R–0.025+ –0.048*** –0.073**
External efcacy (C) P0.051* 0.045+ 0.061** –0.099* 0.088*** 0.026**
R0.045* –0.090* 0.065**
External efcacy (A) P0.047* –0.059* 0.067** –0.038+ –0.160*** 0.045* 0.015+
R–0.071** –0.078** 0.035+ –0.046* 0.041+ –0.042* –0.125***
Table 2a: Political talk and democratic citizenship: effects on attitudes (unstandardized linear regression coefficients).
Note: (C) = CoDem, (A) = Allbus; P = Permissive models, R = Restrictive models. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05, + p < .10; effects with p >= .10 not shown.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship10
I. Informal – private II. Informal – semi-public III. Informal – public IV. Formal – public
M1 M2.I M1 M2.II M1 M2.III M1
Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree
Autonomy (C) P 0.052* 0.049+ 0.050+ 0.030**
R0.054* 0.022+
Participation (C) P 0.116** 0.121** –0.123+ 0.046**
R–0.125+ 0.037*
Solidarity (C) P 0.074* 0.075* 0.071* 0.074*
R0.065+ 0.062+ 0.060+ 0.078*
Law abidance (C) P –0.057* –0.063* 0.059+
R–0.057* –0.061*
Tolerance (C) P 0.163** 0.158*0.178*
R0.151*
Table 2b: Political talk and democratic citizenship: effects on norms (unstandardized linear regression coefficients).
Note: (C) = CoDem, (A) = Allbus; P = Permissive models, R = Restrictive models. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05, + p < .10; effects with p >= .10 not shown.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 11
I. Informal – private II. Informal – semi-public III. Informal – public IV. Formal - public
M1 M2.I M1 M2.II M1 M2.III M1
Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree Frequency Freq|Disagree Disagree
Turnout intention (C) P 3.473*** 3.162*** –1.687** –3.257*** 0.678+
R–1.375* –2.257*
Turnout recall (C) P 2.195* 2.388* 1.828+ –1.714+ –5.090**
R–4.116*
Turnout recall (A) P 2.369*** 1.851*** 0.592* –1.102* 0.680+ 0.238+
R1.438*** 0.938* 0.594* 0.679+
Institutionalized participation
(A)
P1.379*** 1.250*** 0.353+ 0.316+ 0.839*** 0.854***
R0.721** 0.633** 0.709** 0.750***
Non-institutionalized
participation (C)
P1.102** 1.164** 0.722* 0.722+ 1.431***
R0.725+ 0.767+ 1.317***
Non-institutionalized
participation (A)
P1.426*** 1.228*** 0.409+ 0.431* –1.348*** 1.602*** 1.200***
R0.807** 0.600* 0.474* –1.325** 1.480*** 1.102***
Protest participation (C) P 1.411*** 1.436*** 0.656* 0.548+ –1.145* 0.859** 1.418***
R0.778* 0.813* 0.688* 0.595+ –1.284* 1.232***
Protest participation (A) P 1.955*** 1.906*** 0.427+ –0.535* 0.544* 0.964*** 0.885*** 0.928***
R1.611*** 1.571*** –0.515* 0.403+ 0.895*** 0.683** 0.889***
Table 2c: Political talk and democratic citizenship: effects on behavior (logit coefficients).
Note: (C) = CoDem, (A) = Allbus; P = Permissive models, R = Restrictive models. *** p < .001, ** p < .01, * p < .05, + p < .10; effects with p >= .10 not shown.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship12
are more strongly committed to the norms of participation
and solidarity, and in particular they are also considerably
more tolerant for groups deemed politically problematic.
Weak positive effects of engagement in public discussion
events (IV) emerge for the norms of autonomy and
participation. The semi-public and especially the public
discursive spheres again seem to function differently.
Conversations with acquaintances (II) appear to weaken
people’s support for compliance with the legal order
established by the democratic system of government.
The permissive models but not the restrictive models
suggest weak beneficial effects of talks with strangers
(III) on people’s commitment to the norms of autonomy,
solidarity, and law abidance. By contrast, when controlling
for disagreement, discussions with strangers affect the
norm of participation adversely.
Political participation: As shown in Table 2c, citizens’
political activities are strongly affected by casual
conversations in the discursive sphere of private political
talk (I). The more frequently they discuss politics within
the realms of kinship and friendship, the more likely
they perform all modes of political participation. Unlike
political support and norms, these mobilizing effects
emerge consistently in both permissive and restrictive
models (except for turnout in the two CoDem versions).
Similar results emerge for engagement in formalized
public discussions (IV). Frequent conversations with
co-workers or neighbors (II) are only associated with
a higher likelihood to vote, and to participate in non-
institutionalized (ALLBUS) as well as protest activities
(CoDem). In stark contrast, political conversations with
strangers (III) appear to decrease the likelihood to vote.
The only robust positive effect of engagement in the
public discursive sphere of everyday political talk concerns
participation in protest activities (ALLBUS). However,
when controlling for disagreement, we see stable
negative effects for non-institutionalized participation
in the ALLBUS data and for protest participation in the
CoDem data, suggesting that our equivalent but dissimilar
measures might hide relevant differences between specific
forms of political activity within the same types.
6.2 Disagreement Experiences in Everyday Political
Talk
Political support: Encounters with disagreement affect
political support most consistently when they occur in
conversations within weak ties (II; Table 2a). According to
both permissive and restrictive models, opinion diversity
is associated with stronger political support in many of its
facets. For the ALLBUS data, satisfaction with democracy
and external efficacy are also responsive to disagreement
in strong ties (I). In a similar vein, such experiences appear
to strengthen support for the liberal-democratic principle
of free speech. We also see several positive effects of
disagreement during conversations with strangers (III)—
for diffuse and specific support for democracy only in
the permissive models but concerning external efficacy
(CoDem) and support of the liberal democratic principle of
critical opposition and media in permissive and restrictive
models alike.
Citizenship norms: Disagreement experiences in strong
ties (I) strengthen the norm of autonomy (Table 2b).
Heterogeneous conversations with strangers (III) appear
beneficial for supporting the norm of solidarity and
especially tolerance for which particularly strong effects
emerge in both permissive and restrictive models.
Political participation: Table 2c shows a number of
positive associations between exposure to disagreement
and citizens’ political behavior. Experiences of political
heterogeneity appear overall most consequential for
participation when they occur in conversations with
people one does not know (III). Here positive effects on
all types of participation are evident (except CoDem for
turnout), and they are mostly robust to restrictive model
specifications. With great consistency, though overall
most strongly for non-institutionalized participation,
encounters with disagreement in the public discursive
sphere of casual talk with strangers thus go hand in hand
with an increased inclination to be politically active. For
disagreeable conversations within strong and weak ties
findings are much less pronounced. A robust effect of
exposure to disagreement emerges only within weak ties
(II) for participation in protest activities.
6.3 Discussion
Obviously, our data do not support H1. The assumed,
unequivocally positive association between all kinds of
political talk and the three dimensions of democratic
citizenship does not materialize. The data are also at best
partly in line with the more specific H2.1. If the assumed
beneficial role of political talk were conditional upon its
effectiveness with regard to policy-making (Mansbridge
1999), substantial positive effects would emerge for
purposive discussions at organized public events but
not, or at least to a lesser extent, for engagement in
any of the three discursive spheres of non-purposive,
politically inconsequential everyday communication.
Consistent with the hypothesis, we do find a number of
positive, though mostly weak effects of engagement in
the public arena of formal discussion events. Regarding
political participation, its relevance appears especially
clear-cut. By contrast, concerning the three types of
informal conversation the evidence is mixed. Since the
partly quite strong associations of conversations with
family members and friends with political support and
norms of citizenship almost completely evaporate in
the restrictive models, we subscribe to the conservative
interpretation that engagement in the private discursive
sphere of everyday political talk is not relevant for these
two pillars of democratic citizenship. This is in line with
H2.1. However, regarding political participation, even
the restrictive models signal a favorable role of political
talk within strong ties. In addition, for everyday political
talk within weak ties, our analyses also detect positive
effects on certain manifestations of political support
and participation that are robust to varying model
specifications. These findings speak for a limited though
non-negligible positive role of political conversations
within social networks for democratic citizenship.
Accordingly, the assumption of informal everyday
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 13
political talk being irrelevant, as implied by H2.1, cannot
be upheld. The ‘self-transformative’ effects of political talk
with regard to ‘better’ democratic citizenship do not seem
to depend on its effectiveness in the process of democratic
decision-making.
Concerning the role of casual political talk with strangers,
our findings are more clear-cut and largely in line with
H2.2. Frequent engagement in the discursive sphere of
public everyday political talk appears to diminish political
support in a wide range of its manifestations, to weaken
the norm that citizens should participate in politics, and
to render it less likely that people vote. At the same time,
it seems to encourage protest behavior.
H3 expected a largely positive role of disagreement
experiences in the discursive spheres of informal everyday
political talk. To some extent this expectation is borne
out by our data. Our findings suggest that disagreement
does matter—not for all facets of democratic citizenship,
to be sure, and not always strong enough to persist in the
restrictive models. But where it matters its consequences
are always beneficial. None of our dependent variables
is affected negatively by opinion differences that
people encounter during casual conversations, not even
political participation that according to Mutz (2006)
should be undermined by experiences of heterogeneity.
Our analyses instead point to a mobilizing role of
disagreement, especially in the public discursive sphere of
informal conversations with strangers. At the same time
our evidence confirms findings from earlier research that
suggest positive consequences of political disagreement
for tolerance. It also adds an interesting nuance to this line
of research because it suggests that it is not disagreement
with network partners—previous studies’ sole object—but
with strangers that counts for citizens’ tolerance.
7. Conclusion
Our study provides the first comprehensive analysis of
the consequences of citizens’ political talk in all four
discursive spheres for the triad of democratic citizenship
that encompasses (1) the attitudinal dimension of support
for the democratic political system, (2) the normative
dimension of views about good citizenship, and (3)
the behavioral dimension of active participation in the
political process.
Despite its scope and complexity, our study established
a remarkably clear picture. The simple baseline hypothesis
that all kinds of engagement in political talk exert
unequivocally positive effects on all facets of democratic
citizenship finds no support in our data. Systematic effect
patterns emerged between but rarely within the three
pillars of democratic citizenship. There is no empirical
support for the claim that beneficial effects of political
talk are conditional on its ‘uptake’ (Goodin & Dryzek
2006) in the formal political process. What does make
a large difference, however, is which discursive spheres
citizens engage in.
Engagement in two of these arenas is quite unequivocally
positively associated with democratic citizenship—the
discursive sphere of informal conversations within
strong ties in private settings, and the discursive sphere
of formalized public discussion events. However, our
conservative modeling criteria lead to the conclusion
that for political support and citizenship norms these
relationships may be largely due to other determinants
than political talk. Concerning political participation, by
contrast, our data suggest a more robust mobilizing role
of political talk within the informal contexts of kinship
and friendship as well as the formal context of organized
events.
This contrasts strongly with our results for casual
political talk with unknown persons. They point to a
partly problematic role of this discursive sphere for
democratic citizenship. Even when applying strict criteria
to the empirical evidence, conversations with strangers
appear to diminish political support in a wide range of
its manifestations, to weaken the norm that citizens
should take part in politics, and to render it less likely
that they participate in elections but more likely to take
part in protest activities. The implications of citizens’
engagement in the semi-public discursive sphere of
everyday political talk within weak ties are ambivalent,
corresponding to its intermediate location between the at
least partially beneficial private discursive sphere and the
in many respects detrimental public discursive sphere of
everyday political talk.
These observations are worrisome from a deliberative
democratic point of view. According to theorists of the
public sphere it is primarily in talks with unknown others,
rather than within the confines of social networks, that
society at large engages in the great conversation with
itself that is advocated as core element of deliberative
democratic opinion formation. Other theorists place
great hopes in weak ties’ ability to establish bridges
between different social networks (Tanasoca 2020). Our
findings cast doubt on these expectations. Engagement
in the public and to a lesser extent the semi-public
discursive spheres appears to impair democratic
citizenship, especially when the opinions voiced during
such conversations are homogeneous. What renders
these modes of political talk so harmful for democratic
citizenship? Presumably, the destructive role of these
modes of political talk results from ‘fast’ superficial
processing of their political content (Stoker et al.
2016) and the disturbing phenomenon that ranting
about politics seems to be a particularly suitable tool
for defining selves and managing social interactions
whenever people need to find common ground with
unknown or not well-known others (Bøggild et al. 2021;
Saunders & Klandermans 2020).
On a more positive note, our findings suggest that
experiencing society’s political diversity during informal
political discussions (Nir 2017) is a moderately effective
productive force for democratic citizenship. Wherever
such associations emerged, they were unfailingly positive.
Experiences of heterogeneity seem to matter more
at the fringes or outside of social networks than in the
core networks of family and friends. Disagreement thus
to some extent counteracts the negative consequences
of intense engagement in the semi-public and public
discursive spheres.
Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship14
Notes
1
The CoDem survey was conducted as part of the
project ’Conversations of Democracy: Citizens’
Everyday Communication in the Deliberative System
(CoDem)’ under a grant of the German National
Science Foundation (DFG). Following the model of
major studies of personal influence the survey was
conducted locally. Its site was Mannheim, a medium-
sized German city with a highly variegated social
structure and a good mix of economic, cultural and
political milieus. It utilized a register-based one-
stage random sample of residents entitled to vote at
the 2017 German Federal Election. 1,600 computer-
assisted personal interviews were completed between
May and September 2017. The second panel wave was
conducted by telephone from January to March 2018
(N = 877). For methodological details, see Grill et al.
(2018).
2
The 2018 ALLBUS was conducted by GESIS Leibniz
Institute of the Social Sciences. It was based on a two-
stage random sample of Germany’s resident population
aged 18 or older (first stage: municipalities; second
stage: residents selected from municipal registers), and
3,477 interviews were collected by means of computer-
assisted personal interviewing between April and
September 2018 (for methodological details see
https://www.gesis.org/en/allbus/contents-search/
study-profiles-1980-to-2018/2018). The dataset is
available at the GESIS data archive (dataset no. ZA5272).
3
Of course, our study faces the common problem
that observational approaches cannot unambiguously
substantiate causal claims. Our analyses cannot rule
out the possibilities of reverse or reciprocal two-way
causation. We address this problem by opting for a
conservative strategy of analysis (see section 5.4).
The CoDem survey allows us to address concerns
about potential simultaneity bias at least to some
extent since it ran the independent variables in the
first panel wave and most of the dependent variables
in the second wave, conducted several months
later.
4
While the ALLBUS asked for the frequency of political
talks in general (registered on 5-point scales from ‘never’
to ‘very often’), the CoDem survey more specifically
referred to ‘face-to-face but also telephone and
online conversations’ held during the last six months
(registered on 5-point scales from ‘never’ to ‘daily or
almost every day’). Closer analysis reveals that CoDem
respondents’ everyday political talk predominantly
took the form of face-to-face communication (less
than six percent discussed politics at least in similar
proportions offline and online, almost no one relied
exclusively on digital communication).
5
Scales from ‘never’ to ‘very often’.
6
See Supplementary Materials for full documentation
of all models.
Competing Interests
The authors have no competing interests to declare.
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Schmitt-Beck and Schnaudt: Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship 17
How to cite this article: Schmitt-Beck, R., & Schnaudt, C. (2023). Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship.
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Submitted: 10 August 2022 Accepted: 01 March 2023 Published: 28 April 2023
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