Public debate is a crucial ingredient of a functioning democracy. It allows citizens and society as a whole to discuss and form opinions on key issues, it fosters the exchange of diverse perspectives and it strengthens the ability of citizens to hold their leaders accountable. However, public debate also presents a variety of challenges and dangers, such as the proliferation of false or misleading information, political violence and the fragmentation and polarization of opinions.
In this article I explore the ways in which these risks may be mitigated through debate design. To this end I present the results of a study involving interviews with informants after watching a public debate on immigration in Belgium. Informants were asked to state their voting intention (and how certain they were of this intention) and freely offered overall impressions of the debate. They were also given a number of prompts to identify which parts of the debate they liked and disliked, and to offer any suggestions for improvements.
The debates I studied consisted of two main types: a classical clash of radically different opinions, as found in the US presidential debates and similar discussions in other countries; and a more structured dialogue between politicians on specific policy issues, such as whether the benefits of security measures outweigh their harm to freedom. In both cases participants were encouraged to use a variety of rhetorical techniques, such as logical fallacies or appeals to emotion. They were also allowed to interrupt their opponents, but in a controlled way so as not to derail the discussion.