The wisdom of the United States Congress

[Sun-Kev]

This was truly fascinating to read.

In light of our currently shuttered federal government, I am curious as to your thoughts on how political polarization can be applied when considering the collaborative process of writing legislation versus “knowledge.” We could argue that the composition of Congress is roughly balanced and especially in the Senate, minority party collaboration is necessary to pass the 60 vote threshold. Committee debate and hearings on legislation prior to reaching the House and Senate floor are analogous to Wikipedia talk pages; members of Congress too, like Wikipedia editors, must abide by policies and guidelines (parliamentary procedure and the Constitution); voters act like Wikipedia administrators through routine elections. So, there are institutional designs in place to ensure engagement among polarized teams in Congress - why is it that collaboration in Congress appears to be not as fruitful as one would expect given all of this?

Might our President’s Twitter account (and behavior in general) act as that “trolling” behavior that is associated with “foreshortened debate and a decreased capacity to construct” quality legislation?

[rodrigovaldes]

Good question, I am also wondering how to apply this results to other settings.

I believe the main difference is that in Wikipedia there are moderators, and you need to follow certain rules. For instance, one powerful editor can block further editions. Also, in Wikipedia, you need to actually answer questions with real answers (as I understand). In politics, you allow not-civilized behaviour; people can answer whatever they want even if it is not related to the original question.

[Sun-Kev]

I suppose I should have been more clear in my initial wording - part of the analogy was that voters act as moderators on elected officials. If Representatives or Senators pass legislation that is unsatisfactory to voters (or fail to pass legislation at all), then voters can remove those elected officials from office.

To your second point about civility, I think that connects to the point about trolling behavior that the article highlights and its potential impact on constructing quality articles (or legislation in the case of my question).

[tamos]

I just want to add to Sun-Kev's analogy. Another rule-enforcer in addition to voters, is normative practice. It's especially important in parliamentary systems.

[AlexanderTyan]

The article mentions, in it's exploration of mechanisms for this polarization - quality association, that one such mechanism is "institutional" structure around this debate/argumentation process between polar opposites. This seems to imply that institutional design around the intra-team debate process is important. So one way to address Kevin's post may be to consider not just the fact that there's a structure in Congress, but how its (changing) configuration is encouraging/discouraging polarization from bringing these quality results. In a more general "institutional structure" context, I remember reading an opinion article where the author argued that the rules/funding distribution regulating the way traditional political elites have controlled/moderated views of the party members in Congress have changed drastically within the last decade (in part because of the popular backlash against the elitist DC). He then argues that the rise of politicians like not only Trump, but also Cruz and Sanders are very expected, because party elites can no longer control the discourse within the party lines and Congress in general. In the context of this week's reading, this author could say: "Look, we hated our elites, so we pushed them to change the rules. Now they can't control the party line as well. But as a result, the institutional structure (an analog to Wikipedia's rules and administrators) that may have been better at controlling the flow between polarized ends before is now in tatters. So the polarization does not yield the good quality discussion and results we want. We hated our "moderators," because they are reality-detached elites, so we took away their levers. And now we get this." I don't know how true this assessment is, but there it is.

[jamesallenevans]

Really interesting thoughts. As I shared today, it may be that President Trump is "above" the institutional safeguards through which Congresspeople effectively discipline each other. Every time someone has tried, in a manner resonant of how they would discipline each other, they've been batted down. In Wikipedia, no one is (currently) above the norms; and here we see the consequences.