Resumen de Democrazia discorsiva e formazione delle preferenze: effetti sulla riforma pensionistica italiana
Based on field research on worker responses to the 1995 pension reform in Italy and on a nationally-representative survey of workers' attitudes towards the 2007 pension reform, this paper argues that policy preferences are neither exogenous nor fixed but to a large extent shaped by organizational processes taking place within organized interest groups. A decision-making process based on discursive democracy contributes to determining the attitudes of a considerable portion of the organization's constituents. In particular it has three effects: an effect of preference structuration, by which individuals who previously did not have clear views about the issues at stake develop them as result of the process; a bipolarization effect, by which individuals become simultaneously more positive and negative and less uncertain than observationally-equivalent controls; and a selection effect, by which individuals who hold more ex ante favorable views are more likely to get involved in the democratic process than others.
