Disagreeing Well with Thomas Gift and Julie Norman

This article originally appeared in the UCL Policy Lab Magazine.

Michael Spence, the President and Provost of UCL, has made the idea of “disagreeing well” central to the university’s vision in recent years. He argues that we all benefit as a society when we can listen to the perspectives of others, explain our own point of view and continue respectfully to engage in debate even if no consensus has reached. The idea has animated two researchers in political science with leading expertise in the politics of the United States, Julie Norman and Thomas Gift. Together, they are developing a new module on disagreeing well that will launch in 2025.  

Gift and Norman sat down with the UCL Policy Lab to discuss what disagreeing well is all about, and why it is so important for the USA in the 2024 election year.  

What do you understand by the phrase “disagreeing well”?  

Julie Norman: Disagreeing well isn’t necessarily about reaching consensus or compromise -- though that can be an outcome. Rather, it means learning to have better conversations on difficult issues. While we’re focusing on disagreeing well in an academic setting, the concept can help all of us better engage with diverse viewpoints to have more productive and inclusive conversations in both our personal and public lives. Disagreeing well -- or at least better -- enables us to learn from others with rigor, compassion, truth, and respect without sacrificing our ideals or convictions. Gandhi said that “honest disagreement is often a sign of progress.”  While conflict can be difficult, disagreement is often what facilitates the necessary discussions around political and social issues that are so crucial for moving our communities forward.  

Why is American political life so apparently far from that ideal?  

Julie Norman: It’s no secret that Americans aren’t disagreeing particularly well these days.  In particular, our ability to participate in civil discourse and disagreement around political issues has declined sharply. There are many reasons for this, but it’s largely because many of us experience politics through filter bubbles and echo chambers -- in real life and online -- that mean that we rarely engage with people or viewpoints that differ from our own. When we do cross, our impulse is often to demonise the other side rather than try to understand or even persuade them, and we tend to double-down on absolutes instead of allowing space for nuance.    

What are the causes of the polarisation we see in American politics?  

Thomas Gift:  Elite polarisation among politicians often stems from structural factors, such as the practice of manipulating district boundaries for electoral advantage (commonly known as “gerrymandering”), campaigns laws that allow for the influx of contributions from ideologically extreme out-of-state donors, and the influence of low-turnout primaries that compel candidates to pander to the more radical segments of the electorate. Meanwhile, at the grassroots level, phenomena like the proliferation of social media echo chambers, the ideological segmentation of news sources, and the geographic segregation of “red” and “blue” America are often cited as primary culprits of polarisation.  

Do you worry about the future of American democracy itself? 

Thomas Gift: I tend to be more sanguine about the state of U.S. democracy than many of my peers. Despite the extreme excesses we saw on January 6th, the contestation of a legitimately held election, and a former president who took an axe to executive constraints, it’s important to keep in mind the result: American institutions bent but didn’t break. To my mind, those who say that American democracy is teetering on the brink of collapse are too pessimistic about the resilience of a regime that has lasted well over 200 years. If the Constitution is really so fragile that it can collapse under the weight of one leader, then you have to ask whether the system of government that it constructed was that remarkable in the first place. The Constitution, while imperfect, was designed precisely as a bulwark against the kind of authoritarian impulses we’ve seen in recent years.  

What, if any, sources of hope do you see? Are there any ways in which American politics might become more inclusive and more stable in the near future?  

Julie Norman: Despite the breakdown in political discourse, I don’t think all or even most Americans are as divided as it sometimes appears, and polarization can sometimes become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Polarisation is always worse in the abstract. Recent research has shown that Democrats hold higher animus towards Republicans (and Republicans towards Democrats) in generalized terms than they do when confronted with individuals in real life. That’s not to say that there aren’t ample conflicts in school board meetings, or tensions around the Thanksgiving table when people disagree. But most Americans are living their lives with all kinds of identities of which politics are just one of many. Finding ways to tap into those other identities is usually a first step for helping us overcome the “othering” impulse that overtakes so many partisans. It’s harder to make headway at the elite level, especially during an election year. But citizens have agency in making their communities more constructive and inclusive places, even when the national discourse is so polarized.  

Thomas Gift: There’s been a lot of focus, understandably, on what’s gone wrong with American politics in recent years. But it’s also important to focus on what’s gone right. Institutions – at the federal, state, and local levels – have held. That’s a testament to the strength, not weakness, of the U.S. system. America’s government was built on “checks and balances” and the “separation of powers” that have proven remarkably durable. That doesn’t mean vigilance isn’t required. It doesn’t mean past success guarantees future success. But it should offer a degree of optimism. American democracy isn’t, and never was, flawless. Yet the hope of building a “more perfect union” is still an aspiration that nearly all U.S. citizens deeply believe in, even if they disagree profoundly about how best to achieve it. 

This article originally appeared in the UCL Policy Lab Magazine.