Political debate enables voters to learn more about candidates’ positions on the issues they care about, and it also offers an opportunity to compare different viewpoints in a way that’s longer than a tweet and more substantive than an ad. It’s a core democratic principle and a critical element of public education.
Debates typically include short opening and closing statements by the candidates, followed by sets of questions on topics that voters care about. Each candidate is given around two minutes to answer each question, and a moderator uses rules ranging from a coin toss to a timer – resembling traffic lights – to keep candidates on track.
Many people see debates as partisan and highly politicized, with candidates throwing around one-liners for the sake of scoring points. But new research shows that debates can be more productive if politicians are willing to abandon the blame-and-shame culture and focus on having calm and curious discussions about the issues voters care about.
For example, a study by Columbia Business School Professor Modupe Akinola and coauthors showed that the most productive political conversations involve topics like economics, foreign policy, national security and social policies. These are the kinds of issues that are most often debated between close friends, family members and coworkers. The researchers found that these in-person debates are more informative and leave participants with a positive feeling. They suggest that debates could be more useful if they matched these kinds of in-person discussions by using a debate format that includes the same types of questions and limits on speaking time for both sides.