The paper under analysis reports the results of field research investigating the effect of deliberative discussion on individuals’ environmental preferences and willingness to allow oil development in a unique wilderness area in Alaska. The paper states that the research showed that deliberative discussion has a significant effect on strengthening individuals’ environmental preferences, even where there exist strong preexisting pro-environmental biases.
The strong point of the paper is that it does not simply describe the case study and the experiment, but also interprets the findings and presents caveats and conclusions as far as the experiment is concerned. The author of the paper suggests a logical explanation of the main issues of the case study and supplies her arguments with the factual material needed.
Still, what we would like to know more in terms of the problem studied is the essence of the coastal plain’s controversial nature. We believe that this problem that remains one of the most hotly debated contemporary environmental issues deserves more substantial exploration. Further, we are interested in the extent to which the participants of the experiment were influenced and polarized by the media and special groups and how this influenced the findings. One more question that arises is how the level of education of the participants affected the validity of the results achieved.
Also, we suppose that the author’s suggestions concerning the improvement of future experiments of the kind would significantly benefit the paper.
The only thing we want to add here is that we are looking forward to the effects that the research will have on important public policy decisions making.