Liberal democratic societies depend on mass persuasion to sustain economic and political life. This fact has long been a source of anxiety, due to its tension with structuring liberal democratic ideals. Mass persuasion often taps into the nonrational, drawing, for example, on affect, myth, and fantasy, whereas liberal democratic ideals champion reason, for example, in emphasizing rational deliberation and free choice. The anxiety has been revitalized in the current century, as the persuasive affordances of digital technologies have fuelled crises — from the commoditization of our attention at scale to the global wave of democratic decline — demonstrating how mass persuasion can bring liberal democratic life to its breaking point.

How have liberal democratic societies managed the tension between their reliance on mass persuasion and the challenges it represents to their structuring ideals? What can we learn from their successes and failures? Legal perspectives are important as we seek answers, due to the central role of law in experiencing, questioning, and organizing collective life. Therefore, in this course, we seek answers by examining how legal ideas, powers, and institutions have shaped, been impacted by, and relied on mass persuasion in liberal democracies.