Digital (non)Democracy? New Pathways to Participation and the Role of Political Institutions in the Digital Age

Amongst the current challenges for democracy, such as low electoral outcomes, disenchanted voters and citizens, and decreasing engagement to participate classically (via elections, movements, petitions or protest) one is challenging most: the question of maintaining the linkage between state and citizenry at a time of shrinking societal support for politics and decreasing classical participation, as less people are pursuing these forms, and lower trust in and engagement with parties whose relevance is challenged by intermediaries like interest organisations (Allern & Pedersen, 2007; Grant, 1992; Jordan & Maloney, 1997). Namely, the communicative representation chain preserved by parties and executed by governments is contested by meta-processes like mediatization, individualization or globalization, and new patterns of political participation might arise. As the last US elections (Farrar-Myers & Vaughn, 2015; White, 2016) and political events like the ‘Brexit’ (Oppermann, 2016) and recent national elections in European countries (Greece, Italy, Austria, France, Germany, Netherlands) have shown, political interests and motivations are highly volatile, somewhat extreme and often populist. They are instrumentalised by particular new political protest movements (15M/5star movement, PEGIDA) and parties (AfD, PVV, PiS) within their online communication strategies (Aalberg, Esser, Reinemann, Strömbäck, & Vreese, 2017; Block & Negrine, 2017; Kreiss & Welch, 2015). Thus, people seem to have become reluctant to engage in classical forms of participation, be it by voting, joining a party or getting involved in political discussions (Dalton, 2014). Several explanations have been used to analyse these changing patterns in political participation, that are also different depending on the countries. According to rational-choice models, people no longer engage with politics because they do not receive appreciation and recognition for their engagement. In that case, the societal value of participation seems to have a limited or superficial effect. According to cognitive models, the problem with “classical” participation and the political system might be that people no longer engage with politics because they do not understand the complexity of most political decisions and their communication, and because social and political actors face problems to address and reach people (Gil de Zúñiga, Molyneux, & Zheng, 2014). What follows is an apparent gap between those who are empowered to join political participation and those who are not, a situation that has been observed long before the emergence of mass-media. Over the last decades, political institutions have made efforts to mobilize people via e-services on the internet (Chadwick, 2006) and been proactive in their communication style. This is supposed to contribute to counter disempowerment. A central question linked to this is how and which administrative e-democracy tools can activate and empower users not only to engaging in e-government, but also in participating politically. E-tax-paying systems for example seem to be more time-effective and less expensive, as well as administrative e-portals to fix problems in infrastructure (“fixmystreet”). There, rewards are paid in time savings. Real incentives to mobilize uninterested people to participate substantially to politics seem to be more difficult. Linked to the questions of which ‘tools’ fit best for which political system (national, regional, local or urban), the discussion leads to democratic theory controversies over the power and usage of the internet and its creating public spheres (Habermas, 2006; Razzani & Pomatto, 2014). Until now, two explanatory hypotheses domain the discussion regarding the issue of low political involvement: the reinforcement and the mobilization hypothesis. The first denotes a deepening of already installed digital divides within public communities and a further fragmentation of public spaces on the internet in mini- and micro-publics (Goodin & Dryzek, 2006; Norris, 2001) with the consequence of a high-educated internet-elite. The second conceptualises the internet and participative platforms as spaces that could build alternative and supplementary public spaces for discourses and disputes (Kriesi, 2008). None of these approaches seems to be fruitful to developing scholarly understandings of what is happening on the web (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). Thus, another integrative approach to the field is needed to focus on the quality and manner of online discourses, their genealogy, and potential for empowerment (Enjolras, Steen-Johnsen, & Wollebæk, 2013; Segerberg & Bennett, 2011). Such an integrative perspective links both scholarly works from theoretical deliberations on possible new publics to empirical studies on political institutions’ changes. The notion of e-democracy and digital participatory tools as supplements to classical political participation and commitment might then normatively considered as solutions to encourage people to take part in politics in the current debate. Parties and governments would in this context be the main political institutions for creating a framework for e-democracy because they are responsible for central decision-making processes. Whether e-voting, e-tax-Paying, e-petitions or e-protest, or other forms of online engagement such as tweeting, all suggest potential alternative and supplementation to classical participation. However, whether they might contribute to mobilizing new voters or even uninvolved people to communicatively participate or whether they encourage "slactivism" (Morozov, 2009) remains an open question. Another implication of this perspective is the question of whether the current tools, while facilitating participation and engagement (Koc-Michalska & Lilleker, 2016; Lilleker, 2013; Lilleker & Koc-Michalska, 2016), actually lead to the formation of “cyberghettos” (Ebo, 1998; Sunstein, 2002) or, on social networks, to “filter bubbles” (Pariser, 2011) circulating ‘fake news’. That is, the tendency of online forums and communities to homogeneity, polarization and distinction from others by exclusion (Johnson, Bichard, & Zhang, 2009; van de Donk & Dahlgren, 2010). Thus, the likeminded flock together in these communities and get their prejudices reinforced. To elucidate the possible mobilizing powers of e-democracy for institutional communication, approaches are needed that combine relational aspects of digital communication opportunities (exploring opportunities from a network perspective, strong and weak ties, and brokerage) as well as organizational (external orientation to decisional autonomy or internal systemnes) and discursive elements such as posting and feedback habits, self-presentation of politicians towards citizens on social networks or the possibilities for citizens to open discussions on government’s sites. This broad attempt then includes empirical analyses of the communication and participation options offered by parties and governments on the one hand and the needs and demands of citizens on the other hand. Relation to existing research: Political engagement and participation, and the theoretical perspectives on these phenomena were investigated in a workshop, chaired by Darren Lilleker and Karolina Koc-Michalska (Warsaw, 2015). Thus, the view on citizens’ engagement forms and demands related to the mobilisation and reinforcement hypothesis have been well explored so far by ECPR scholars and published in a special issue (Koc-Michalska & Lilleker, 2016). Also, political participation is often conceptualised as a bottom-up process and seldom as a pattern of governing, of capabilities and facilitation provided by executive institutional actors such as the government and reinforced and processed by political organizations. The inverted argument, therefore, to question in this upcoming workshop would be how the offers of central political institutions and societal actors towards citizens have changed and what these institutions do in political communication. The workshop would welcome work that combines deliberative and participative theories in relation to the digital transformation of democracy not only from empowerment, the citizen-perspective; but also from a top-down organization perspective. Empirically, either case-studies or statistical surveys are welcome. We would be happy to include research work about countries that are less present in the international academic literature. Likely questions to discuss are, what and how offers and rewards are organised for citizens, which tools and channels organizations create to (re)connect to people, and if there are effects of these attempts on the organizations themselves, such as “organizational hybridity” and communicative fluidity (Chadwick, 2006, 2013), the creation of new activities through big data for instance (Kreiss, 2016), or the involvement of “e-consultants” (Howard, 2006). The question of the sources of changes offered to citizens, of the process of circulation of models amongst organizations (mimicry, innovation…) is also at stake in this workshop. Another important aspect would be the theoretical reflection on the models of parties, including the “cyber-party” (Margetts, 2006): Do political organizations, broadly defined, move to a new model of internal and external organizations, in relation with digital technologies? Tools such as social media can be used in that respect. We thus seek to explore current incentives, drawing on theories from citizenship, democracy, as well as consumer behaviour studies to understand how citizens are mobilized and involved in communitarian activities. This area is under-explored beyond the study of Voter Advice Applications but recent work of scholars suggest there are alternative pathways to participation at a local level (Cantijoch, Galandini, & Gibson, 2016). At the heart of our workshop is the question of whether these can be extended to national electoral politics and create a framework for more responsive governments and political institutions. References: Aalberg, T., Esser, F., Reinemann, C., Strömbäck, J., & Vreese, C. d. (2017). Populist political communication in Europe. New York London: Routledge. Allern, E. H., & Pedersen, K. (2007). The impact of party organisational changes on democracy. West European Politics, 30(1), 68–92. doi:10.1080/01402380601019688 Block, E., & Negrine, R. (2017). The Populist Communication Style: Toward a Critical Framework. International Journal of Communication, 11, 178-197. Cantijoch, M., Galandini, S., & Gibson, R. (2016). ‘It’s not about me, it’s about my community’: A mixed-method study of civic websites and community efficacy. New Media & Society, 18(9), 1896-1915. doi:10.1177/1461444815616225 Chadwick, A. (2006). Internet politics: States, citizens, and new communication technologies: Oxford University Press. Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Choi, D. H., & Shin, D. H. (2017). A dialectic perspective on the interactive relationship between social media and civic participation: the moderating role of social capital. Information Communication & Society, 20(2), 151-166. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2016.1154586 Dalton, R. J. (2014). Citizen politics: Public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies (6. ed. ed.). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage CQ Press. Ebo, B. L. (Ed.) (1998). Cyberghetto or cybertopia?: Race, class, and gender on the Internet. Westport, CT: Praeger. Enjolras, B., Steen-Johnsen, K., & Wollebæk, D. (2013). Social media and mobilization to offline demonstrations: Transcending participatory divides? New Media & Society, 15(6), 890–908. doi:10.1177/1461444812462844 Farrar-Myers, V. A., & Vaughn, J. S. (2015). Controlling the Message: New Media in American Political Campaigns: NYU Press. Gil de Zúñiga, H., Jung, N., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Social Media Use for News and Individuals' Social Capital, Civic Engagement and Political Participation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(3), 319–336. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01574.x Gil de Zúñiga, H., Molyneux, L., & Zheng, P. (2014). Social Media, Political Expression, and Political Participation: Panel Analysis of Lagged and Concurrent Relationships. Journal of Communication, 64(4), 612–634. doi:10.1111/jcom.12103 Goodin, R. E., & Dryzek, J. S. (2006). Deliberative Impacts: The Macro-Political Uptake of Mini-Publics. Politics & Society, 34(2), 219–244. doi:10.1177/0032329206288152 Grant, W. (1992). Models of interest intermediation and policy formation applied to an internationally comparative study of the dairy industry. European Journal of Political Research, 21(1-2), 53–68. Habermas, J. (2006). Political Communication in Media Society: Does Democracy Still Enjoy an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research. Communication Theory, 16(4), 411–426. Howard, P. N. (2006). New media campaigns and the managed citizen. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press. Johnson, T. J., Bichard, S. L., & Zhang, W. (2009). Communication Communities or “CyberGhettos?”: A Path Analysis Model Examining Factors that Explain Selective Exposure to Blogs1. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 15(1), 60–82. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01492.x Jordan, G., & Maloney, W. A. (Eds.). (1997). The protest business?: Mobilizing campaign groups. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. Koc-Michalska, K., & Lilleker, D. (2016). Digital Politics: Mobilization, Engagement, and Participation. Political Communication, 1-5. doi:10.1080/10584609.2016.1243178 Kreiss, D. (2016). Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters. International Journal of Press-Politics, 21(4), 552-554. doi:10.1177/1940161216650177 Kreiss, D., & Welch, C. (2015). Strategic communication in a networked age. Controlling the Message: New Media in American Political Campaigns, 13. Kriesi, H. (2008). Political Mobilisation, Political Participation and the Power of the Vote. West European Politics, 31(1-2), 147–168. doi:10.1080/01402380701834762 Lilleker, D. G. (2013). Empowering the citizens? Political communication, co-production and the harnessed crowd? In R. Scullion, R. Gerodimos, D. Jackson, & D. G. Lilleker (Eds.), The Media, Political Participation and Empowerment (pp. 24–38): Routledge. Lilleker, D. G., & Koc-Michalska, K. (2016). What Drives Political Participation? Motivations and Mobilization in a Digital Age. Political Communication, 1-23. doi:10.1080/10584609.2016.1225235 Margetts, H. (2006). Cyber-Parties. In R. S. Katz & W. Crotty (Eds.), Handbook of party politics (pp. 528–535). London: SAGE. Morozov, Evgeny (2011), The Net Delusion. The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, New York, PublicAffairs. Norris, P. (2001). Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oppermann, K. (2016). The Divided Kingdom. Making Sense of the "Brexit"-Referendum. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 57(4), 516-533. doi:10.5771/0032-3470-2016-4-516 Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble what the Internet is hiding from you. [London]: Viking. Razzani, S., & Pomatto, G. (2014). Flexibility, Argumentation and Confrontation: How Deliberative Minipublics Can Affect Policies on Controversial Issues. Journal of Public Deliberation, 10(2), Article 10. Segerberg, A., & Bennett, W. L. (2011). Social Media and the Organization of Collective Action: Using Twitter to Explore the Ecologies of Two Climate Change Protests. The Communication Review, 14(3), 197–215. doi:10.1080/10714421.2011.597250 Sunstein, C. R. (2002). Republic.com (3. print., 1. paperback print. ed.). Princeton, N.J.; Oxford: Princeton University Press. van de Donk, W., & Dahlgren, P. (Eds.). (2010). Cyberprotest: New media, citizens and social movements (Transf. to digital pr. 2006. [Im Kolophon: Milton Keynes: Lightning Source, 2010] ed.). London: Routledge. White, J. K. (2016). Donald Trump and the Scourge of Populism. Forum-a Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, 14(3), 265-279. doi:10.1515/for-2016-0026 Skoric, M. M., Zhu, Q. F., Goh, D., & Pang, N. (2016). Social media and citizen engagement: A meta-analytic review. New Media & Society, 18(9), 1817-1839. doi:10.1177/1461444815616221