Participatory Turn Online? Comparing Citizens’ Perspectives and Politicians’ and Mayors’ Attitudes on Online and Offline Political Participation

A crisis of legitimacy triggered democratic innovation and new participatory instruments. In some countries „deliberative instruments” such as participatory budgeting are implemented. Other countries focus on “direct democratic instruments” such as referendums and petitions. Most instruments are combining online participation with offline participation. Some instruments are primarily online instruments (e-petitions, e participatory budgeting). Most democratic innovation is implemented at the local level, which can be regarded as a laboratory for democratic innovation. Driven by Open government initiatives local administrations implement their own participatory instruments and use social media websites. What kind of online instruments is implemented predominately? What are the attitudes of the citizen, the elected politicians and the administration regarding these new online participatory instruments? What is accepted and what is evaluated negatively within the different groups? Is there a difference between online and offline participation? The paper presents a participatory framework for online and offline participation (participatory rhombus). It presents a brief overview of trends and more detailed survey data from a national representative survey within citizen and local politicians and mayors in Germany.