Can e-Participation Tools Help Localities Address the Crisis of Democratic Legitimacy?

The Internet and related technologies (New Information and Communication Technologies [NICTs]) have changed dramatically the way people live, work, socialize, even oust their rulers. Can NICTs also transform how citizens in democracies participate in the public sphere closest to home, thus contributing to local governments’ legitimacy? This empirical research paper, framed by theoretical conceptions of democratic participation and political representation found in classical (e.g., Burke, Mill, and Tocqueville) and contemporary (e.g., Pateman) work, presents an analysis of qualitative data gathered in a series of semi-structured interviews with political and administrative professionals in local governments in the Aquitaine region of France. The paper also includes analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data gathered using a questionnaire distributed to French local governments that are members of the Villes Internet organization. Undertaken with the support of a year-long Fulbright research grant, this study investigates the variety of technologies that local governments are using to involve more and different citizens than before in participatory policy-making processes, as well as the factors that shape these governments’ choices. In this way, it seeks to get inside the “black box” of local governments’ processes for deciding when and how to encourage citizens to affect collective choices. Local governments in France are clearly experiencing challenges to their Standard Operating Procedures when they implement NICTs, particularly with the advent of interactive Web 2.0 tools. For many, the technology is a double-edged sword that brings with it both promise of more communication with citizens and potential for a significant threat to their legitimacy given what citizens can know and can expect. The paper concludes with an examination of the rising “digital natives,” young people whose view of the world is profoundly shaped by NICTs and who will doubtless have fundamentally different expectations of government responsiveness than previous generations did.