Digitalization and the Justifiability of Democracy

Does the digital revolution affect democratic theory as such? We are convinced that that is the case and believe that the influence of digitalization on democracy exceeds the mere category of implementation, resp. feasibility of theoretical norms. Digitalization leaves traces even in the theoretical arenas where these concepts are being formulated. This holds true even for the ventricle of democratic theory: the justifiability of democracy, understood as the possibility to justify the value of or need for democracy based on specific reasons (justifications). We treat the justifiability of democracy as a normative concept, thereby distinguishing it from the empirical support or acceptance of democracy among citizens. We understand justifiability as a theoretical concept that comes in an intrinsic and an instrumental version. Intrinsic justifications of democracy is based on values like liberty or equality, arguing that democracy guarantees a better expression of these values than other regimes. Those values are affected by many questions arising from digitalization, one of them being the safety of and control over our personal data in the age of highly accomplished methods of tracking our online activities. In this widely pursued discourse the understanding of liberty becomes contested: On one hand, the technical innovations founded on vast collections of personal data enable us to access large amounts of data and to browse those data in a way that is tailored to our personal needs and interests – they liberate our movements online, and thus increase our positive liberty. On the other hand, we have to give up control over our personal data in order to use those techniques and are subjected to their consequences. Thus, our liberty to move freely and without surveillance within the web is greatly limited, which implies a decrease of our negative liberties. Moreover, the influence of algorithms on those movements tackles the ‘liberty as non-domination’ (Pettit). In the discourse around this nexus various conceptualizations of liberty arise, highlighting different aspects and formulating different expectations. We will tackle the question of how far the transformations with regard to such values affect democratic theory. From the perspective of instrumental justification of democracy it can be argued that democracy has better outcomes in the production of desirable public goods like social justice. Thus, according to the ‘jury-theorem’ the government by many is considered epistemically more valid than the government by few. Processes of democratic deliberation ensure that potentially all relevant viewpoints are considered, and the better argument prevails. Both those justifications are tackled by digitalization. New possibilities of society-wide deliberation arise thanks to social media, but the hugely increased amount of contributions has to be managed by algorithms. This leads to widely discussed issues like filter bubbles, echo chambers and societal fragmentation. Thus, society again is divided up into smaller spaces of communication, the government by many is partly disabled, and ‘good solutions’ are harder to detect. We analyze, how those and other forms of justification are challenged by digitalization-induced transformations and ‘collect’ various transformations induced by digitalization for democratic theory to ponder.