Participatory Institutions, Digital Technologies, and Democratic Crises

This paper analyzes whether and how digitalization has affected participatory institutions and their overall effects on democracy in Latin America, explaining why they were not able to minimize democratic erosion in recent years and arguing in favor of better designed and implemented institutions of participation. We propose that the participatory institutions have been mostly limited in their effects on democracy because they are frequently controlled by political incumbents in ways that reduce the impact or autonomy of participants. Nonetheless, even if limited, these institutions can and sometimes do have positive, democracy-enhancing effects, and could be expanded. Digital participation shows a similar path but with an even more reduced impact and more weaknesses in their institutional designs and implementation. To illustrate our arguments, we examine a wide spectrum of institutions: deliberation in constitution-making; direct democracy mechanisms; local development and public policy councils; participatory budgeting; and digital participation initiatives.