Digital Deliberation or Digital Procedures: A Narrative Analysis of the European Commission’s Discourses in the Field of Digital Democracy

The paper builds on a dialogue between democracy studies and Critical Discourse Analysis. The paper discusses how discursive regimes about digital democracy influence public strategies attempting to shape the digitalization of politics. Specifically, the paper addresses how the European Commission (EC) employs nodal discourses and discursive legitimation strategies to influence both discussions and policies related to digital democracy (Fairclough, 2005b; van Leeuwen, 2007). The following research question is explored: how can it be argued that the EC is constructing a discursive regime around digital democracy? The paper argues that, regarding digital democracy, the European Commission mobilizes four main nodal discourses, namely regulation, participation, electoral integrity, and securitizing democracy. The mobilization of these nodal discourses reveals that the European Commission mainly espouses a deliberative perspective on democracy that is, however, combined with a concern with the conditions ensuring procedural democracy, specifically regarding the potential de-institutionalizing effects of digital democracy.