08/12/13, Amsterdam
Mr. Kolja Verhage (kolja.v@gmail.com) University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences Student number: 0606332
Bachelor thesis Political Science
Bachelor project: "De rol van het internet in het politieke leven van jongeren." Thesis supervisor: dr. Fadi Hirzalla
Total amount of words (excluding references): 9325
A power perspective on e-democracy
Introduction
This article focuses on the discussion surrounding the potential of e-‐democracy to strengthen our current democratic system. For many years people have been talking about 'the democratic deficit'. In this discussion there seems to be a general recognition that our contemporary democratic system fails to represent the interests of the general population, and more specifically of young people. Norris (2011) explains that the democratic deficit is an effect of a growing gap between the perceived democratic performance of any given regime and the public expectations. In fact, many writers on e-‐democracy (i.e. Coleman & Gøtze 2001, McCullagh 2003) assert that if a crisis of democratic legitimacy is to be averted a new basis for the relationships between citizens and the political elite must be created.
It has been suggested by several mainstream academics (Anduiza & Cantijoch & Gallego 2009, Blumler & Gurevitch 2001, Coleman & Gøtze 2001, Morison 2004,) that e-‐democracy stands at the root of potentially reinvigorating our currently lacking democratic model. In the case of young people Hirzalla and Banaji (2012) write that over the past decade most academic studies have portrayed young people as civically inactive, especially in comparison to older aged groups. This has been particularly the case with regard to more traditional political activities such as voting and membership of political parties. On the one hand, according to Hirzalla and Banaji, this is especially a problem because childhood and adolescence are essential life stages for the development of lasting attitudes and behaviors. Understandably, it is not desirable to have a whole generation of young people growing up with a distrust for our political system. On the other hand, as we will see, a perceived low legitimacy of our political system lies at the root of low participation and increasing unconventional political participation (i.e. protesting).
This problem of participation in combination with the observation that contemporary young people, in the western world, spend countless hours on the internet and have extensive online presence and internet skills prompted politicians to investigate the possibilities of using the internet to fight this 'apathy-‐epidemic' (Coleman & Gøtze 2001, Macintosh & Robson & Smith &
Whyte 2003, Masters & Macintosh & Smith 2004, Morison 2004). This development is fundamental to understanding the rise of e-‐democracy and its presupposed potential.
However, this potential is rooted in a number of optimistic assumptions and idealisms that might not necessarily be feasible or even realistic when considering the distribution of power between politicians and citizens in our current political system (Curran & Nichols 2005). Mahrer & Krimmer (2005: 27) set out to understand why it is that "very few e-‐democracy proposals survive the stage of formal political decision-‐making". In order to gain a better understanding of this they conducted interviews with representatives of the Austrian Federal Parliament. Their main conclusion was that the lack of willingness from individual politicians to push e-‐democracy was the greatest inhibitor to more successful e-‐democracy projects. Mahrer and Krimmer (2005) conclude this is because individual politicians refused to reduce their own power in favor of more citizen participation and direct influence of citizens in the policy process. In sharp contrast to this Mahrer & Krimmer state that the resistance to e-‐democracy is in spite of the politicians being surprisingly well informed on e-‐ democracy in general and, initially, calling the concepts of e-‐democracy "promising" and "beneficial for democracy".
An answer to this paradoxical conclusion might be found using a well-‐ known theory: Schumpeter's elitist theory of democracy. He famously defined democracy as: “The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter 2008: 269). This is very reminiscent to Mahrer and Krimmer's conclusions in the sense that one can postulate that the reason politicians are blocking e-‐democracy projects, but at the same time are very well informed and support them at first, is because they consider e-‐democracy as a political strategy in "the competitive struggle for the people's vote." In this light e-‐democracy can be seen as just a hollow marketing trick, a construct of the political elite to gain votes within the 'democratic marketplace'. Important to this interpretation is the way citizenship is viewed, simply put: merely as consumers or as contributors to political processes. In recognition of this Morrison and Newman (2001: 171-‐172) say
that: "there seems to have been very little discussion about how the whole project of connecting citizens with government might and should differ from linking consumers with commercial opportunities."
As discussed above much of the e-‐democracy literature is aimed towards increasing the participation of young people (Hirzalla & Banaji 2012, Macintosh et al. 2003, Masters et al. 2004, OECD 2003). So from a political perspective there is much to be gained from this group if politicians can manage to involve them. From Schumpeter's elitist perspective there is power/influence, and a legitimation of their rule, to be gained if the political elite can find a way to reach them and gain their votes. The goal of my thesis is to try and better understand the political motivations behind the rise and failure of e-‐democracy. From this follows my research question that is central to this article:
How can mainstream academic discourse on e-‐democracy be evaluated with Schumpeter's elitist conception of democracy?
To answer this question I will start by explaining Schumpeter's elitist conception of democracy and the relevance of his perspective to the study of e-‐ democracy. The most important part of my thesis comprises the comparison of the conceptualization of e-‐democracy in academic literature with Schumpeter's democratic theory. To specify this comparison I will zoom in on the dichotomy of participation versus representation. They are discussed very regularly in mainstream academic literature on e-‐democracy and they are, as we will see, essential to understanding the perceived potential of e-‐democracy to reduce the democratic deficit. However, the concepts that comprise this dichotomy are also contested and ambivalent and thus relevant to consider from a new perspective. These two aspects, although in several ways interconnected, can be seen as separate aspects of the potential of e-‐democracy.
First of all I will discuss the subject of citizen participation. The cause of low levels of youth participation has been a lively debate for many years and, for academics and politicians alike, e-‐democracy is often seen to have the potential to increase youth participation (Coleman & Gøtze 2001, Curran & Nichols 2005, Macintosh et al 2003, McCullagh 2003). But participation is a complex concept
that requires careful consideration. I will consider what academic literature has to say on the willingness of young people to participate in e-‐democracy and compare this to Schumpeter's elitist perspective.
Contrasting to this I will, secondly, discuss the issue of representation. Or, specifically, the willingness of politicians to hand over power or influence to (young) citizens. As Blumler and Gurevitch (2001: 8-‐9) write: "Although the functions and uses of the Internet are still being explored, powerful interests are striving to bend it to their own ends. Few if any of these big players are likely to be out to boost citizenship!" Here also I will compare the academic literature on e-‐democracy concerning the willingness (or lack thereof) of politicians to hand over power with Schumpeter's perspective.
Concluding my article, I will put the two concepts together to offer a bigger picture in order to answer my research question and consider the wider theoretical implications of my analysis. Here I will, furthermore, discuss any problems in my analysis and make suggestions for future research.
The ultimate goal of this study is to compare mainstream academic literature on e-‐democracy with Schumpeter's elitist perspective, and to see what exactly the potential of e-‐democracy is by taking a more critical approach. E-‐ democracy might offer us a new democratic model, one that will increase youth participation and strengthen the legitimacy of our political system while the democratic system works to improve everyone's lives, not just those of an elite group. Ideally, offering Schumpeter's insights might progress our academic discourse on e-‐democracy and hopefully make us more realistic about the possibilities of e-‐democracy. In a time where almost every human being in the western world (and the number in non-‐western countries is growing rapidly) has access to the Internet the social ramifications of understanding the power of e-‐democracy seem obvious. But only through rigorous and deep scientific research to broaden our understanding of the mechanics behind e-‐democracy we can make sure its potential benefits are put to use for the betterment of society.
Focus and method
Central to my thesis is the concept of e-‐democracy. According to Mahrer and Krimmer (2005) e-‐democracy exists of four different online areas of interaction between society and politics. These are 1) public discussion of political ideas and issues, 2) formal decision making, 3) implementation and execution of decisions, and finally 4) public elections. For each area there are different examples of e-‐ democracy projects. To clarify this I will highlight one example of the first area: public discussion of political ideas and issues.
In June 2000 the Australian Prime Minister and Minister of Defense launched a nationwide review of defense policy. As part of this review a discussion paper (Defense Review 2000) was released for public consultation. On the website of the Defense ministry people could download a copy of the paper, a summary for easy reading, an electronic response form posing questions on key issues that the government wanted feedback on, and a schedule of public meetings. "The consultation lasted for nine weeks, during which time over 2,000 people attended 28 community meeting and over 1,150 written submissions were received -‐ approximately half by e-‐mail" (Coleman & Gøtze 2001: 40). The project was considered a success and the perceived legitimacy of the government’s defense policy improved thanks to the consultation.
There are several relevant articles available on e-‐democracy, which take a very positive and normative approach on the potential of e-‐democracy for young people (Anduiza et al. 2009, Antiroikko 2003, Curran & Nichols 2005, Macintosh et al. 2003, Masters et al. 2004). Inherent to these articles is an unspoken assumption that e-‐democracy is a force of good, a force which cannot be used in a non-‐democratic manner or have a deleterious effect on democracy. Often in these articles the suggestion is raised that e-‐democracy is a first step towards a new political model, like direct-‐democracy. These articles were the starting point for my research.
The literature I have selected for my research is primarily aimed at the potential of e-‐democracy for young people. However, as this will severely limit the amount of usable articles I will also include articles that are more general in their claims (which should also include young people). Where necessary and/or
relevant I will differentiate my analysis between the general population and young people.
In the selection process I divided my found articles in three groups. The first one is the above-‐mentioned group that I will call 'sanguine'. For example, as Curran and Nichols (2005) writes on the possibility of electronic voting on every parliamentary bill through weekly online referendums: "Giving citizens this power would probably do more to beat voter apathy than any other proposal out there". Secondly there is the group of articles that I call 'critical'. These articles offer a more critical approach to the idea of e-‐democracy. They accept that e-‐ democracy has a certain potential but they don't immediately jump to conclusions on what this potential exactly is, nor do they claim that successful e-‐ democracy projects will lead to a better/new democratic model (Åström, Granberg & Khakee 2011, Blumler & Gurevitch 2010, Chadwick 2009, Coleman & Gøtze 2001, Mahrer & Krimmer 2005, Morison 2004, Parvez & Ahmed 2007). Like Coleman and Gøtze (2001) write: "There is no intrinsic link between successful e-‐government and strengthened democracy." Finally there is the third group, which I will call 'objective'. These articles often perform a case study on e-‐ democracy and consider the effectiveness of certain e-‐democracy projects. Underlying these articles there are sometimes certain normative assumptions on e-‐democracy but they try to avoid any bias by clearly pointing this out (Gustafsson 2002).
Mostly I found this literature by looking through Google Scholar and the digital library of the University of Amsterdam. I have used several search queries to find my articles, most importantly: 'e-‐democracy', 'participation', 'representation', 'young people', 'legitimacy', 'non-‐participation' and 'democratic citizenship. I also used several combinations of these terms. I've read many abstracts to see if they would fit in one of my three groups. Often the 'tone of voice' in the abstract was a strong indicator whether the article would fit in one of my three groups. For example in the 'sanguine' group: "This paper examines how e-‐Democracy can bring about a truer form of Democracy." (Curran & Nichols 2005: 16). And the vulnerable potential group: "(...) previous research demonstrates that very few e-‐democracy proposals survive the stage of formal political decision-‐making (...)" (Mahrer & Krimmer 2005: 27). When I searched
through Google Scholar I always preferred the articles with a high number of citations to make sure these were generally accepted and known articles that can be labeled as 'mainstream'. Secondly I also found some literature by looking through reference lists of articles that I found especially useful.
By using the 'sanguine', 'critical' and 'objective' groups I am able to offer a broad analysis of the academic literature on e-‐democracy. This way I hope to minimize any validity issues in my analysis caused by a poor selection method. In my analysis I will consider if there is a difference in views between the three groups in their consideration of participation and representation. This way I hope to offer a very broad evaluation of e-‐democracy literature. In my search there were no articles that did not fit any of my groups. Some articles however would arguably fit in two groups (for example 'sanguine' and 'objective'). In those cases I always gave preference to the normative groups, 'sanguine' and 'critical'.
After reading many articles I decided to focus my attention on two aspects of e-‐democracy that seemed to be coming back in every article. These are 'participation' and 'representation'. Each article had a different focus but they all implicitly referred to the tension between these two concepts in discussing e-‐ democracy. Below I will explicate more clearly what these concepts mean and how I will use them for my analysis.
First of all there is the concept of participation. This is undoubtedly the most popular theme in the literature on e-‐democracy. Generally speaking the project of e-‐democracy began with the hope that it could be used to increase political participation, especially amongst young people. Macintosh et al. (2003: 43-‐44) explain: "The involvement of otherwise disenfranchised young people is becoming increasingly important to policy making, not just because young people are the "voters of tomorrow" but because they already are citizens." Because many e-‐democracy projects are aimed at getting young people to participate this seemed like a proper starting point. In this article I will not take an empirical approach to see whether such attempts have been successful or not. I will take a theoretical approach to think about the deeper causes and motivations of young people to (not) become politically involved and what the
consequences of this are. In this article I will be using the following definition of political participation:
"By political participation we refer simply to activity that has the intent or effect of influencing government action - either directly by affecting the making or implementation of public policy or indirectly by influencing the selection of people who make those policies" (Verba & Schlozman & Brady 1995:38).
My approach on participation will be to look at how it is described in the e-‐ democracy literature. Specifically my aim is to look at the willingness of (young) citizens to participate and its consequences. Here I will focus on conventional participation that e-‐democracy hopes to strengthen. Finally I will consider the assumptions/conclusions that the different articles posit on this willingness and I will compare these assumptions with Schumpeter's elitist perspective. These differences and similarities are the gist of my analysis. I will also consider what these articles do not discuss, as often this can say more about their conception of e-‐democracy then what they do discuss.
Secondly there is the theme of representation. I will look at the (lack of) willingness of politicians to hand over power to citizens. From Schumpeter's point of view, it seems very unlikely that the political elite would give up their power in favor of direct democracy for various reasons, which I will specify later on. As Schumpeter writes:
"Beyond 'direct' democracy lies an infinite wealth of possible forms in which the 'people' may partake in the business of ruling or influence or control those who actually do the ruling. None of these forms, particularly none of the workable ones, has any obvious or exclusive title to being described as Government by the People if these words are to be taken in their natural sense" (Schumpeter 2008:247).
In other words, beyond direct democracy there is no sense in talking about the rule of the people and, as Schumpeter argues, in any other form beyond direct
democracy the function of citizens is to produce a government, nothing more. Perhaps, however, e-‐democracy can help us find a middle road and show us a new form of governance and/or self-‐governance without underplaying the elitist paradigm.
As with participation I will here use the same methodology. Much of the literature that talks about representation also discusses the theme of participation. In this way representation is the flipside of participation. I will analyze participation first because if we are to understand the motivations of politicians to work on increasing or decreasing participation, and by that increasing or decreasing their own power, we need to understand how the willingness of (young) citizens to participate functions. We cannot contextualize the decisions of politicians without properly understanding the motivations of (young) people to participate.
For example, according to the interviews Mahrer and Krimmer's (2005) conducted, politicians welcome the idea of increasing voter turnout but are adamantly against the idea of more citizen participation in the more general sense. From the elitist perspective the reasons for this seem obvious. Diminishing the influence of our representative system to establish a more direct form of democracy requires a willingness of the representatives to reduce their own power and influence. I will also use Schumpeter's democratic theory to look at the desiredness of high political participation and what academics and Schumpeter write (but also what they don't write) when discussing the power effects of participation in e-‐democracy literature.
Concluding, I will use Schumpeter's conception of democracy outlined in his book "Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy". In this book he treats his elitist conception of democracy that, to this day, remains relevant for many varied fields of research (Carayannis & Ziemnowicz 2007). I hope that by using his theoretical framework I can poke through the blind idealism and find a more usable, or practical, value of e-‐democracy. My choice of Schumpeter follows from the usefulness of his critical framework on classical democratic theory and the previously mentioned similarity of his critical approach to critical academic literature on e-‐democracy. This choice also followed from his focus on the two concepts participation and representation. At first, the article of Mahrer and
Krimmer and the article by Morrison and Newman made me think, instinctively, of Schumpeter. After reading his book I came to learn that his perspective on participation and representation put many articles on e-‐democracy in a different light. I concluded, therefore, that his theory might offer a useful tool for evaluating e-‐democracy literature. Furthermore there are no previous articles available where the concept of e-‐democracy is approached from an elitist democratic perspective and so I hope something can be learned by applying Schumpeter's critical democratic theory. I will make a fair but critical assessment of the literature on e-‐democracy that posits a normative approach to the potential of e-‐democracy.
In my conclusion I will briefly summarize all the major differences/similarities between the academic literature on e-‐democracy, specifically on participation, representation and Schumpeter's elitist perspective before answering my research question on the basis of these similarities/differences.
Analysis
Schumpeter's theory of democracy
Like I explained in my introduction, Schumpeter's elitist conception of democracy challenges the classical idea of democracy where citizens can identify the common good through elections and that politicians carry it out for them. Schumpeter argued that, first of all, there is no such thing as a 'common good' and, secondly, people's ignorance and lack of education made them susceptible to manipulation. Thus a classical democratic system where the power lies strictly with the people is greatly undesirable (Schumpeter 2008).
"On the one hand [the people's] wants are nothing like as definite and their actions upon those wants nothing like as rational and prompt. On the other hand they are so amenable to the influence of advertising and other methods of persuasion that producers often seem to dictate to them instead of being directed by them" (Schumpeter 2008:257).
Democracy, according to Schumpeter, is driven by competition between political leaders much like a market place. Elections merely legitimize governments and keep them accountable. The political elite, therefore, shapes the policy process, and the role for conventional political participation for the general population is limited to producing a government, and not to have influence over anything that happens next.
"Party and machine politicians are simply the response to the fact that the electoral mass is incapable of action other than a stampede, and they constitute an attempt to regulate political competition exactly similar to the corresponding practices of a trade association." (Schumpeter 2008:283).
Put briefly, according to Schumpeter's democratic theory politicians change their principles much like a department store would change the kind of brands they sell in order to increase sales. The only role of citizens is then to produce a government by choosing a 'brand', or, to put it more politically, a certain set of
principles (ideology). Expecting anything more of citizens is not only foolish but also impossible because:
"There is (...) no such thing as a uniquely determined common good that all people could agree on or be made to agree on by the force of rational argument. This is due not primarily to the fact that some people may want things other than the common good but to the much more fundamental fact that to different individuals and groups the common good is bound to mean different things" (Schumpeter 2008:251).
For this reason elitist political leadership must exist. According to Schumpeter a political elite is not just a 'necessary evil' of democracy but it is in fact essential to the very essence of democracy, no democracy can exist without a political elite. Interestingly though Schumpeter admits that the only possible exception is having a pure direct democracy. However this also he finds undesirable:
"(...) Ignorance will persist in the face of masses of information however complete and correct. It persists even in the face of the meritorious efforts that are being made to go beyond presenting information and to teach the use of it by means of lectures, classes, and discussion groups. Results are not zero. But they are small. People cannot be carried up the ladder. Thus the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field" (Schumpeter 2008:262).
Without fully going into details, what effects can we expect that this theory will have on our concepts participation and representation? As a political method Schumpeter fully believes in the democratic method. However, because of his convictions on human nature, he strongly believes that any participation that goes beyond the conventional participatory function of voting is undesirable. He argues that voting is the tool by which citizens legitimize their leaders and produce a government. This implies that any drop in willingness of citizens to participate in conventional politics (i.e. voting) means that the political elites are not innovating well enough in their competitive struggle and thereby
delegitimizing the entire democratic method. A resulting rise in unconventional participation (rioting/demonstrating) simply puts pressure on political elites to innovate their aforementioned set of principles to accommodate the new demand of citizens. However if this innovation entails increasing citizen participation in ways other than voting we see an interesting paradox emerging. We'll delve deeper into this later on in our analysis.
On the side of representation Schumpeter is quite clear that the function of the political elite is to accumulate power and not to involve citizens. For the health of the democratic system it is, in fact, imperative that they don't lose power in favor of more influence from 'the people'. That would only lead to a failure of democracy. When politicians lose power in favor of other politicians, it is their challenge to innovate their 'brand' when sales are down. In that regard high conventional participation (votes) is seen as a legitimation of the political elite and the current political method. High unconventional participation and/or low conventional participation, on the other hand, are then seen as a denouncement of the entire political system and its elites, and thus highly undesirable. In the case of decreasing voter turnout participation, that politicians do not seem to be able to countermand by innovating, they are faced with a choice. Either risking to delegitimize the political system even further by ignoring the problems (or using violence). Or by increasing the political involvement of citizens beyond voting, thereby risking the quality of the democratic method (according to Schumpeter), but possibly increasing the legitimacy of the political elites. Next we will analyze how e-‐democracy fits into all of this.
On participation
It can be said that when the first e-‐democracy projects started in the 1990s their 'purpose-‐of-‐being' was to increase citizen participation. Earlier I stated this was mostly as a reaction to the low political involvement of, especially, young people and their high involvement with new Internet and communications technologies (ICT). According to Åström et al. (2011) there are two very different ways of interpreting the potential of e-‐democracy which now become relevant. On the one hand, it can be seen as a force used to change the balance of power in favor of more citizen control. On the other hand, it can be seen as a method of reinforcing the status quo. Keeping power concentrated with our political representatives. The question I'm addressing here first is how participation is conceptualized by mainstream e-‐democracy literature and what these academics write on the willingness of citizens to participate.
My focus is on conventional forms of participation, like a free and accessible forum for the discussion of political ideas, citizen consultation by politicians and simply voting. Whether the purpose of efforts to increase this participation are rooted in a willingness to change the balance of power, or rooted in a desire to reinforce the status quo, is something I will consider in my conclusion.
"Welcome though existing initiatives [of e-voting] are, democracy is about more than voting or providing better public information to the citizen: electronic plebiscites and public information kiosks are simply not sufficient conditions to affirm the existence of digital democracy. Democracy has at its heart self-determination, participation, voice and autonomy. It is a political culture that includes a wide range of realms for self-development and mutual collective expression" (Hague & Loader 2005: 15).
What can be clearly gathered from this quote is the sincere conviction that democracy is, at its core, a method of participation and self-‐expression. Therefore citizen participation should not be limited to just casting a vote. It should include forms of deliberation and, at least a certain degree of, citizen control. The hidden assumption here is that forms of participation that go
beyond just voting strengthen democracy and increase the legitimacy of the political system. That, in effect, increases the willingness of citizens to engage in various forms of participation. In other words, voting alone is no longer (and has never been) a proper legitimation of the political system. Blumler and Coleman (2001: 6) assert:
"A conspicuous weakness in the 20th Century representative democracies has been the absence of robust public deliberation. An assumption has prevailed that fair elections plus well-run parliaments equals the democratic ideal, matched all too often by a complimentary belief that the public is not very good or interested in discussing the politics that affect it."
We can conclude from the previous quote that the lack of willingness of citizens to participate in conventional politics is dependent on the willingness of politicians to engage with the public. Thereby increasing the legitimacy of the entire political system and, so, increasing the willingness of citizens to participate even more. This is a train of thought that could be found in all the normative academic literature I read on e-‐democracy. Following from this, what is striking is that in all the normative e-‐democracy literature (sanguine as well as critical) that I have analyzed, there is a hidden believe in a 'common good' which, supposedly, can be discovered through the abovementioned deliberative process between politicians and citizens. In all this literature there is an emphasis on creating forums of discussions where people can discuss political ideas, in order to arrive at political decisions which realize the 'common good', by making people themselves decide through deliberation with other citizens, politicians, or both. If they didn't believe in a common good how would they explain their expectation that people would ever be able to reach agreement on issues through rational dialogue? This assumes the existence of a uniquely determined common good that all people could agree on.
Most of the E-‐democracy literature, thus, holds that the willingness of citizens to participate in conventional participation is a function of the perceived legitimacy of the political system. Which, in this context, means whether politicians actually want to include citizens in the policy process, thereby
reducing their own representative powers. Åström et al. (2011) write about a typical example on e-‐democracy in Sweden where the government tried to involve citizens in the policy planning of their neighborhood. He writes:
"(...) broadened participation was achieved in quantitative terms with about 200 e-petitions in the first year. But the political and administrative decision-makers explicitly denied giving any form of formal responses to petitioners, which the petitioners themselves had taken for granted. The lack of feedback and visible results in terms of influence on decision-making seems to add to the uncertainty about the actual meaning and impact of participation. In both the described cases, the local governments are locked into old structures and ways of working, only with islands of participatory practice" (Åström 2011: 580).
In the end this reduced the willingness of citizens, past the initial interest, to participate until this e-‐democracy project ended up as another failure. "The Swedish (...) experience shows that urban authorities carry out participatory as well as non-‐participatory planning activities. Such a fragmentation leads to contradictions, tensions and even frustrations, and have even negative impact on citizens' desire to participate" (Åström et al. 2011: 575).
Besides the issue of perceived legitimacy there is another important factor (although less so than perceived legitimacy) that influences willingness of citizens to participate. This is a technological issue that is only relevant to e-‐ democracy. The problem is known as the digital divide: "Across the OECD, attention is focusing increasingly on what has been dubbed the 'digital divide' -‐ a term that refers to the gap in access to information and communication technology (ICT)" (OECD 2003: 60). Van Dijk and Hacker (2003) explain that the digital divide can best be explained as a "barrier to access". They identify four different kinds of barriers.
1. "Lack of elementary digital experience caused by lack of interest, computer anxiety, and unattractiveness of the new technology ('mental access'). 2. No possession of computers and network connections ('material access').
3. Lack of digital skills caused by insufficient user-‐friendliness and inadequate education or social support ('skills access').
4. Lack of significant usage opportunities ('usage access')."
(Van Dijk & Hacker 2003: 315-‐316)
Public opinion and public policy are mostly preoccupied with the second kind of access. Projects like "One Laptop per Child" (Negroponte 2005) exemplify this. With regard to the willingness to participate, not having a computer is a clear obstacle. According to Van Dijk and Hacker the problem of 'mental access' correlates to a divide between generations, or age groups. Secondly a divide caused by the problem of 'material access' correlates to differences in social-‐ economic standing. The third and fourth problems of access are often neglected. The third one is viewed as a temporary phenomenon that will get solved as soon as someone purchases a computer. Finally the fourth one is seen as a free choice of citizens (Van Dijk & Hacker 2003).
However, Van Dijk and Hacker observe that as the first two problems of access are growing smaller, the last two become more important to the area of e-‐ democracy and the willingness of (young) citizens to participate. These are much more difficult to solve and it is harder to see what the effects are of this divide.
"The fact is that the present generation of young people have had a great deal of involvement with ICT’s in their early years, yet they still learn how to operate technology just like everyone else, and just like everyone else some of them will be adept at it and others will not. Despite pressures to become ‘techno-savvy’, many young people choose not to participate and remain ‘technophobic’. Research conducted by the Hansard Society revealed similarly that the common view of young people being effortlessly at home with ICT’s is unfounded, when many, in fact, find even simple navigation and communication problematic. This is the first stumbling block to focusing entirely on ICT’s for youth engagement, and like a weak foundation it cannot support what is built upon it: the view that young people will suddenly want to be involved with politics and decision-making because the Internet makes it ‘trendy’" (Masters et al. 2004).
Coleman & Gøtze (2001) reassure us however that, in spite of the digital divide and it's consequences of unequal access, abandoning the Internet, as a tool of democratic engagement is not the solution.
The more general message from e-‐democracy literature is that participation should not be limited to just voting and the willingness of citizens to participate, using e-‐democracy, relies for a large part on the perceived legitimacy of the political system, and, secondly, on taking away barriers like the digital divide. The message to politicians is that if they want the 'apathy-‐ epidemic' to end, and the legitimacy of the democratic method to become stronger, they should embrace e-‐democracy. But for that they will need to expand their concept of participation outside of just voting. And they will need to be serious about increasing citizen control on the political process. Masters et al (2004) summarize this quite clearly:
"Studies of young people's attitudes to political practice have shown widespread disregard for conventional politics, but also widespread dissatisfaction with their lack of involvement. Thus, current investment in consulting and involving young people stems from the view that their rejection of politics reflects feelings of exclusion and disenfranchisement from the public sphere. Therefore, by giving them the opportunity to participate and have their say on issues that affect them, young people may feel listened to and thus become engaged and responsible citizens" (Masters et al. 2004: 16).
Now that we have a fairly refined overview of how e-‐democracy literature considers participation and how the willingness of citizen participation functions we can go on to compare this view with Schumpeter's elitist conception. In Schumpeter's theory of democracy there is little mention of specific factors that influence the willingness of citizens to participate. In fact he assumes that people are willing to participate all the time, as long as they perceive the political system as legitimate. However, because of Schumpeter's ideas concerning human nature, he believes that any willingness to participate, beyond the willingness to vote, should be avoided.
"The voters outside of parliament must respect the division of labor between themselves and the politicians they elect. They must not withdraw confidence too easily between elections and they must understand that, once they have elected an individual, political action is his business and not theirs. This means that they must refrain from instructing him about what he is to do--(...)" (Schumpeter 2008: 295).
Schumpeter does not discriminate between educated or uneducated, rich or poor. He argues that people who are not professional politicians will never truly make an effort to master a political problem. According to Schumpeter this is because ordinary citizens will never feel a true sense of responsibility to solve these problems and will only represent partisan interests. This is strongly connected to his critiques on the existence of 'the common good'. Willingness to participate, according to Schumpeter, is measured none other than by voter turnout. Any willingness greater than that is undesirable and should be addressed as a threat to the legitimacy of the political system. Schumpeter calls this "Democratic Self-‐control" (Schumpeter 2008: 294). If this willingness drops however (low voter turnout) it means the political elite has not been innovating well enough in the competition for votes.
The normative e-‐democracy literature, as a whole, suggests that this innovation must be sought in citizen consultation. For example: "The core idea is that a distributed network of creators and contributors, the majority of them amateurs, can, using simple online tools, produce information goods that may outperform those produced by so-‐called authoritative, concentrated sources (Åström et al. 2011: 576). Schumpeter responds to that as follows: "Newspaper readers, radio audiences, members of a party even if not physically gathered together are terribly easy to work up into a psychological crowd and into a state of frenzy in which attempt at rational argument only spurs the animal spirit" [emphasis added by author] (Schumpeter 2008: 257).
Concluding, Schumpeter's assumptions, flowing from his view on human nature, are that forms of participation that go beyond voting weaken democracy and decrease the legitimacy of the political system. This is in sharp contrast to the stance of normative e-‐democracy literature. However he does recognize that
if the entire democratic method is at stake, due to low legitimacy caused by low voter turnout (low willingness to participate), something needs to be done by the political elite. E-‐democracy literature suggests that the answer lies in greater citizen involvement in the policy process through e-‐democracy. But in order for this to work effectively e-‐democracy literature claims that our political representatives will need to hand over a share of their political control to citizens. The 'sanguine' group believes that they should (eventually) hand over all power to citizens, whereas the 'critical' group takes a more nuanced stance and argues that a (new) kind of balance needs to be struck between representative power and citizen influence. This brings us to our next concept, representation, where I will analyze the willingness and desiredness of our representatives to hand over power to citizens to accommodate a form of citizen participation which is not limited to simply voting.
On representation
So far we've been able to conclude that in most of the e-‐democracy literature there is an assumption that, in order for e-‐democracy projects to have a real impact on participation, the role of the citizens in the political process needs to be enlarged. For this to happen politicians will have to share some of their acquired representative powers with citizens. If not, citizens would still not have a real say in the matters that affect their lives and legitimacy/participation will not increase.
"Romanticized ideals of deliberative democracy and "thick" citizenship underlay most of the e-democracy literature whether critical or not. These are rarely stated, but they are important because they value certain types of activity over others, even though recent - and in my view significant - developments in online political behavior may have very little to do with these ideals" (Chadwick 2009: 15).
What some of these developments are I will consider in my conclusion. For now it’s important to realize that the romanticized ideals which underlay most of the e-‐democracy literature spring from their believe regarding human nature. Specifically the believe that humans, through rational deliberation, can discover a 'common good' that has no ambiguities and is good for everyone at all times. In order to act on this common good the, especially sanguine, articles hold that a less concentrated distribution of power between citizens and politicians is necessary. However all of the e-‐democracy literature buys into this idea of the positive effects of stronger deliberation between citizens and politicians. Therefore much of the e-‐democracy literature assumes that the greatest inhibitor of successful e-‐democracy projects is the lack of willingness of politicians to reduce their own power and influence. However the ideas on the extent to this redistribution of power varies greatly between articles.
There are three views within this literature that merit deeper investigation, these views correspond to the abovementioned groups sanguine, critical and objective: The first view (sanguine) zooms in on the rigid unwillingness of politicians to lose power. They say that e-‐democracy will not
