Post | CTZN.eu

Hi reader,

today I want to talk about an issue which has featured increasingly in the contemporary debate, both as an ideal for a better world and as the beginning of the end for our society: the digitalization of the democratic process. This analysis is the transposition of part of a paper which I have written as a bachelor student, and which will be readjusted in two (or more) articles here at CTZN.eu. I hope you will enjoy reading them and will be encouraged to leave us a comment on your view on the matter and on what can be done in practice to advance your vision.

While many have argued that a progressive digitalization of the democratic process is needed to bring about a new age of citizen participation, as the barriers of the old world are crumbling and time and space are no more of concern, more conservative (or others would say, rational) voices have risen concerns about this development, which in their eyes would be either impossible or dangerous for the correct functioning of our democracies. Most of them criticize the over-simplistic assumptions about human communication of what they see as utopias, and consider a digitalization of the democratic process as fundamentally incompatible with our modern conception of liberal democracy, potentially transforming our society into chaotic digital anarchism or an all-controlling Orwellian dystopia.

Both these extreme views suffer from ideological prejudices, which prevent the observer from being objective about the effective causes and consequences of the current digital revolution. We must try instead to consider the matter more pragmatically, seeing the digitalization process as a reality which will be increasingly predominant in our lives, and thus cannot be avoided, but also taking into account the risks and distortions of the Internet age and having a clear objective: preserve the rights and freedoms we have gained in time without losing the opportunities that digital democracy can offer us.

Contemporary mass self-communication allows individuals to develop higher autonomy in respect to the institutional settings of their society, and enables them to gather, discuss, and organize in new forms of combined virtual and physical space, creating a hybrid space of communication and interaction. For the proponents of digital democracy, such a development in the civil society mode of association could be easily emulated to amplify the democratic discourse out of its physical limitations. If spontaneous movements of the Internet age can overthrow dictatorial governments, pressure administrations to adopt fairer policies, and create autonomous self-governing communities, why not institutionalize them and make them an integral part of the correct functioning of our democracies? We could implement real participation of citizens in daily decision-making processes in various institutional layers; we could install a higher sense of purpose and civic duty in ordinary citizens, that until now have found themselves to be substantially excluded from participating in the democratic governance even though they are a fundamental part of the active population (as we have said in another article, which you can find here); we could democratize institutions like the European Union ones, which have for some time suffered criticisms for not being sufficiently participative and accountable, by making them representative of the European citizens rather than the European governments.

Furthermore, this phenomenon is already happening before our eyes: the mass protests known as “Arab Spring”, erupted in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria from 2011, as well as the “Occupy Wall Street” and “Black Lives Matter” movements in the USA, have intensely relied on social media to criticize the government and organize their dissent, coordinating almost spontaneously the network of protesters and shining as a beacon of the democratizing potential of digital technology. Even something as criticized as the Rousseau platform, the online website of the Italian Five Star Movement where party members can suggest proposals for legislation and participate in their drafting, and where almost all most important party votes must necessarily take place, can be seen as a first attempt (albeit highly dysfunctional). It could be the starting point of a process of improvement of our democracies through the progressive development of forms of direct participation. Indeed, thanks to the new communication technologies, we could overcome one of the main theoretical and practical obstacles to the application of direct democracy in the modern world: the geographical and demographical extension of countries, which until now has made impossible for most citizens to gather and physically participate in the democratic process for more than one day every four/five years. As Yascha Mounk says in his extraordinary The People vs Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save it, until a few years ago “the potential of social media to both deepen and spread democracy seemed beyond doubt.”

However, reality is not as simple as we would like to think. Many issues are more complex than we believe, and even the ones we can grasp in their complexity must face the various socio-economic-cultural interests of humankind, whose members are not radically changed but are adapting to new ways of communicating and exerting power over one another. There are some burdensome effects which cannot be ignored even in light of the advances of the Internet age, and those must be coped with to prevent the emergence of real dangers for our society. Hiding from the truth, not recognizing them as problems to avoid confronting an ideal with the harshness of reality, is not only pointless and counterproductive, but could seriously threaten our lives.

The first major backlash unleashed by the Internet is the emergence of the so-called “echo chambers”: as social media and the Web allow users to filter their experience according to their tastes and preferences, the possibility to connect with anyone in the world can be reduced to a series of hermetically closed comfort zones. Users surround themselves (or are surrounded by the ever-smarter algorithms) with like-minded individuals, creating sealed spaces in which there is no debate, but only one’s own opinions repeated endlessly like an echo. Paradoxically, the potential of unlimited interconnectedness would create even more ideological segregation, diminishing the communication among social and political divides and enhancing rather than neutralizing the exclusive division between us and them, friends and enemies.

If this process of segregation could be intensified by the digital revolution, also the other great problem of our time, the atomization of modern society, risks to be magnified by the new media: in fact, society is made not only by individuals but by groups. Electronic access to everything bypasses the function of interest groups of civil society, threatening to transform movements into isolated individuals sitting in front of screens. If people have no reason to join an organization since they can use the Web to autonomously transmit a message, the population becomes more isolated and participation becomes a series of unilateral electronic clicks. The risk here is that no real exchange or discussion leads to little reflection and to an “aggregate” democracy, and this aggregation based on efficiency could cancel out the beneficial deliberative aspects of our current democracies, bringing to a democracy that is “virtual in the pejorative sense, as opposed to real.” This could lead people to isolate themselves from the world and disengage from the public sphere, which in turn would mean both the impoverishment of individual lives and the fragmentation and decadence of the civil society.

Notably, to be effective in enhancing democratic participation and democracy in general, there should be a high quality of the digital content and the discussion on the Internet. However, these very requirements are being increasingly questioned by many, who debate on whether it is the poor state of digital communication that is poisoning the political debate, giving too-strong a voice to any sort of fake news or absurd conspiracy, or it is the low standard set by the political debate which ruins Internet communication. Unfortunately, this discussion gets entangled into a vicious circle: the Internet contributes to a certain extent to the impoverishment of the democratic discourse, emphasizing polarization and giving rise to all sorts of freaks, and thus corrupting the political debate. However, it is also true that politicians manipulate information and communication and behave in a way consistent to what their public wants, setting an ever-worse example and exploiting fears and divisions to their advantage, and thus contributing to the deterioration of digital communication.

All these phenomena point to the same conclusion: while digital technology is only an instrument, and as such it is neither inherently positive nor negative, it has a clear destabilizing effect on society and politics because it “closes the technological gap between insiders and outsiders […] [favouring] the forces of instability over the forces of order.” The technological advantage of governments and big companies, which for a very long time have been controlling undisturbed mass communication, is disappearing with the rise of the new media. Indeed, in the past, the government's substantial monopoly on the matter ensured its control over the standards of the public discourse, which could mean more stable democracies, stronger dictators in power, or simply a more stagnant public discourse. Now, however, the situation is reversed: while in dictatorial countries rebels have more means of communicating and organizing collective action, thus having more chances to effectively oppose an oppressive regime, liberal democracies are much more easily undermined by the lack of ways to control or suppress the rise of destabilizing figures and trends. The apparent paradox of digital technology, which depending on the context can have marvellous or catastrophic effects, is thus resolved by this consideration: “in empowering outsiders, digital technology destabilizes governing elites [and the status quo] all over the world and speeds up the pace of change.” It is not yet clear whether this feature will contribute to the betterment or worsening of the world in the long run, but what is sure is that, in the meantime, we will live in a much more chaotic world, and we must prepare to face it with the awareness of all these elements.

In conclusion, we must acknowledge that serious threats to liberal democracy are sure to arise if efforts to enhance and implement digital democracy are not coupled with a systematic work to create a cultural and social immune system, inside our physical democracies, against the destabilizing effect of the new media. As fantastic as they may seem to us, we cannot simply uncritically embrace technological developments and overturn our lives to accommodate them. Rather, we must be the guardians of the fundamental democratic principles, which need to be always considered as a priority when overseeing the development of digital technology. It will be strenuous work, and it is far from the easiest way of integrating digital technology in our society, but we must watch over this evolution very carefully, or we might end up far worse than without the technological advances.

Now, it is up to you: do you agree with this analysis? If so, what do you think we should do to improve the situation and to prevent the possible complications related to digital democracy? If not, what do you think of the matter and in which ways can this analysis be improved?

Let us know by leaving a comment here, sending us an email with your reflections or commenting on the related post on our social profiles.

Thank you for your attention,

Davide Bertot

Mail: ctzn.eu@gmail.com

Facebook: @ctzn.eu

Instagram: @_ctzn.eu_

Twitter: @ctzn_eu

P.S. To see the original paper and the sources from which the quotes in this article are taken, you can go to this link.