Tech & Democracy: Who Benefits from Civic Tech? [new World Bank publication]
Tiago Peixoto
Dear Colleagues,
Greetings from Belgrade.
As civic life has moved online, and differences in access to technology persist, scholars and observers have often questioned whether this will exacerbate political inequalities. This concern assumes that unequal participation inevitably leads to unequal outcomes: if online participants are unrepresentative of the population, then participation outcomes will benefit groups who participate and disadvantage those who do not – sometimes at the peril of “empowering the already empowered”. But is that assumption borne out in practice?
In a new paper, co-authored with Jonathan Mellon and Fredrik M. Sjoberg, we put this question to the test. We examine different civic tech models: online petitioning across 132 countries, digital participatory budgeting in Brazil, constitutional crowdsourcing in Iceland, and online citizen reporting in the UK. Counterintuitively, our study shows that none of the models reflect the typical assumption that inequalities in who participates translate directly into inequalities in who benefits from the policy outcome.
From a civic tech standpoint, the study highlights the importance of considering technological platforms as political institutions that encourage certain types of behavior while discouraging others. More broadly, the findings suggest the need to move beyond the demographics of participants to assess how truly inclusive participatory and deliberative democracy practices are.
You can find the paper in the link below:
The Haves and the Have-nots: Civic Technologies and the Pathways to Government Responsiveness
Comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
Best regards,
Tiago
Tiago C. Peixoto
Senior Public Sector Specialist
Governance Global Practice
Cell (US): +1 (202) 386-0208
@participatory
