Paper presented at the 5th Annual Radical Democracy Conference on 11th April 2015 at the New School for Social Research New York (Panel: “Democratic potential of Time and Technology”) and accepted at the ECPR General Conference August 2015 at Université de Montréal. By Rouven Brües (cc) by-nc-sa
The presentation has been recorded and is available online. The respective slideshow can be found here.
In the paper I am going to present today, I would like to forge a connection between digital (sometimes also referred to as new) media technologies and democracy. In particular I want to present the currently emerging software-driven concept of Liquid Democracy as an example of how democratic affordances of digital media technologies are being mobilized to articulate a radical democratic imaginary. I want to argue that Liquid Democracy provides the discursive conditions and imaginary framework to problematize and dislocate contemporary democratic systems and democratic practices. The underlying assumption is that the political actions provided by digital media technologies such as online participation software, delegated voting and decision-making software, afford us to re-imagine the way we practice democracy. It is through this imaginary framework of the perceivable democratic affordances of digital media technologies that we attain a vantage point for critiquing contemporary democracies and democratic practices. It is through the imaginary framework or the fantasmatic promise of Liquid Democracy, that a deepening and change of our democratic systems could be achieved with the help of digital media technologies, that this concept gains its transformative potential — since as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985) point out quite pertinently with regards to the significance of a radical democratic imaginary:
‘Now, without ‘utopia’, without the possibility of negating an order beyond the point that we are able to threaten it, there is no possibility at all of the constitution of a radical imaginary — whether democratic or of any other type. The presence of this imaginary as a set of symbolic meanings which totalize as negativity a certain social order is absolutely essential for the constitution of all left-wing thought.’ (p.190)
My aim today is therefore to make the case that we have to incorporate the transformative potential of democratic affordances of digital media technologies into theorizing and articulating projects of radical democracy.
I will briefly outline the concept of Liquid Democracy, how its imaginary framework is constructed with democratic affordances of digital media technology and how this construct relates to a radical democratic imaginary. We will see that the democratic affordances of digital media technologies can be inflected according to various democratic imaginaries. I would like to illustrate my argument by reference to a current use case in the city of Berlin, which implemented some form of Liquid Democracy software.
Radical Liquid Democracy
So what exactly is Liquid Democracy and what is its connection to radical democracy? Generally speaking Liquid Democracy is a notion of how political participatory limitations and exclusions in Germany can be addressed and redressed resorting to the possibilities of participation software and software-enabled delegation (Adler, 2014). The merely English sounding term has its roots in theories of delegated voting in the United States and has been imported to Germany around 2007 in the context of — but independently from — the then newly emerging Pirate Party. The German Pirate Party originated in protests against new policies for regulating copyright, plans to extend the retention of telecommunication data and a general lack of attention towards issues concerning the digitisation of the German society in general. Disillusioned by the German representative democratic system, where citizens only hold the right to vote every four years, the Pirate Party campaigned for achieving maximum democratic equality among all citizens by increasing and promoting every individual’s direct and indirect opportunities for democratic participation (Adler, 2013; Pirate Party, 2012, p.4). In order exemplify what these goals could look like put into practice, the Pirate Party implemented the concept Liquid Democracy in form of one particular version of participation software for the internal organisation and decision-making of the party.
Although the German Pirate party arguably remains the only “real” use case up until today (with other participatory parties that recently followed — such as Cinque Stelle in Italy and Podemos in Spain) other more established parties in Germany and even the German Parliament are still experimenting with the idea of Liquid Democracy[1]. In the case of the Pirate Party a Liquid Democracy software was implemented for all party internal decision-making processes. The software affords internet-mediated participation, through an online platform where party members can vote, delegate their votes, propose, discuss and evaluate political problems as well as draft legislative texts online. The implementation of the software suggests a radical transformation in the exercise of democratic power within the party, since the seemingly rigid democratic split between who is governing and who is governed, the representatives and the represented, is “liquefied”. Here especially the possibility to delegate votes online is promoted as affording more equality among all party members since everyone can either decide directly on all political issues discussed within the party or delegate the vote to a representative who in turn can delegate those votes further. The delegated voting feature of the software therefore affords a mixture of direct as well as representative democratic attributes and has been promoted by the Pirate Party as an answer to the deficits of both systems. In the German discourse, the Pirate Party was therefore the first impetus in popularising the arguably new and innovative “liquid” theory of democracy that relies heavily on the perceived democratic affordances of digital media technology.
So as this very brief sketch of the young history of the concept shows, Liquid Democracy is referred to in very different ways. When talking about the concept we therefore have to distinguish various levels on which the term is used — often interchangeably: it is a firstly theoretical concept (1), which informs the development of various software projects who actualize different conceptions of the theory (2) and thirdly the various software approaches are implemented differently in various participation projects (3) (Adler, 2013). These three levels are interdependent and interact in a circular and reiterative way, since newly developed software features or a new challenge faced in the modeling of a participation process might extend and broaden the spectrum of realizable/actualizable democratic practices. These newly emerging practices in turn change the theoretical concept and arguably also the way we think about and practice democracy in general.
On a theoretical level the concept is often invoked to express an alternative interpretation and use of the democratic potential of digital media technology for instance arguing that technology can be mobilized to deepen democracy. There are various arguments that feed into this democratic imaginary. For instance advocates of Liquid Democracy point out that for the first time, digital media technologies and web applications potentially afford the participation of every citizen in all political discussions and decisions that they would like to take part in (Reichert, 2012). This technological feasibility alludes to the possibility to enable direct participation of all citizens in all political discussions and decisions, even in big democracies. Above all Liquid Democracy thus epitomizes the (palpable) promise that with the help of digital media technologies everyone can exert political influence and power at anytime and beyond any geographical, political or social boundary. It is further argued that this radical form of online participation empowers all citizens to give themselves (and also change at any time) the rules they want to live by, thus enabling the self-constituted, active creation of the state from below and within. Here, especially the principle of delegated voting leaves the breadth and depth of political participation up to the citizens who can decide to either vote on particular issues or laws themselves (direct democracy) or delegate their vote to somebody else who then has a voting weight of two votes and so on (representative democracy). The concept of Liquid Democracy suggests that rigid legislative periods could be replaced with delegated voting in a form of endless online balloting where all delegations are retractable at anytime. Accordingly, all citizens could actively participate in all political topics they perceive as relevant for them without overloading them.
Thus Liquid Democracy provides an imaginary framework in which the relationship between governing and governed is remodeled in a way that everyone can change sides without being particularly eligible through wealth, origin, or knowledge (Vogelmann, 2012). Further it is argued, that since all citizens have direct access to the “technologies of power”, the democratic split between governing and governed could be relocated from the representative government and its opposition into the demos, where at times citizens will govern or be governed, depending on their delegation of votes.
I hope that perhaps by now it becomes clearer why I argue that the ideas of Liquid Democracy broadly outlined today, already echo strong parallels to ideas found in articulations of radical democracy. For instance, as I argued earlier, the potential of democratic affordances of digital media technologies are inflected to realize ‘the free and equal participation of ‘the people’ (the dêmos) in power (kratos)’ (Dahlberg, 2013, p.1). Through features such as delegated voting, Liquid Democracy acknowledges its own temporality and self-constitutedness, since ‘democracy — including any of its criteria, institutions, and decisions — has no grounds, justifications, or guarantees outside of the people, that is, outside of itself’ (Dahlberg, 2013, p.1). Like many other projects in radical democracy, Liquid Democracy could be read as ‘a combination of skepticism about the regulatory capacities of national governments and concerns about the capacity of conventional democracies to engage the energies of ordinary citizens’ (Cohen & Fung, 2004, p.23). With the help of digital media technologies Liquid Democracy seeks to address what Joshua Cohen and Archon Fung (2004) have termed the “failures of competitive representation” where citizens are only endowed with political rights, to voice their interests and grievances by voting in elections through competing parties who — after electoral victory — have the control over government, public policy and administration (Cohen & Fung, 2004). To be sure, Liquid Democracy promises the deepening of democracy by striving for maximum political equality, liberty, political self-determination and sovereignty through digital affordances that promise the radical reconfiguration of political power and decentralization of political decisions by means of technology.
Digital democratic affordances of digital media technologies
The discursive conditions of possibility for articulating Liquid Democracy as an alternative democratic imaginary depends in parts on the radical contingency of perceived affordances of digital media technologies. The underlying assumption, which is also the approach of my research, is that the meaning as well as the use of digital media technologies is radically contingent on our pre-conceptions about democracy, democratic subjectivity and political participation amongst other things. In other words, our perception of what we can do with digital media technologies, our perception of their “actionable properties”, how we can implement them e.g. for political participation, depends on the culture and discourses we are embedded in. Conversely, I would like to argue that what we understand as democracy, political participation and so on, increasingly depends on our understanding of and on the mediation through digital media technologies. In other words, our understanding of democracy influences how we implement digital media technologies for political ends and our conceptions about how we can put digital media technologies to work in democratic processes influences our imagination of what democracy is.
A key concept that pays attention to this vicissitude of digital media technologies as being both material and theoretical[1] is the concept of affordances (Gibson, 1977, 1979; Normann, 1999). According to Donald A. Norman (2002), who introduced the concept to design theory, affordances are,
‘the perceived and actual properties of (a) thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used . . . A chair affords (‘is for’) support, and, therefore, affords sitting. A chair can also be carried. Glass is for seeing through, and for breaking.’ (p.9)
Whereas Norman’s (2002) conception of affordances still implies that the perceived affordances of an object are primarily determined by the properties of the object itself Lister et al. (2009) translate the concept into the study of digital media technologies:
‘As a concept it goes beyond the assumption that technologies in everyday life circulate primarily as ‘meanings’. Technologies are symbolic, but they also allow us to do things, make things, change things. They facilitate. A device’s affordances are the range of uses to which it can be put.’ (p.261)
From a post-structural vantage point this is precisely where I would like to add that both the symbolic as well as the material (and affective/fantasmatic) dimension of digital media technologies are discursively constructed, in that our perception of their affordances in a political context depends on our underlying conception of democracy. Equally, the democratic affordances of digital media technology suggest alternative democratic practices, which call into question the current forms of political participation and democracy. I follow Lincoln Dahlberg (2011) in terming the possible ways in which digital media technologies can be used in the political context democratic digital affordances.
We can thus articulate various democratic imaginaries according to which digital democratic affordances are discursively constructed. Here a democratic imaginary could be described as a “function” that inflects the affordances we believe certain digital technologies to have in line with a set of believes we have about democracy. Various inflections of digital democratic affordances are therefore closely related to normative accounts of (digital) democracy, where the use of technologies is evaluated against the backdrop of specific theories of democracy. Advocates of liberal-individualist conceptions of democracy for instance might inflect digital technologies according to competitive-aggregative conceptions of democracy, according to which digital media technologies afford self-sufficient, rational strategic individuals to aggregate their preferences. Other possible logics would be for instance deliberative, which implicate deliberative-consensual conceptions of democracy, where digital media technologies might be understood to afford inter-subjectively rational individuals to deliberate, form their opinion etc.
Let me illustrate the importance that I believe underlying conceptions about democracy play in perceiving the democratic affordances of digital media technologies. For example: as presented with the concept of Liquid Democracym from a radical democratic perspective we could propose that online decision-making software could be implemented as one way to directly engage all citizens in all parliamentary decisions. This would imply that we believe that more direct democratic elements are valuable and should be technologically realized, since it arguably strives for more political equality. Decision-making software could however also be used in a consultative/advisory context, where citizens are only allowed to voice their opinion on some matter, which then only serves the ruling politicians as nonbinding indicator for a decision only they are entitled to make. This implementation of technology implies a more representative democratic logic, which suggests that all final decision-making power should still rest with the elected politicians and the respective institutions. With the concept of affordances we can thus draw out and characterize the ontological struggle over their meaning and possible ways of implementation. As Andrew Feenberg (2002) points out quite convincingly
‘What human beings are and will become is decided in the shape of our tools no less than in the action of statesmen and political movements. The design of technology is thus an ontological decision fraught with political consequences.’ (P.3)
There is thus a broad range of different normative positions or logics according to which we can inflect the democratic affordances of digital media technologies in line with various beliefs about democratic values. The point that I would like to make today is that the concept of Liquid Democracy as well as its realization in concrete software applications inflects the affordances of digital media technologies according to radical democratic assumptions about democracy, construing digital media technologies as affording radical equality and participation. Arguably Liquid Democracy introduces an imaginary framework form which we can problematize, criticize and re-imagine current democratic systems and practices. As Aletta Norval (1996) points out quite pertinently in this respect:
‘Imaginary horizons, far from being merely superstructural phenomena, serve to delimit the sphere of the thinkable, setting the boundaries within which all social practices, […] have to find their place’ (p.27).
Pure technological optimism?
However, as Dahlberg (2013) points out correctly, digital media technology ‘must not be assumed to be unquestionably positive for advancing radical democracy’ (p.2) or democracy in general for that matter. It would be naïve to believe that digital media technology will automatically democratize and politicize current democracies — especially in light of the recent revelations that disclosed the breadth and depth of technology-based public surveillance. My point is therefore not to argue that we simply have to implement some software and all contemporary political problems will be solved. Rather my point is that the technological feasibility of online participation, voting, deliberating and so on, call into question the current forms of political participation and political equality. The democratic affordances of digital media technologies can thus help constructing an alternative radical democratic imaginary with the help of which we can articulate our problematizations of current democratic systems. In other words ‘technologies afford cultural possibilities, not all of which are exploited or actualised’ (Lister et al.,2009, xv). Interestingly then from a theoretical perspective, the concept Liquid Democracy is not necessarily depending on digital media technologies — but rather on the knowledge that democratic principles (such as direct voting, delegated voting, deliberation) are practically feasible today with the help of digital media technologies.
Articulating Radical Democracy through software
Nonetheless there are increasingly more projects around the world that could be said to realize the ideas around Liquid Democracy in the development of various open source software approaches, the most prominent of which include, Adhocracy (Berlin, Germany)[1], DemocracyOS (Buenos Aires, Argentina)[2], Liquid Feedback (Berlin, Germany)[3], and Loomio (Aotearoa, New Zealand)[4]. And here we turn to the last level on which the concept Liquid Democracy is invoked — namely the implementation of different Liquid Democracy software approaches in different political settings. Every software project interprets the concepts of Liquid Democracy differently with an emphasis on different aspects of the theoretical foundation. For instance Liquid Feedback, which serves as the software for the internal organization and decision-making of the German Pirate Party and is also implemented by the party Cinque Stelle in Italy, puts a strong emphasis on delegated voting and the drafting of legislative texts. Adhocracy on the other hand does not focus so much on voting but arguably more on deliberative features that enable open discussions, which can be structured by the participants, collaborative text work as well as the discussion and planning of land-use plans. The theoretical dimension of Liquid Democracy is thus actualized in various different ways where the Liquid Democracy principles translate into various different software features.
In order to illustrate this third and last level of Liquid Democracy we have to look at various different implementations of the Liquid Democracy software. Here I would like to briefly elaborate on a project that is currently running in Berlin. This year the administration of Berlin has decided to launch a central participation platform with the help of the software Adhocracy, where everyone living in Berlin (regardless whether they are registered in Berlin or not) can engage in different areas of urban planning and take part in administrative tasks. In particular there will be at least three different participation processes: legally binding land-use plans, dialogues between administration and citizenry and collaborative budgeting for neighborhoods. One of the processes, which already started last year, belongs to the category “dialogues” and concerns the former airport Tempelhof, which is now the biggest remaining free space in the inner center of Berlin. Just last year the plans of the Senate of Berlin to use this space for housing and industry were abolished by means of a civil society initiative followed by a referendum, in which the citizens of Berlin enacted a law that now forbids any construction on the area. At the same time the newly established law dictates that the people of Berlin should collaboratively draft a development and care plan for the field in which they regulate how the field should be used and how its habitat can be preserved. The development and care plan was initiated last autumn and accompanied by an online participation platform running on the software Adhocracy[1]. In accordance to the law, through the online platform people can make suggestions as to how the field should be further used and developed. They can discuss all proposals that are submitted to the platform and vote for those that they agree with most. All proposals will then be discussed in open workshops where they will be written down in the care and development plan. The plan will be handed to the Parliament of Berlin, which already stated last year that they would pass the collaboratively written plan.
I chose the example of Tempelhof to very briefly illustrate my point that although digital media technologies do not immediately change the democratic system from ground up, at least in the German case the incipient forms of online participation and collaboration they afford, are subverting and arguably radicalizing the democratic system in place. I would not say that the drafting of the development plan for Tempelhof epitomizes what we commonly understand as radical democracy — yet we have to realize that it is the sheer possibility and technological feasibility afforded by digital media technologies to achieve new forms of political participation and equality that induce a change in our understanding of and expectations towards democracy.
Conclusion
Today I have argued that the meaning and use of digital media technologies in the political context are contingent on our preconceptions about democracy. Accordingly, I submitted that the democratic affordances of digital media technologies can be interpellated or inflected according to various normative positions and beliefs about democracy. In particular, I tried to show that the concept of Liquid Democracy demonstrates how the democratic affordances of digital media technologies can be mobilized to articulate and actualize principles of a radical democratic project. Rather than being the solution to all political and social problems, I argue that the affordances of digital media technologies allow us to construct a radical democratic imaginary with the help of which we can problematize and re-imagine current democratic systems and practices. Today, I submit that the democratic affordances of digital media technologies provide us with the means to re-imagine democracy, to construct a perhaps novel radical democratic imaginary and to threaten and subvert the ways in which we currently conceive of and practice democracy.
[1] https://enquetebeteiligung.de; https://zukunftsdialog.spdfraktion.de
[2] The concept of affordances also accommodates theories of affect and fantasy. Accordingly, we could critically explain why certain interpellations of democratic affordances of digital media technologies are privileged over others. Why for instance are digital media technologies not implemented to realize more political equality? Here we could resort to fears about the manipulation of technologies as well as the fear that a wide range of the public would gain more political control, which arguably could lead to more populist politics.
[3] www.github.com/liqd/adhocracy
[4] https://github.com/democracyos
[7] tempelhofer-feld.berlin.de
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