Session 8: Political Parties and Civil Society in the Digital Era

This article was written by Uma Kalkar and Naomi Colvoort

All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. … But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.

— Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”[1]

Protest is often described as being at the heart of democracy. Indeed, the key differentiator between democracy and other modes of governance is that democratic systems allow for and protect dissent. Around the world, democratic governments codify rights to free expression, peaceful assembly, and government petition. However, against the backdrop of digital innovation, the cracks in democratic systems brought on by populist rhetoric, bureaucratic opaqueness, and increasing inequality require an updated response by civil society members and political parties.

Class 8: “Political Parties and Civil Society in the Digital Era” explored how digital technologies used by civil society are adapting to the current political context and generate space for discourse to more civil society organizations and political parties. Typically, online activism has been used to achieve an offline goal — such as the Nuit Debout sit-ins and Black Lives Matter marches. But what happens when the occupation of physical space is not possible, say because of a global pandemic like COVID-19? How can the internet be leveraged as a space for meaningful discourse by civil society members? Can political campaigns meaningfully engage with their constituents online? Going beyond state-centered democracy updates, Class 9 looked at how people communicate and interact with the state.

Definitions

• Civil society — A “third sphere” of society external to the public and private sectors.
• Habermas (1996) believes that civil society engages with social issues through deliberation and negotiation in a safe, open space.
• Kaldor (2003) examines the “global civil society” and posits that the “tension” created between civil society and other societal groups is the linchpin for policy change.[3] Civil disobedience is necessary to enact change; uncivil disobedience can also be used to reach activist goals.
• Civil disobedience — “[A]cts of principled disobedience that are covert, evasive, anonymous, violent, or deliberately offensive.”[4] Civil disobedience can describe a wide range of actions, but its goal is “often seen as a means of communicating oppositional arguments, with the constraints on its conduct defended on the grounds that it facilitates rather than frustrates transmission across the public sphere.”[5] However, the line between civil and uncivil disobedience is ill-defined and disregarded by deliberative democrats, who tend to group both types of tactics “under the nebulous heading of non-deliberative behaviour.”[6]
• Uncivil disobedience — Acts of resistance that use violence or force to voice public discontent. Most theories do not recognize violence as a legitimate protest method; there are debates over the moral limits of violent protest and its overall effectiveness.[7]
• Civic space — The constitutional, legal, and normative framework by which civil society exists. Democratic states have a responsibility to protect civil society members in exercising their protest and are subject to third-party review by ombudspeople and human rights councils.
• Digital public spaces — Online areas that “are owned by everyone and therefore ought to be designed for everyone.”[8] Much like real-world parks, these spaces “allow us to assemble, to share common experiences, and to demonstrate that what might have seemed like individual struggles.”[9] However, a lack of public resources to counter the privatization of social digital spaces impedes meaningful debate and creates echo chambers and filter bubbles that contribute to societal fracture.
• Digital-enhanced activism (DEA) — Uses digital technologies for “organization and communication” purposes to expand reach, exchange ideas, enhance civil society missions.[10] DEA sees the internet as a tool rather than a space for activism.
• Digital-based activism (DBA) — Views the internet as a “new arena” for activism. Uses “hacktivism” and digital actions such as Direct Denial of Service to express civil disobedience.[11]

Readings

In Deliberation in an Age of (Un)Civil Resistance, Smith (2020) argues that deliberative democracy disregards “the diverse repertoire of social movements,” especially with regard to uncivil disobedience tactics, and considers how deliberative democrats can respond to these actions.[12] By ignoring violence as a catalyst for action, Smith (2020) states that deliberative democracy diminishes its credibility “as a critical framework” and obscures the role of uncivil disobedience in activism.[13] He presents two ways for deliberative democrats to incorporate uncivil disobedience into their model.

First, Smith (2020) considers that similar to civil disobedience, uncivil tactics aim to convey messages, albeit “through violent and destructive means.” Indeed, the violent medium is crucial to effectively deliver the message, which “would be severely diluted … [by] conventional avenues or civil tactics.” Second, he states that deliberative democrats need to codify types of violence to offer activists violence constraints in line with “an ethic of responsibility” to holistically represent their group and sidestep “particularly divisive” and mission-antithetical actions.[14] Deliberative theorists must recognize that violence can leverage ‘tension’ to generate policy change à la Kaldor (2003). Understanding the shades of violence and each one’s effect on the deliberative process furthers research on “violence as a potential catalyst for deliberation” in order to add nuance to the normative understanding of deliberative actions as “the mild voice of reason.”[15] Including civil and uncivil disobedience in deliberative democracy provides a holistic overview of the future of protest and the multifaceted ways in which online activism can occur.

In The Future of Political Campaigning, Bartlett, Smith, and Acton (2018) assess the increasing use of data and digital technologies by political parties, and note several emerging trends that are changing political campaigning techniques. Importantly, campaigns are pinpointing demographics (undecided, key, and swing constituency voters) to target their messaging and advertising towards certain audiences.[16] The granular data on individuals available online is increasingly packaged and sold to campaigns to conduct “sophisticated” targeting based on specific identifiers, such as age, race, religion, and “psychographic” attributes.[17] Moreover, Bartlett et al. (2018) state the possibility for artificial intelligence (AI) to identify core campaign demographics, beta test messages with a dynamic ‘focus group’, collect and analyze social media analytics, and iteratively improve audience segmentation.[18] Additionally, using AI complemented by natural language generation can create customized “messages targeted at each voter” to provide an interactive, ‘human’ touch to online campaign materials.[19] Furthermore, tapping into the internet of things and digital devices will increase the permeation and amplification of campaign messages.[20]

Summary

Civil disobedience is generally used by civil society to create tension with the state. Using case studies, we investigated digital-enhanced activism, or groups that use both physical and digital means for protest. For example, the Nuit Debout movement in France led months-long sit-ins at Place de la République and complemented this physical activism with online technologies like Telegram, Periscope, and Framasoft for decentralized and rapid decision-making and digital civil disobedience via a hackathon. Interestingly, when the class were polled on the worth of digital activism, 13% answered that they value it of equal importance to in-person activism, 81% voted that it is important, but not as important as in-person activism, and only 6% stated that digital activism is useless. Overall, it appears that traditional protest methods are still considered more impactful than digital activism.

Converging ideas of civic space, digital public spaces, and digital-based activism, the class then discussed the ‘new’ type of civil disobedience: Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD). ECD tactics are similar to traditional protest because they utilize trespass and blockage. However, ECD extends beyond the local level and can cause serious, long-term financial stress by targeting online sites and accounts that are more consequential than in-person activism. For instance, in the 1990s, the Zapatistas groups petitioned the Mexican government to recognize their right to autonomy and their land.[21] Activists supporting the Zapatistas, launched the first example of digital disobedience. While the Zapatistas held in-person protests, supporters also hacked American and Mexican government websites to display “SWARM: Stop War in Mexico” to raise awareness for their cause. In contrast, the decentralized hacktivist group Anonymous functions solely in the digital world to promote the free flow of information by leaking sensitive information to the public to fight censorship, anti-whistleblower policies, and Big Industry. The spillover of civil society in cyberspace raised questions of action legitimacy and criminality. Are online activism and hacking acts of terrorism?

When asked about the ethics of ECD, and specifically the occupation and shutdown of websites by hacking, only 47% of students answered that they viewed it as a legitimate form of activism, further demonstrating a slight preference for other types of activism.

Social movements, whether in-person, online or a hybrid of the two aim to empower citizens to influence policies and to participate in agenda-setting. Digital tools facilitate a pluralist and decentralized approach to decision-making and thus can help update political party structure, leadership, and collaborative methods.[22]

Guest speaker French Parliamentary Paula Forteza spoke about moving past partisan allegiances and focusing on shared values. To update democracy, Forteza notes the need to rethink current party structures and remove the delineation between civil society and politics. She advocated for a push past the mainstream political elites via a civic tech-led, open primary on La Primaire, which uses online campaigning tools to give agency to citizens to restructure the current political system.

Conclusion

We have discussed the physical and virtual spaces of activism that contribute to regulating government and updating political structures and the general challenges posed by digital technologies on civil society. To champion digital-based activism, create virtual communities, and run data-driven, constituent-centered political parties, a concentrated effort on publicizing online spaces and investing in public digital infrastructure is required. Open digital spaces align with open state efforts to increase the availability of information, accountability, and cooperation. Informed analysis on the use of data and responsible use of AI and algorithms can enhance citizen-government interactions.

For civil society groups, one main challenge faced is how to create value through fully-online activism and legitimize the occupation of digital space as a form of protest. For politicians, there exists the opportunity to advocate for public online spaces for citizen deliberation in order to reach constituents, crowdsource issues and solutions, and demonstrate a commitment to open governance and democratic consensus.

This article has been published as per submission by the student (the author) and based on the lecture given by the professor in the context of an assignment, for comments or edits please contact the author : name.lastname@sciencespo.fr

[1] Henry David Thoreau, 1849, “Resistance to Civil Government (Civil Disobedience),” University of Virginia American Studies Program 2003–2004, https://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper2/thoreau/civil.html.

[2] Directorate for Public Governance, “Recommendation of the Council on Open Government,” Paris: OECD, December 14, 2017, http://www.oecd.org/gov/Recommendation-Open-Government-Approved-Council-141217.pdf, 1.

[3] Mary Kaldor, “The Idea of Global Civil Society,” International Affairs 79, no. 3 (2003): 590.

[4] William Smith, “Deliberation in an Age of (Un)Civil Resistance,” Journal of Deliberative Democracy 16, no. 1 (2020): 15.

[5] Ibid, 15–16.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Smith, “Deliberation in an Age of (Un)Civil Resistance,” 15–16; Mauricio Mejia, “Class 9: Political Parties and Civil Society in the Digital Era,” Lecture, Paris: Sciences Po, December 8, 2020, 2.

[8] Eli Pariser, “To Mend a Broken Internet, Create Online Parks,” Wired, October 13, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/to-mend-a-broken-internet-create-online-parks/.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Mejia, “Class 9,” 4.

[11] Ibid, 9.

[12] Smith, “Deliberation in an Age of (Un)Civil Resistance,” 14–15.

[13] Ibid, 16.

[14] Ibid, 16–17.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Jamie Bartlett, Josh Smith, and Rose Acton, “The Future of Political Campaigning,” DEMOS, 2018, 27–28.

[17] Ibid, 28–31.

[18] Ibid, 32–33.

[19] Ibid, 33–34.

[20] Ibid, 35–36.

[21] Ronald Baecker, Computers and Society: Modern Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, 148.

[22] International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, “Collaboration between Citizen Movements and Political Parties,” IDEA, 2018, 11–13.