This excellent, balanced book explores the intersection between democracy, citizenship and communications technology, specifically the Internet. In itself this is not new, but the book has a unique blend of political philosophy in reflecting on modern citizenship, empirically grounded and interesting practical examples of e-democracy, and a set of policy proposals for an online “civic commons.”
The first three chapters explore theories of democracy, citizenship and deliberation. Several key themes and arguments emerge in this section of the book. First, we live in an age where there are unprecedented opportunities to access and challenge political authority but with deep public frustration about the ability to effect real change. That frustration, or democratic deficit, has led theorists and political practitioners to explore ways of expanding democratic deliberation and participation. Chapter 1 is an excellent overview of the arguments both for (primarily the organic relationship between democracy and public participation) and against (the limits imposed on full and direct engagement by distance and scale, public competence, aggregation problems and cultural/identity differences). They rebut each of the contrarian arguments, concluding soberly that perfect deliberation may never be achieved, but that a “more deliberative democracy” is possible.
Chapter 2 extends the discussion by examining the “crisis of public communication,” or what appears to be a steady degradation in the quality of mainstream media and news services, and the steady increase in the use these media by political actors to manipulate or anesthetize the public as well as manage the news cycle. The tension between politicians trying to manage the media and professional journalists who value their autonomy, combined with hypercompetition among mainstream media, has led to the depressingly familiar characteristics of modern political communication, such as cynicism, gotcha journalism, negativity, and politics as a “horse race.” Coleman and Blumler essentially write off the mainstream media but see potential in the Internet as a source of participatory and accountable news generation; the Twitter phenomenon in the recent Iranian election is a case in point. Chapter 3 explores the problem of democratic representation, and the ample evidence that citizens feel disconnected from those they elect. They close with the suggestion that new communications technologies have opened the possibilities of more networked, directly participatory, disintermediated communication and political action.
This normative section sets the stage for the next two fascinating and informative chapters that explore empirical cases of e-participation (from above, sponsored by state agencies, and from below, generated by civic and political networks). Chapter 4 critically examines two British projects, one by Parliament and the other by the Bristol City Council, concluding that these top-down exercises in fact amount to a sort of “pseudo-participation” where state institutions and actors still ultimately determine outcomes. Chapter 5 looks hopefully at online activists who deliberately distance themselves from the state and use the capacities of Internet technology to overcome collective action problems (distance, co-ordination, information, discussion). The chapter looks at three case studies, the BBC Action Network which provides information resource and a virtual space on 1200 public issues, a group called NetMums designed to develop social networks to support mothers locally, and the Stop the War Coalition Online, designed to advocate against a military response to the 9/11 attack. The authors realistically catalogue some of the limitations of these types of virtual movements: they are disconnected from real power, they are often ephemeral, and at the extreme (such as hackers) they can be nihilistic and destructive. They also largely accept them, and conclude that purely spontaneous web action cannot be the basis for truly engaged, informed, and influential e-democracy.
The book closes with an analysis of the Blair government's attempts to foster e-democracy, and a set of their own policy recommendations. The analysis is not a conventional cataloguing of events, interests, objectives and impacts, but a discursive review of the meanings behind the texts justifying the initiative, and how well those meanings aligned with true democratic deliberation. They think the government's efforts were truncated, and invited only a limited degree of true engagement. What is needed is a “civic commons” in cyberspace, a freely accessible public domain that is neither a part of the state nor of the market. But such a protected and trusted space is unlikely to emerge spontaneously, and so they acknowledge the need for an institutional commitment and a firmly articulated and innovative policy response. In earlier work, the authors had recommended something like a BBC for e-deliberation and democracy, but the recent arrival of “web 2.0” (Facebook, Twitter) has persuaded them that the piecemeal emergence of public spaces has in fact occurred outside of institutional (governmental) support. They still support the creation of an agency, but this time dedicated to linking “intersecting networks,” funded by government but entirely independent of it. They provide some interesting examples of how such an agency would articulate with, not replace, other deliberative mechanisms such as parliament or local councils.
The Internet and Democratic Citizenship is perhaps too UK-centric, says nothing about Barak Obama's use of the Internet for campaigning, and barely mentions the role technology played in the “colour revolutions.” The recommendation of an agency is visionary, but undeveloped, somewhat vague, and perhaps naïve. Nonetheless, the book is a rare and engaging blend of serious normative reflection, strong empirical analysis and engaged policy advocacy.
