The Congress at the World Forum for Democracy: the advantages and limits of online democracy

Strasbourg, 8 November 2016

At a time when the abstention rate in elections is steadily rising across Europe, what can be done to get voters out voting again? Various citizen initiatives, many of them accompanied by online projects, have been developed in response to this challenge but none is a substitute for genuine political debate, as was shown by the “Lab” sponsored by the Congress at the World Forum for Democracy, entitled “reloading elections”.

As the Director of the Congress, Jean-Philippe Bozouls, pointed out, “election fatigue” has gone hand in hand with a rise in populism and “anti-establishment” candidates and the only way to counter these trends is by rekindling enthusiasm for the ballot box. One initiative by “House of Europe”, a Lithuanian NGO, seeks to do just that, i.e. revive the interest of citizens, especially young people, in elections and electoral issues. To that end, the promoters of the “Learn before you vote” initiative organise meetings and debates, as well as lectures and virtual question-and-answer sessions, between the public and election candidates. The project also functions as a “watchdog” by reminding elected representatives about their campaign promises and measuring the extent to which they fulfil them. According to Aušrinė Diržinskaitė, the initiative’s co-ordinator, Lithuania is one of the countries whose young people have the least interest in politics, but their election turnout rate is finally beginning to increase. Although this project alone is not behind this trend, she believes it has made a contribution.

In Germany, a project that is more technical in nature, based on a voting advice software application, enables voters not only to immerse themselves in the candidates’ programmes but also to have a more precise idea of their consequences. Summarising the project, its creators, Andranik Tangian, professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and two of his students, Antonia Diemer and Marius Amrhein, pointed out that the aim was to encourage voting based on informed conscious choices rather than merely general ideas. The application developed in Karlsruhe was trialled during elections to the councils which represent the city’s 22,000 students, who were asked to make up their minds on the basis of concrete issues, such as reduced fares on regional transport or the menus served in student canteens. Its designers believe its precise nature makes it well-suited to elections involving local issues.

Should politics be confined to facts alone?

The Lithuanian initiative was hailed for its aim of bringing the public and elected representatives together, but according to the Portuguese professor of management, Manuel Arriaga, the focus should not be solely on young voters because the part played by elderly voters is becoming more and more important. The German software application led to more questions, raised in particular by Tudor Mihailescu, founder of “GovFaces” (Romania), who wondered about the limits of bringing politics down to tangible issues: while it was essential to deal in facts so as to avoid becoming carried away by emotions, was it necessary to analyse each theme separately from the overall programme? For him, and for several other speakers, politics and democracy are not just rational projects but should also have a “dream” dimension. Mr Arriaga provided a very good illustration of this aspect by referring to Martin Luther King's famous phrase “I have a dream”.

As a result of these observations, the participants went on to discuss the role of the Internet in political debate: while all the software applications and online forums promoted the flow of ideas, the web was nonetheless devoid of elements that ultimately breathed life into the debate: facial expression, verbal expression and gesticulation. Moreover, the hate speech and exclusion rhetoric infecting the Internet showed how urgent it was to learn to use the web differently. Lastly, the participants asked how much democratic legitimacy could be accorded to the online political process, since only a small proportion of the population participated. This issue is further complicated by the degree of skills and training required to participate in such online activities, quite apart from the fact that the “popularity” of an idea did not necessarily mean it could be implemented and, even less, that it was fair.

Combating voter abstention first means restoring trust

Speaking on behalf of the Congress, Xavier Cadoret (France, SOC) reflected on the risks of a partitioning of politics, which could lead it to deal with too specific issues. In his opinion, voters who turned away from politics, for example by abstaining, mainly did so because they no longer had confidence in the electoral discourse. In some countries the poor organisation of elections and instances of electoral fraud deterred them from turning out to vote, while in others it was the feeling that their concerns were not taken into account by the candidates or that the latter did not really represent them, a view well-established among young people. Mr Cadoret pointed out, however, that in both cases it was by restoring the confidence of voters that they would start voting again. In this connection, he welcomed the Lab presentations and pointed out that the Congress was always looking for innovations to help bring local democracy to life, concluding his remarks with the words: “The tools you have developed will also help us to improve our work”.