Networked Political Activism or the Continuation of Elitism in Competitive Democracy

* Paper: Leetocracy. Networked Political Activism or the Continuation of Elitism in Competitive Democracy. YANA BREINDL & NILS GUSTAFSSON. Chapter Nine of: New Intersections of Internet Research

Excerpts

Introduction

“On May 6, 2009, the European Parliament (EP) gathered for its monthly plenary in Strasbourg. Among the texts to be voted upon was the so-called Telecoms Package, a set of five directives regulating the European telecommunications market, which the three major institutions of the European Union (EU)—the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU—have been working on for nearly 2 years. The outcome of the vote seemed settled, as the Council and the EP had come to an agreement on the entire package and were longing to close it before the European elections of June 2009. However, the vote did not follow the initially assumed voting order. Instead of confirming the compromise, as agreed with the Council, the members of the EP (MEPs)—to the surprise of many observers—adopted the initial version of “amendement 138,” postponing the entire negotiations for a further 6 months as the EP and Council extended the negotiations to a third reading. Amendement 138 states that member states cannot cut off internet access without a prior ruling of the judicial authorities, and is strongly supported by a French advocacy group, la Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net), that constituted itself in March 2008 to try to prevent French and EU legislators from passing repressive laws on the digital realm. How can a group, referred to as “five blokes in a garage” by a senior French civil servant, introduce such an amendement to a highly complex package and effectively lobby decision makers, thus reversing a set deal at the last minute?

This chapter critically examines the role of networked advocacy groups in the policy-making process of intellectual property rights reform. Through analysing the case of la Quadrature du Net, we question the assumption that political intermediaries or elites are dissappearing, and leaving space for a more inclusive, direct democracy in which decision makers interact more directly with citizens. Next to established political actors such as political parties or trade unions, which are— sometimes reluctantly—integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) into their working practices, internet-based actors are emerging in a wide range of political areas (Chadwick, 2006). Such forms of networked political organisations are usually perceived as less hierarchical than traditional mobilizing groups such as political parties, trade unions, and other voluntary organizations (Norris, 2002; Dalton, 2008). This development is often interpreted by techno-optimists as a way out of the iron law of oligarchy in traditional politics, offsetting the professionalization of politics and the transfer of political power to technocrats and anonymous international political actors far away from democratic accountability, thus preparing the ground for a more inclusive grassroots-oriented democracy.

However, we argue that intermediary elites still exist. After a short discussion of the articulation between ICTs and democratic theory (“Democracy in a Digital Age” section), we introduce the concept of temporal elites (“Temporal Elites” section) and apply it to the case of la Quadrature du Net’s campaign surrounding the Telecoms Package. This campaign has proven successful in the sense that it has had a clear impact upon the decision-making process (“Internet-Based Lobbying on the Telecoms Package” section).Our discussion will show that internet-based activism constitutes new types of elites in competitive democracy, whose effective forms are heavily dependent on technical and networking skills (“Discussion” section). Rather than functioning as the base of more egalitarian politics, the growing importance of networked political activism aided by digital media may, on the contrary, create new elites. We finish by discussing whether such elites are detrimental or beneficial to a well-functioning democracy.

Networked Advocacy as a Continuation of Elitism?

“The core problem with understanding the current political reality is the failure to see that internet-based networks do not pose a threat to the competitive elitist democratic system of our time, nor are they simply a continuation of old structures. Instead, they represent a complementary tool of informing the political elite formed by decision makers about the wishes of certain parts of the electorate. In the competitive elitist model there is no dual model where society consists of powerful politicians/rulers and voters/ruled with extremely limited power. Instead, the political system of a society might be analyzed as a series of strata with the key decision makers at the top, a large group of fairly passive bystanders who restrict their actions to voting, a smaller group of nonvoters completely disinterested in the political games, and opinion leaders and activists acting as intermediaries between these strata.

David Miller (1983, p.134) describes the political elite as: “a small group of political leaders, […] with perhaps an intermediate section of more active citizens, who transmit demands and information between the mass and the leadership.” This intermediary group of influentials and activists as described by Putnam (1976, see Figure 1) can be further divided into various strata. The actual power exerted by this group of people is directed both “up” and “down”: activists influence politicians directly as well as the “mass,” who in turn exert influence over the politicians. Whereas some supporters of the direct or deliberative democratic model claim that digital tools might render such intermediaries obsolete as direct contact between leaders and citizens is made possible, we argue that core activists form a new elite, augmenting the existing model:

1. Top decision makers: incumbents in key official posts. This is normally a very small group of people.

2. Influentials: powerful opinion makers and people to whom decision makers look for advice—high-level bureaucrats, interest group leaders. This is also a small group.

3. Activists: This stratum is made up of the group of citizens who take active part in politics—as members of a political party or on a more private level. This is a larger group of people.

4. Still larger is the stratum of the attentive public, which consists of citizens who follow the political debates as some kind of spectator sport. They rarely actively participate.

5. The main bulk of citizens are the voters who have very limited, if any, political influence. They vote and that is all.

6. Finally, the nonparticipants do not even vote and have no political power regarding the formal political system.

We refer to networked activists as Temporal Elites (Gustafsson, 2009). The concept denotes their limited influence on certain fields and their highly unpredictable success in exerting influence over policy outcomes and agenda-setting. In terms of Putnam’s model, temporal elites belong to the third and fourth strata (as shown earlier), with fairly inactive supporters of the campaign belonging to the fourth, and the attentive public and core of highly involved individuals to the third strata, the activists. However, we suppose that the group of activists grow in importance compared to the second stratum, the influentials, as “viral politics” rise in importance as compared to traditional means of influencing politicians and the public. Temporal elites adopt “viral politics,” or the rapid sharing of information across the internet resulting in political mobilization (Gustafsson, 2009).

The strategy behind viral politics is to increase the number of persons composing the fourth strata, the attentive public, paying attention to the specific campaign. These “spectators” may not contribute actively to the campaign, but the more interest there is for an issue, the more politicians feel they are watched and are likely to listen to activists. Having no direct access to the mainstream media, temporal elites effectively use ICTs to spread their messages on a multiplicity of platforms. In this sense, they truly challenge established actors, although the success of a viral campaign is often measured by the resonance it creates in traditional media outlets.

Furthermore, temporal elites work towards convincing “spectators” to make the step to the third strata, the activists. At the same time, activists try hard to establish themselves as influentials or to turn decision makers or influentials into activists. This form of shifting strata is not radically new. On the contrary, it is characteristic of any type of contestation, which by definition aims to alter existing power structures. What distinguishes internet-based activism from previous forms of campaigning is the reach their message can potentially have at a relatively low cost and the loose organizing forms such activism adopts.

In specific networked political campaigns, we usually find that the “movement” mobilizing around the issue can be imagined as a number of concentric circles, with a core of dedicated activists in the middle that we can call political or movement entrepreneurs (Gustafsson, 2009). (Note that the “pyramid of power” graphically represents the power strata in all society and not the power balance in specific campaigns or movements). Such individuals are generally directly affected by the issue at stake, and rely upon their own skills to achieve their objectives (Earl & Schussman, 2003; Gustafsson, 2009). Sometimes they act out of individual grievances (Earl & Schussman, 2003), but are generally nodes in a larger network of activists who share common views and notions of political strategy (Gustafsson, 2009). Movement entrepreneurs active on different levels or countries do not necessarily know each other personally but observe each other on the internet, developing a common understanding of a certain political issue (Baringhorst, 2009). Core campaigners often spend uncountable hours on the campaign, frequently full time—at least during key moments of the campaign. From the core to the periphery we can then see circles containing first activists who spend large amounts of time volunteering for the campaign, then people who contribute only occasionally, and finally, a wide, shifting group of “lurkers” who intermittently participate through informing themselves about the issue. The core and other activists belong in Putnam’s model among the activists, whereas the lurkers belong to the attentive public.

The people closer to the core can be described as more powerful than the ones in the periphery due to their often more detailed knowledge of the issue. Yet, they are usually powerless without a wider supporting group who can spread information through social networks and rapidly mobilise. They often possess the features we usually associate with political influence: education, technical skills, sociability, and organizational skills, but they are nonetheless also an example of a disruptive force in the existing elitarian system. They do not necessarily need large financial interests behind them, nor massive organizations with thousands of card-carrying members, willing to make phone calls and sit in tedious meetings on weeknights.

They profit from the way ICTs enable “flexible participation” ( Joyce, 2007); the barrier of entry into political activism is lowered by the fact that the repertoire of actions and the time and resources needed to participate in a campaign can be individualized to fit every participant’s schedule and interest. One of the key advantages the internet offers is that it allows the efficient aggregation of small contributions—be this time spent on sharing information, donating money, editing the wiki, contributing to the planning of a mobilization, or contacting an MEP.”