print

Digital Policy Participation:
Efficiency of E-Petitions Of Non-State Digital Platforms (Based on the Material of Change.org)

Radina N.K.,

Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics in Nizhny Novgorod, nradina@hse.ru

elibrary_id: 417954 | ORCID: 0000-0001-8336-1044 | RESEARCHER_ID: L-6641-2015

Krupnaya D.A.,

postgraduate student, Department of Public Policy and Public Administration, Kuban State University, darinakrup@yandex.ru

DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2019.06.09

Rubric: Russia Today

For citation:

Radina N.K., Krupnaya D.A. Digital Policy Participation: Efficiency of E-Petitions Of Non-State Digital Platforms (Based on the Material of Change.org). – Polis. Political Studies. 2019. No. 6. P. 113-127. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.06.09

The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research within the framework of the scientific project № 18-011-00140-А

Abstract

The article presents an empirical study conducted on material from the Russian language segment of Change.org, focusing on the theoretical field of digital political participation and cases of ‘slacktivism’ to clarify e-petitions’ contributions to changes in public life. The purpose of the study is to describe the boundaries of the effectiveness of e-petitions, and to present thematic dominants in federal districts at the levels of petitioning and support by online voting. 22,452 Change.org e-petitions from 2012 to 2017 were extracted and analysed with Python software (Lxml, Requests and Re libraries). The territory of their creation was marked as well. 918 e-petitions which were identified by their authors as ‘executed’ were taken for analysis by region. Both text databases underwent the open coding technique using the AntConc and TopicMiner software and descriptive statistics tools, i.e. cluster analysis (SPSS Statistics 22). As a result, three groups of territories were identified. In the first group, the government and businesses are ready to solve a wide range of issues in the region, and respond to the requests; in the second group, they respond only to the survival problems; in the third group of territories, they feel the safest, helping animals and ignoring other demands. The study suggests ‘an offline
effect’ of online petitions where the themes are an integrative indicator: they reflect the needs of the population of a given territory, indicate the recognition of the problem as worth solving, and show what problems the regional authorities or business are ready to tackle without significant public pressure.

Keywords

electronic petitions, Change.org, digital political participation, slacktivism, e-democracy.

 Full Text

Berg J. 2015. The Dark Side of e-Petitions? Exploring Anonymous Signatures. – Paper prepared for the D:CE Conference in Abo, Finland (May 27-29).

Blommaert J. 2017. Ludic Membership and Orthopractic Mobilization: On Slacktivism and All That. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies. – Working Paper 193. URL: https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/sites/tiu/files/download/TPCS_193_Blommaert_2.pdf (accessed 12.09.2019).

Christensen H.S. 2011. Political Activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or Political Participation by Other Means? – First Monday. Vol. 16. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i2.3336

Christensen H.S. 2012. Simply Slacktivism? Internet Participation in Finland. – JeDEM. Vol. 4. No. 1. P. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.29379/jedem.v4i1.93

Hernández A.-M.C. 2017. Slacktivism as a Mobilization Resource in Social Networks: The #BringBackOurGirls Case. – Comunicacion y Cociedad. No. 30. Septiembre-diciembre. P. 235-258.

Ho J.W., Song K.J. 2015. Institutional and Technological Determinants of Civil e-Participation: Solo or Duet? – Government Information Quarterly. No. 32. P. 488-495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2015.09.003

Inglhart R., Welzel Ch. 2012. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy. The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kristofferson K., White K., Peloza J. 2014. The Nature of Slacktivism: How the Social Observability of an Initial Act of Token Support Affects Subsequent Prosocial Action. – Journal of Consumer Research. Vol. 40. No. 6. P. 1149-1166. https://doi.org/10.1086/674137

Lee Y.H., Hsieh G. 2013. Does Slacktivism Hurt Activism? The Effects of Moral Balancing and Consistency in Online Activism. – Proceedings of the 2013 SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. P. 811-820. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2470770

Lindner R., Riehm U. 2009. Electronic Petitions and Institutional Modernization. – JeDEM. No. 1(1). P. 1-11.

Morozov E. 2011. The NET DELUSION: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Public Affairs.

Peña-López I. 2012. Casual Politics: From Slacktivism to Emergent Movements and Pattern Recognition. – Big Data: Challenges and Opportunities. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Internet, Law & Politics. Barcelona: Huygens. P. 339-356.

Reid L. 2014. Are e-Ppetitions a Viable Tool for Increasing Citizen Participation in Our Parliamentary Institutions? – Canadian Parlamentary Review. No. 3. P. 4-8.

Reiss K.D. 2015. The Problem of Citizens: E-Democracy for Actually Existing Democracy. – Social Media + Society. Vol. 1. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115616151

Riehm R., Böhle K., Lindner R. 2014. Electronic Petitioning and Modernization of Petitioning Systems in Europe. Berlin: TAB.

Sæbø Q., Rose J., Flak L. 2010. The Shape of eParticipation: Characterizing an Emerging Research Area. – Government Information Quarterly. No. 25. P. 400-428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2007.04.007

Sheppard J. 2014. Online Petitions in Australia: Information, Opportunity and Gender. – Australian Journal of Political Science. Vol. 50. No. 3. P. 480-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2015.1049512

Sreejith A., Vigneswara Ilavarasan P., Gupta M.P. 2012. Citizen Participation and Effectiveness of e-Petition: Sutharyakeralam – India. – Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy. Vol. 6. No. 4. P. 392-403. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161211267536

Štětka V., Mazák J. 2014. Whither Slacktivism? Political Engagement and Social Media Use in the 2013 Czech Parliamentary Elections. – Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. Vol. 8. No. 3. Article 7. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CP2014-3-7

Stewart K., Cuddy A. 2013. Silongan M. Electronic Petitions: A Proposal to Enhance Democratic Participation. – Canadian Parlamentary Review. Vol. 36. No. 3. P. 9-13.

Theocharis Y. 2015. The Conceptualization of Digitally Networked Participation. – Social Media + Society. Vol. 1. No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305115610140

Bereznyakov D.V. 2013. Professionalism in the Sphere of “New Media”: A Few Remarks to the Discussion. – Novosibirsk State University Bulletin. Series: History and Philology. Vol. 12. No. 6. P. 124-128. (In Russ.)

Chugunov A.V. 2017. Elektronnoye uchastiye grazhdan v gosudarstvennom upravlenii [Electronic Participation of Citizens in Public Administration]. St. Petersburg: Universitet ITMO. (In Russ.)

Davydova M.L., Goncharova A.A. 2015. Problems and Prospects of the Russian Public Initiative Project. – Science Journal of Volgograd State University Jurisprudence. No. 2 (27). P. 58-67. (In Russ.)

Golbraykh V.B. 2016. Environmental Public Initiatives on the Internet as a New Practice of Political Participation. – Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science. No. 4. P. 340-450. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17223/1998863x/36/34

Golbraykh V.B. 2017. Ekologichesky aktivizm: novye formy politicheskogo uchastiya [Environmental Activism: New Forms of Political Participation]. – Globalnye sotsialnye transformatsii XX – XXI vv. (k 100-letiyu Russkoy revolyutsii) [Global Social Transformations of the XX – XXI (to the 100-th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution)]. Materials of the Scientific Conference IX Kovalevsky Readings, November 9-11, 2017. St. Petersburg: Skifiya-print. P. 315-316. (In Russ.)

Kosykh E.V. 2017. The Internet Petition as a Method of Civil Resistance in Modern Russia. – Rossyskaya nauka i obrazovaniye segodnya: problemy i perspektivy. No. 2. P. 28-29. (In Russ.)

Martynov K. 2012. From Slacktivism to the Republic: why Internet Revolution is Becoming a Reality. – Logos. No. 2. P. 19-27. (In Russ.)

Melnikova T.S. 2015. Current Stage in The Development of Electronic Government and Electronic Democracy at Federal and Regional Levels in the Context of Public Needs. – International Security of the Regions. No. 3. P. 30-37. (In Russ.)

Nikiporets-Takigava G.Yu. 2012. The Role of the Internet in Civil Protest: The Russian Experience in a Global Context. – Vestnik Instituta Kennana v Rossii. No. 22. P. 13-24. (In Russ.)

Radina N.K. 2018. Online-petition in inter-disciplinary fields and theoretical cross-roads: political science and linguistics. – Communication Studies. No. 4. P. 193-208. (In Russ.)

Radina N.K. 2019. Electronic Petitions for Protecting Animals on Digital Platforms ROI and Change.org. – Sotsium i vlast. Vol. 75. No. 1. P. 60-71. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/1996-0522-2019-1-60-71

Rudenko V.N. 2003. The Methodology of Studying the Institutions of Direct Democracy in Modern Society. – Pravovedenie. No. 4. P. 38-51. (In Russ.)

Skryabina M.V. 2006. Collective Appeals in the Russian Federation. – Yuridicheskaya mysl. No. 5. P. 32-38. (In Russ.)

Sotsiologichesky analiz opyta ispolzovaniya sovremennykh tekhnology elektronnoy demokratii (portaly publichnykh obrashcheny/petitsy i otkrytogo golosovaniya). Itogovy kompleksny analitichesky otchet [Sociological Analysis of the Experience of Using Modern Technologies of Electronic Democracy (Portals of Public Appeals / Petitions and Open Voting). 2014. – ZIRKON. (In Russ.) http://www.zircon.ru/upload/iblock/3a1/Sociologicheskij_ analiz_opyta_ispolzovanija_sovremennyhtehnologij_jelektronnoj_demokratii.pdf (accessed 22.09.2019).

See also: