CITIZEN PARTICIPATION, NEW TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTIONS

The idea of citizen participation in governance remains one of the most fundamental tenets of
democracy (Arnsein, 1969).
Through participatory democracy, citizens are expected to be informed, consulted and given an
opportunity to influence decision-making. This form of engagement of citizens provides
opportunities for among other things identifying new policy ideas from individual citizens,
empowering the voiceless, promoting justice and fairness, and enhancing public trust in
governance processes (Hardina, 2003; Cahn and Cahn, 1968; Bowen, 2007; Wang and Wart,
2007).
Thus, citizen participation confers legitimacy not only to the elected officials but to any policy
decisions involving the citizens.
Therefore, in conceiving citizen participation in an open and democratic society, one expects an
intense interaction between politics, policy and people (citizens) as shown in Image 1 below
The emergence of the new technology has added a new impetus to the interaction between
politics, policy and people. Through new media, the political elite (e-politicians) and policy
makers (e-government) are reaching out to new audiences to seek for votes or communicate
policy. On the other hand, citizens (e-citizens) are engaging directly with politicians and
government officials to hold them to account or advocate for certain policy options.
But the new media has also changed the way ordinary citizens communicate with each other.
Compared with traditional media, new media has not just reordered communication itself; it has
reorganized political mobilization among the tech-savvy generation at unprecedented scale.
As noted by Barassi (2009), the IT has transformed the way in which citizens have come to
“imagine, experience and organize” themselves in the public sphere. This was possible partly
because of the low costs required to communicate using these new tools and partly because it
does not require formal organization or central authority (Bennett, 2003).
While these new communication tools have now permeated almost everywhere in people’s daily
lives, they are also conspicuous in electoral processes in many parts of the world. As stated
earlier, politicians can use new communication tools during campaigns as exemplified by
President Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign in 2007. However, the interest of
this paper is to show how these new tools can be used to promote electoral accountability before,
during and after elections.
Elections have almost become synonymous to democracy. But most importantly, it is during
elections that one sees a significant number of citizens coming out to participate in deciding on
who should govern them. Regardless of the intensity of political contestation during campaigns,
every participant in the electoral process expects the elections to be free, fair and credible.
But free, fair and credible elections are not always the case in many countries undergoing
democratic transition. In Africa, manyncountries transiting from autocratic single party regimes
are yet to come to terms with competitive multi-party politics. As a consequence, practices such
as vote buying, intimidation and violence, media censorship, gerrymandering of electoral units,
ethnicization of political competition, and manipulation of electoral management bodies have
become strategies used during elections to acquire or retain political power. It is therefore
important to put in place measures that ensure electoral accountability in defense of democracy.
Citizens have a role to play in guaranteeing electoral accountability.
Traditionally, elections observation and monitoring have provided opportunity to identify both
drivers and inhibitors of free and fair elections. But domestic observation and monitoring as is it
known follows a very structured pattern. For instance, it is organized from the centre; involves
accredited observer delegations; it requires huge financial resources to be operationalised;
participating citizens are recruited by a central organization, often a civil society observer group;
and in many cases, it is a one-off event.
Although traditional elections observation and monitoring continue to serve an important part of
promoting free and fair elections, new tools such as the internet and mobile phones are providing
greater opportunities for ordinary citizens to better engage in the process.
Citizens can actively participate in elections as election monitors and provide reports on their
experiences without necessarily being organized from the centre. Through these new platforms,
citizens will be able to share their experiences on the electoral processes with relevant
authorities, but most importantly, with each other.

N ew Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are now available to billions of

people throughout the globe. In particular, the expansion of mobile devices has been exponential
in the past five years. The latest data suggests that while two billion people use the internet, over
five billion now have access to a mobile device of some kind (see Figure 1). The rapid evolution
of mobile technologies, which took many by surprise and has overshadowed internet growth, is
unprecedented in history: it is the first time that an ICT has diffused so fast to so many people in
so many countries across the globe (World Bank, 2009).
Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, the so-called
Arab Spring, have led many to see social networking platforms and mobile technologies as a
critical tool for participation, empowering not only stakeholders but also the general public.
Communication among actors and the mobilization of multiple groups and communities is now
more feasible than before and includes the voices of those who were previously excluded from
conversations that determined their own futures.
There is no doubt that we are witnessing the “democratization” of access to new ICTs, and to
new means of communication in particular. In addition to creating the global communication
infrastructure, built in the last fifteen years or so, such democratization responds not only to
lower costs but also to the new wave of globalization, started in the late 1980s, which has
interlinked most, if not all, countries in the world economically, socially and politically. Thus,
the internet, social networks and mobile technologies have indeed made it simpler for atomized
communities of people to interact, associate, share and mobilize, thus lowering the barriers to
collective action (Coleman, 2009).
All this raises several issues that need to be addressed if the goal is to enhance democratic
governance at the national and global levels. Some of these are: What is the actual role of new
technologies in this process? What is the impact of these new developments in the actual
functioning of governments? Are we seeing a big push for inclusive participation in governance
processes and mechanisms? Are the new social actors in the scene carving a permanent space in
the public sphere? Are they taking over from other more traditional actors (traditional media,
community networks, political parties, unions, etcetera.) in the process?
We will explore some of these issues below and present some examples, and will conclude with
some ideas on the impact of the new ICTs on democratic governance and people’s participation
in political and decision-making processes.
PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE
For many years, “participation” has been an integral part of development agendas. Indeed, a
plethora of participative methodologies and projects have been developed and implemented with
varying degree of success (and failure). At any rate, participation is understood in different ways
by actors, communities and institutions in both the supply (governments) and demand sides (civil
society).
Figure 2 below presents the core forms of participation used in different processes, programmes
and projects: