Abstract
Political scientists have long been aware of the problem of unequal participation in democratic politics, the phenomenon we can call “political divide.” The emergence of information and communication technologies over recent years has sparked a discussion on whether this long-standing political divide can now be resolved by “e-democracy.” This study aims to answer two questions: (i) Can e-democracy, specifically e-petitions, attract traditional nonparticipants to participate in public affairs? (ii) In the context of promoting e-petitions, can “digital divide” alleviate the problem of “political divide?” The data used in this study were collected from a national poll on citizen experience of and willingness to participate in the petitioning for referendum. The results indicate that those who recall participating in paper petitions tended to be older, less educated, and with stronger party identification. Also, our results reveal that these people who can be effectively mobilized by traditional social networks are mostly, in fact, the “digital have-nots.” Furthermore, regarding the potential participants in e-petitions, we find that those “digital haves,” who had not been mobilized in previous paper-based petition sessions, were more likely to participate in e-petitions if they are implemented in the future. The results demonstrate the existence of a possible negative correlation between the political and the digital divide. This suggests that e-democracy might be potentially beneficial to alleviate the long worried negative effects of the political divide in democratic polity.
Keywords
Introduction
Equitable political participation has always stood as a core objective in democratic politics; participation is not simply seen as a tool for reinforcing government responsiveness and accountability, essentially because of the recognition placed on its inherent value (Barber, 1984). However, studies have shown that participation in many democratic countries is inherently unfair, varying with socioeconomic status and educational levels, among the other factors (Solt, 2008; Soss & Jacobs, 2009; Topf, 1995). Thus, as pointed out as early as 1996 by the chairperson of the American Political Science Association, “the participation divide resulting in unequal political influence is an unresolved dilemma in representative politics” (Lijphart, 1997).
Commenting on the introduction of modern “information and Communication technologies” (ICTs) into the public realm, many techno-optimists suggest that such technology can be used to lower the costs of democratic participation, effectively mobilizing those who were previously excluded from participating due to the high opportunity costs involved. These optimists suggest that such people could become involved in democratic participation through the Internet, thereby resolving the previously stated problem of unequal political influence. It should be possible to use a system of e-democracy to reduce the current divide in political participation; this would, in turn, result in democratic politics becoming more representative and equitable (Morris & Morris, 2013).
At the same time, however, many technoskeptics argue that given the problem of the digital divide, e-democracy would actually reinforce the positions of many of those belonging to groups that already have greater political resources, thereby compounding such inequality. Furthermore, there are also a considerable number of people who demonstrate “political apathy.” Thus, their level of political involvement is unlikely to be elevated by improving the participative methods available to them. The abiding question, with regard to the ways in which ICTs can affect democratic participation, is clearly a controversial issue that has been troubling both the practical sector and the academia alike, ever since the advent of ICTs into the public realm (Weber, Loumakis, & Bergman, 2003). Indeed, the problem of the digital divide is generally deemed to be an obstacle that will never be overcome by means of e-democracy.
Those with a more pessimistic outlook argue that in the context of the digital divide, an overemphasis on trends and applications in the democratic participative medium of the Internet would actually exacerbate the existing power imbalances in the society. They argue that those already actively involved in democratic politics would see their involvement being reinforced due to a lowering of the costs of participation. Thus, a solution to the problem of the digital divide is a necessary prerequisite to the success of democratic participation by electronic means.
In the present study, by weighing up the antecedent arguments on whether e-democracy can effectively resolve the issue of asymmetric political participation (the “political divide”), we consider that there has been a tendency to overlook the fact that different forms of political participation involve diverse participative groups. 2 It is inappropriate to study ICTs in isolation without considering its relationship to the realities of politics (Farrell, 2012). In more specific terms, when the technopessimists discuss the effects of the digital divide on e-democracy, or when political scientists discuss inequitable participation, they invariably assume that those with higher socioeconomic positions will actively engage in higher levels of participation (such as regular voting). In light of such rationale, it is assumed that since these same people will tend to have a higher Internet usage ratio, e-democracy may actually exacerbate the existing problem of inequitable participation.
Nevertheless, in reality, there are political participation mechanisms whose primary purpose is to assimilate the support of less privileged groups within the society. In this case, the existence of the digital divide can be seen in a more positive and significant light. The usage of e-democracy mechanism here could alleviate problems associated with unequal political participation. For example, citizen petitioning in Taiwan is, de facto, an exclusive right of the political parties. This is due to high thresholds to raise a national referendum by citizen petitioning, requiring citizen signatures over 5% of the total valid votes in the latest Presidential election. Thus, except for political parties, it is nearly impossible for any other civil organization or individual to initiate a referendum proposal and have it reach the threshold for public voting. This is the reason why Taiwanese referendums can only succeed with the mobilization initiated by major political parties, 3 with most of those participating having been mobilized by local political factions; these same people are, invariably involved in political parties, older and less educated. The outcome of such political mobilization also tends to result in citizens’ petitions exhibiting a very strong political divide. Only those issues with the endorsement of the related political party can pass the threshold legislated and be voted on by the public. Other issues are invariably excluded from any discussion at all, essentially because they lack political mobilization representatives (such as political parties).
In the present study, we use an “e-petition” case study in Taiwan to argue that the digital divide may, in itself, have some redeeming qualities in certain civic participative mechanisms and may also ease the political divide in the society. Due to Taiwan’s mature e-government basis, being ranked as one of the most developed in the world, and its position as a highly democratized and liberal nation, it is important to understand Taiwan’s position on e-democracy. Taiwan’s take on e-democracy could very well be significant for many other nations that could be facing the same situation in the near future.
Based upon our analysis of a data set obtained from a national poll, we seek to answer the following two research questions: (1) Can the use of e-petitions break through the past difficulties of e-democracy mechanisms to attract those who may originally have been unwilling to participate in democratic politics? In other words, how many people may be motivated? (2) In the context of the “digital divide,” can the promotion of e-petitions actually ease the “political divide?”
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. The second section reviews the extant literature on political mobilizations that has led to the current state of inequitable democratic participation, along with the existing conditions of citizens’ petitions and the two opposing views on e-participation. Descriptions of the methodology and data adopted for this study are provided in the third section, followed in the fourth section by the presentation and discussion of the results of the analysis. The conclusions are presented in the final section.
Literature Review
Inequitable Democratic Participation
In the overall field of political science, prior studies on the factors affecting political participation have invariably focused on basic analyses of the demographic background, with the studies on American politics pointing out that socioeconomic status would directly affect the degree of political participation (Solt, 2008; Soss & Jacobs, 2009). For example, Schlozman, Verba, and Brady (2012), after analyzing various interviews and databases, discovered that the American society is filled with political inequalities generated by the advantages and disadvantages embedded within different social classes. Those with high-level education and income, the middle and upper classes, are usually capable of utilizing various methods to influence the outcome of elections or to set the agenda of the legislature. Sidney Verba (2003) also noted, from the previous literature of political participation in America, that “(i)n general, citizens who are advantaged when it comes to education, income, social standing, race/ethnicity, or gender are more politically active than those who are not.” Also, Arend Lijphart (1997) calls the problem of unequal participation “the unsolved dilemma of democracy.” However, these claims are mostly based on voting activities and statistical correlation. Some recent researches begin to challenge these established arguments. Gallego (2007) uses European data to show that there is no obvious unequal participation when focusing on “demonstration activities” rather than voting. Kam and Palmer (2008) utilize propensity score matching to argue that “higher education is a proxy for preadult experiences and influences, not a cause of political participation.” Berinsky and Lenz (2011) have reached a similar argument using a different sampling method. Hence, we argue that the prior research purely based on demographics cannot be a general representation of transnational principles. One of the primary reasons for this is that, apart from the basic demographic variables, a significant, but often overlooked, intermediary variable is the mobilization of factions by politicians, political parties or “political entrepreneurs,” (McLean, 1987) as well as their overall influence on political mobilization.
Observations on political mobilization in American democratic politics were already being provided as early as the 1960s. For example, Schattschneider (1960) noted that despite America being a country with a long history of democracy, most people had no involvement whatsoever in the organization of their own rights; this suggested that in the political context, only well-organized interest groups had any decisive influence on policy decision making (Schlozman, Verba, & Brady, 2012). Schattschneider (1960) referred to this as the “mobilization of bias” in American democratic politics. This bias tends to manifest itself in the recognition of only certain conflicts of interest by certain groups while repressing the potential surfacing of any other conflicts. This is because it is the organizations themselves that are involved in such “biased mobilization.” Thus, while encouraging the entry of certain issues into the realm of politics, other issues are squeezed out.
In other words, certain political organizations, particularly those that wield greater power, tend to actively engage in participation within the politics of the decision-making process by exerting their influence on political or policy directions according to the benefits that they can derive themselves while actively repressing any other issues that are not seen as beneficial to them. Organizations with less political power are essentially excluded from this process that thereby creates the so-called political divide between the influences of different groups.
When faced with competitive pressure within the political market, those with the means and ability to become actively involved in political market engagements (political entrepreneurs) tend to use the power of organizations to lower the costs of such political operations. Indeed, this is similar to the economic market, as seen by Coase (1937), the political operational environment is an environment in which the transaction costs are not zero. Thus, the primary reason for the existence of “firms” or political parties is the (political) “entrepreneurs” want to lower the transaction costs. It is clear that some political entrepreneurs have greater market share due to their greater mobilization potential within the political market. The “winners” in the economic and political markets will accrue resources from the market, thereby consolidating the differences between such winners and losers. From a market perspective, this is the positive aspect of the “survival of the fittest,” which results in the most effective use of market resources. However, within the political realm, where significant emphasis is placed both on efficiency and on fairness, while winners may have a political advantage due to their lower mobilization costs, they are also criticized for their involvement in “interest group politics” or “factional mobilization” based upon the ethical premise of inequitable participation.
Therefore, from a “mobilization of bias” perspective, this is clearly a significant underlying cause of the inequitable participation of politics. In comparing the mobilization strategies of the ruling party and the major opposition parties in local elections, Bosco (1994, p. 30) concluded that faction-based mobilization is more useful than ideology mobilization in lower level office and rural areas. Furthermore, the mobilization of factions in Taiwan is also based on traditional interpersonal networks (Bosco, 1992; Scott, 1972).
The rapid rise in ICTs over the recent years potentially provides a low-cost method of mobilization for nonfaction members; this may also represent a potential systematic means of controlling the influence of factions.
In this article, we examine a case study of the citizens’ petition system in Taiwan and discuss the potential for ICTs to improve the inequitable influences created by local factional power. This will also highlight the ways in which the negative concept of “digital divide,” arising from issues of fairness, becomes a tool for reforming inequitable participation under certain systemic demands.
Biased Democratic Participation: Citizen Petition System in Taiwan
With the passage of the Referendum Law in 2003, the democratic system in Taiwan now provides citizens with referendum rights to directly participate in the establishment of policy (initiatives and referenda rights).
However, despite the law’s provision of referendum rights to citizens, namely, the submission of referendums and their subsequent subjection to public vote, the reality was quite different. When a citizen wishes to initiate any petition activity pursuant to the above-mentioned rights, there are many limitations that have to be overcome, such as the high petition thresholds of signatories. According to the Referendum Law, to raise a national referendum, the initiator must first obtain the signatures of 0.5% of the total electors in the latest Presidential election (around 80 thousand signatures). This is just to raise the petition itself. If the referendum were to pass the examination process, the initiators must then obtain the signatures of 5% of the total electors in the latest Presidential election within 6 months (around 800 thousand signatures). Only after fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements can the referendum be subjected to public vote. Throughout this entire process, the initiator must collect the signatures in specific formats. To complete the required format, each signatory must attach a photocopy of both sides of his or her National Identification Card. These requirements, from the raising of the referendum to its final subjection to public vote, come at great cost to both initiators and participants.
The excessively high costs involved in the citizens’ petitions leads to insufficient representativeness. Given that the threshold for a successful petition is set at a very high level, petitioners must rely on strong mobilization power and resources that are obviously not generally available to ordinary citizens. Thus, the results of citizens’ petitions do not really represent public opinion. Rather, they are more representative of the outcome of the “mobilization of bias” by political parties. To date, all Taiwanese national referendums and petitions were initiated by political parties. Thus, it becomes clear that the public opinion formed under the citizens’ petition mechanism is actually determined by the effects of political mobilization.
Development of e-Democracy
The rapid development and proliferation of ICTs over the recent years, along with the popularization of the Internet, have resulted in new opportunities for the promotion of civic participation throughout the world. The so-called e-democracy refers to the use of information technology to promote, improve, and even expand upon the implementation of democracy. There are two significant meanings to e-democracy, the first of which refers to the design and the use of ICTs to elevate the practice of democratic politics, while the second and deeper meaning involves the dissemination of ICTs as a means of elevating the vitality and legitimacy of democracy (Caldow, 2004; Shane, 2004).
Macintosh (2003) argued that the ICT tools that could be used by citizens to participate in public policy include, among others, the establishment of e-petitions, e-referenda, e-communities, and e-citizen juries. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development further pointed to three types of e-democracy, comprising “unidirectional provision of information,” “bidirectional channels with feedback mechanisms,” and “partnerships that allow citizens to participate in policy formulation” (Caldow, 2004), all of which are in common pursuit of policy objective. The policy objectives of e-democracy are (i) reaching and engaging with a wider audience in the policy process; (ii) providing more accurate and suitable policy-related information to the people; (iii) eliciting more in-depth consultations and discussions; (iv) quickly organizing the opinions of the people; (v) providing related and appropriate responses to citizens; and (vi) monitoring procedures and making evaluations at any time (Macintosh, 2003).
“E-petitions” are generally regarded as including the use of any form of electronic communicative technology, such as cellular phones or the Internet, to participate in various types of petitions focusing on public issues. Numerous examples of practical uses of e-petitions are already available, since this medium has been used in a variety of ways in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, and Estonia.
Digital Divide: An Obstacle to e-Democracy
Although there has been considerable development in the concept of e-democracy in both theory and practice, there are still many divergent views on whether Internet technology can elevate democratic quality and expand civic participation. 4 Such disagreement focuses primarily on whether the use of ICTs in democratic politics results in a “mobilizing effect” or a “reinforcing effect” (Norris, 2001).
The mobilizing effect, opportunities that are provided to groups who had not previously participated in public affairs, is essentially achieved from the use of the Internet, lowering the participation costs and helping political minority groups to organize their power in order to ensure that their opinions are effectively represented within the overall democratic process.
In contrast, the reinforcing effect takes the position of the “digital divide” in the belief that the development of the Internet merely provides the “upper classes”—those who already have significant social and political resources—with even greater opportunities to seize hold of more power, thereby increasing the gap between the classes. Reinforcement is generally seen as negatively affecting overall fairness in society and ultimately leading to continual widening of the democratic divide. In other words, given the existence of the digital divide, some would argue that it is likely that the use of ICTs would have unintended consequences (Norris, 2001), in particular, the expansion of social class distinctions between the “information rich” and the “information poor”.
The digital divide arises as a result of differences in groups, gender, skills, knowledge, technology, geography, and economic conditions, resulting in considerable disparities in the utilization of ICT resources. Internet users generally tend to be younger and more educated with higher incomes. This group generally belongs to the “upper class,” politically, economically, and socially. If such privileged groups are provided with the convenience and low costs associated with Internet usage, as well as the e-participation channels provided by the government, it is likely that their original political and economic influence would be elevated. This phenomenon would exacerbate the differences in democratic politics in terms of representativeness. Conversely, despite groups with lower socioeconomic status and smaller influence on society and politics being the target groups of e-democracy, since the digital divide does exist, non-Internet users (whose means of obtaining access to ICTs are clearly quite limited) are precluded from enjoying the potential benefits of e-democracy.
In empirical terms, it is actually difficult for researchers to effectively prove the correlation between technology usage, democratic participation, and whether e-democracy can improve the quality of democracy due to case and data limitations (Chen & Dimitrova, 2006; Norris, 2001), hence, the absence of any real consensus in the prior empirical studies. For example, Chen and Lee (2008) found that ICTs appeared to have a reinforcing effect, as opposed to a mobilizing effect; their findings indicate that only those who were already active in the so-called real-world civic engagements were encouraged to have more online interactions with their governments. Similarly, Carpini (2000) found that Internet technology could well lead to an increase in the civic engagements of political elites, citizens who have already devoted their energy to public affairs, and citizens with a slight interest in public affairs. However, it was extremely difficult to reach those who exhibited political apathy. In contrast, from their analyses of data sets on Internet usage experiences, both Chen and Dimitrova (2006) and Sylvester and McGlynm (2010) found positive correlations between digitization and political participation.
Taken together, the results of the studies, referred to above, confirm that there is still no general theoretical or empirical consensus on whether e-democracy has either a positive or a negative effect on democratic society. Indeed, the views expressed within the extant literature are more consistent with the belief that the two primary obstacles to the promotion of e-democracy are the existence of the “digital divide” and “political apathy.” These two phenomena have led the technoskeptics to exert the opinion that excessive promotion of electronic measures will exacerbate the already inequitable democratic participation. This has forced techno-optimists to actively reconsider ways of resolving these issues.
Nevertheless, we argue that the continuing debate on these issues tends to ignore one important aspect, the fact that the existing democratic participation mechanism involves differences in degrees. Since voting is the most common method of participation, attracting the lowest participation costs, this democratic mechanism exhibits the lowest degree of inequitable participation. Conversely, mechanisms with high participation costs, such as citizens’ petitions in Taiwan, will clearly exhibit a much higher degree of inequitable participation, with the participants being concentrated in specific groups (Lijphart, 1997). Costly activities, such as citizens’ petitions, will generally require an organized force for mobilization (e.g., political party). The mobilized participants will tend to be closely connected to the organizational network as opposed to the commonly held belief that they represent those sections of the population with higher knowledge and income levels.
In the case of Taiwan, it would seem that the citizens’ petitioning mechanism have generally been “hijacked” to become a tool of the political parties, with the participants invariably being found to be supporters of the various political parties, and acting as a result of the mobilization of local factions or political forces, such that a very high degree of inequitable participation is discernible. However, since those participants are mostly also the “Information Poor,” we do not share the commonly held view that the digital divide represents a continuing obstacle to e-democracy but, instead, has a positive effect on mitigating political divide, elevating the quality of democracy and lowering the phenomenon of inequitable participation in this case.
Method
In order to understand the interplay between digital divide and political divide, we analyzed an e-petitioning case in Taiwan. The reason why we chose this case is because, citizen petitions have always borne more “mobilization of bias” when compared to other citizen participation mechanisms in Taiwan, such as voting in political campaigns or attending public hearings. In other words, the effects of e-democracy will be most important, most evident, in petitioning.
Data Source
We analyze the results of a telephone survey commissioned in 2009, which targeted Taiwanese citizens over the age of 20. The main purpose of this survey was to investigate the acceptance rate of e-petitioning. The samples were taken from all 25 counties and cities in Taiwan, with each family being considered to be a single unit and only one person being surveyed from each of these family units. Telephone interviews were used for the individual samples. A total of 2,123 valid samples were collected, and based on estimated reliability of 95%, the sampling error was within ±2.13%. To ensure the representativeness of the sample, the data were weighted against four demographic variables: “gender,” “age,” “educational level,” and “geographical.”
The successful samples revealed the following basic data: 1,059 (49.9%) were male and 1,064 (50.1%) were female. The age groups, ranked in descending order based on proportions in each group were 445 (21.5%) between 40 and 49 years; 438 (21.1%) between 30 and 39 years; 422 (20.4%) between 20 and 29 years; 374 (18.1%) between 50 and 59; and 391 (18.9 per cent) over 60 years. As regards educational levels, 1,363 (64.5%) were educated to below high school level, and 749 (35.5%) were educated to vocational school or university level.
Operationalized Questions and Analytical Methods
Given the existence of a digital divide, this study seeks to determine whether inequitable participation can be reduced through the use of the Internet as a means of carrying out citizens’ petitions. Thus, we have three primary variables, “experience by citizens of participation in paper petitions,” ‘Internet usage conditions,” and “willingness to participate in e-petitions.” 5 We use a cross-analysis of these variables and the basic demographic data to distinguish between the different effects that may be attributable to the medium of the Internet.
Results
This section is divided into two parts. In the first part, we use a cross-analysis approach to prove that current participants in citizen petitions are actually mobilized by local factions and political parties. The second part highlights the different effects that may be produced after adding in the variable of “willingness to use e-petitions” following the application of the Internet as a medium for citizens’ petitions.
Biased Representation of National Citizen Petitions in Taiwan
The essence of political (citizen) participation mechanisms in democratic systems is to provide all citizens with a means to participate equally in the policy-making process. Different opinions in the society can all be funneled into the decision-making process. Citizen petitions and referendums are important mechanisms to engage citizens directly in the citizen participation process. The two points mentioned subsequently, however, demonstrates that this is not the case in Taiwan. Taiwanese citizen referendum (petitioning) mechanisms are invariably used to convey the views of a “mobilization of bias.” Only certain groups, certain specific political issues, can utilize the referendum (citizen petitioning) mechanisms for vocalization.
To begin with, the passage of the Referendum Law in 2003 allowed interest groups, individual citizens to propose referendums by collecting signatures. There has been, to date, a total of six national referendum cases that have passed all requirements leading up to public vote. As shown in Appendix, except the two referendums initiated by the President that are exempt from the requirements stated in the referendum law, the remaining four national referendums were all only able to cross the thresholds due to local mobilization mechanisms of political parties. These political parties were able to utilize their networks to obtain enough signatures for the referendum to pass the thresholds designated (5% of all eligible voters, around 800,000 citizen signatures). Despite the fact that other interest groups and civil organizations have attempted to raise referendums, they were not capable of collecting enough signatures and photocopies of ID card to pass the threshold. Two well-known cases in Taiwan illustrated subsequently convey the disadvantage of interest groups in initiating a referendum. The Humanistic Education Foundation attempted to raise a national referendum addressing the issue of “fair taxation.” However, the foundation was unable to collect enough signatures to pass the first threshold (82,000 signatures). In 2009, major Taiwanese nonprofit organizations—the Consumer’s Foundation, Homemakers United Foundation and the John Tung Foundation—attempted to raise a referendum concerning the issue of the importation of American beef. Nevertheless, the referendum failed to pass the second threshold (800,000 signatures).
The results of the political party mobilization are reflected when the referendum is subject to public vote. Since the majority of the citizenry are opposed to the use of referendums to boost party election results, very few would vote on these referendums, backed essentially only by the supporters of a certain political party. These referendums ended up failing due to the lack of voter turnout.
Second, this particular type of democratic participation mechanism, which usually involves participation by political activists, is even more likely to create biased representation (Lijphart, 1997), a point that is indirectly proven by Table 1. According to Table 1, there are only 33.6% (18.8% + 14.8%) of Taiwanese citizens who have not obtained, at minimum, a junior high school education level. However, within the sample of those citizens, whose highest education level is lower than junior high school, a total of 40.5% (23.3% + 17.2%) had participated in referendums. In contrast, those with a vocational education or above, totaling 36.4% (14.5% + 21.9%), make up only 29.8% (10.8% + 19.0%) of those who are active in the expression of their opinions. In other words, the referendum system is overly represented by those citizens with a lower level of education, while those with higher education levels have much lower participation rates.
Cross-Tabulation of Sample Descriptive Statistics and Experience of Paper Petitions.
A similar situation can be found when considering age as a variable. Despite only making up 35.8% (18.5% + 17.3%) of the population, citizens aged 50 years and older have participated overwhelmingly in referendums. Of all participants in referendums, 52.6% (29.8% + 22.8%) were 50 years and older. Citizens aged 20–29 and 30–39 make up 21% and 21.2% of the population, respectively. However, within the population of citizens who have participated in referendums, they are each represented only by a low percentage of 15.8% and 12.7%. Citizens aged 50 and older are obviously overrepresented in referendums, while citizens aged 20–29 and 30–39 are underrepresented.
Furthermore, a significant correlation is also discernible between political inclination and prior participation in petitions. Although only around half of all Taiwanese citizens identify with a particular political party, 76.3% of all the participants in referendums have strong party identifications. This is saying that referendums are basically expressing the views and opinions of those citizens with strong party identifications. It is also interesting to note that the percentage of citizens who use the Internet while also participating in paper-based petitions are significantly lower than the percentage of Internet users in Taiwan as a whole. This signifies that citizens who are mobilized by political parties tend to not use the Internet.
In summary, as revealed in Table 1, the current national petition activities in Taiwan generally involve citizens who are more likely to be a non-Internet user, to be older, to have lower levels of education, and to have well-established political inclinations. When compared with the population as a whole, the voices of these people are amplified by citizens’ petitions. Since most of the people who participate in citizens’ petitions tend to be mobilized by political parties, they are closely connected to local factions. This result is in line with the criticism of citizens’ petitions in Taiwan having been “hijacked” as tools for political party competition.
Types of Effects Caused by e-Petitions
The previous section discussed the unequal participation phenomenon in paper referendum and petition mechanisms in Taiwan. This section will now discuss whether the behavior and willingness of citizens are changed when the channels of referendum and petition mechanisms are digitized in e-democracy processes. In order to understand this change, citizens, after the e-democratization of referendum and petition mechanisms, are divided into three major categories. These categories are determined based on responses to three major variables: “experience by citizens of participation in paper petitions,” “Internet usage conditions,” and “willingness to participate in e-petitions” (Figure 1).
The three effect types of e-petitions.
Those citizens classified as the first type have had previous experience with paper petitions and/or referendums and are willing to continue participating in e-petitions and/or e-referendums. This is very likely due to the fact that the usage of the Internet for referendums has made it more convenient and less costly for those citizens to participate. We classify these citizens as “the reinforced.” The second type of citizen had no prior experience in participating in paper referendums but is willing to participate in referendums with the provision of e-democracy channels and mechanisms. We classify these citizens as “the mobilized.” Citizens who are unwilling to participate in e-referendum or e-petition channels are classified as “the rejecter.” People may choose not to participate for several reasons, such as the “excessively high opportunity costs in the process of participation” and “insufficient motives for participation” (e.g., political apathy). In order to understand why these citizens are unwilling to participate, we added an additional question. We have identified a few reasons in this study of why such people may not wish to become involved in the use of e-petitions (Table 2). Most “Internet users” (“rejecter” A and B in Figure 1) stated that they refused to use e-petitions essentially because they “do not like this issue” or “do not care about politics” (43.2% and 35.7%). The “non-Internet users” (“rejecter” C and D) comprised those who “cannot use the Internet” (56.8% + 8.3%) and those who are “politically apathetic” (15.5% + 15.1%). Through further classification and analysis, we discovered that of those citizens who do not participate in e-referendum channels, 34.7% are affected by the digital divide. Over half of the nonparticipating citizens do not participate, because they are “politically apathetic,” such that they would be completely unaffected by the method of petitioning. The remaining 12.1% of nonparticipators of e-democracy mechanisms are those who mistrust Internet systems.
Reasons for Unwillingness to Use e-Petitions.
If we were to include citizens of the categories “the mobilized” and “the reinforced,” we would be able to further classify the results of citizen participation, after the change from paper to e-democracy channels, into five different categories. These categories in order of percentage (most to least) are “politically apathetic” (685 samples, 35.5%), “the mobilized” (502 samples, 26%), “excluded by the digital divide” (430 samples, 22.3%), “the reinforced” (163 samples, 8.4%), “insufficient trust in the Internet”(151 samples, 7.8%).
For the “e-democracy optimists,” the best scenario is obviously to have more “mobilized” people, with the numbers of others, such as those who are “excluded by the digital divide,” “the reinforced,” and the “politically apathetic,” being reduced as much as possible; this is essentially because if there are too few of “the mobilized,” the focus of the positive effects of e-democracy would be only on a few minorities.
Who Are Mobilized and Who Are Excluded by the Digital Divide?
The primary purpose of this study is to display that given the existence of a digital divide, the use of e-petitions will balance inequitable democratic participation. The analyses in the previous sections have shown that due to the high costs associated with paper petition/referendum mechanisms; the proposer must collect a significant number of signatures, while participants must run the risks associated with the provision of personal information and national ID copies, the few successful referendums were all supported by the mobilization of political parties. Very few people wanted to participate in paper-based petitions. Those who were mobilized to participate are generally those with older age and lower levels of education. This, in sense, creates the effect of a “mobilization of bias,” making the paper petition an insignificant mechanism in the projection of a representative Taiwanese public opinion.
So what happens when traditional petition and referendum channels are digitized as in e-democracy? Previous analysis has shown we could classify citizens into five major categories. Citizens who are “politically apathetic” are not influenced by either the technologies or the channels available. Citizens who are classified as “the reinforced” were already participants in paper-based petitions and so are not the focus of our analysis. What we are interested in, or rather what could significantly alter the population of political participants, are the compositions of the groups classified as “the mobilized” and “excluded by the digital divide.” We therefore carry out a cross-analysis of the basic data on “the mobilized” and those “excluded by the digital divide.” As shown in Table 3, most of the “excluded by the digital divide” are those with lower levels of education (48.1% + 25.7% of those in this group hold an education level lower than junior high school), while a high ratio of those educated at the high school level (vocational school) or above is found in “the mobilized” group (27.3% + 18.3% + 30.9%). In terms of age, most of those classified as “mobilized” (excluded by the digital divide) are those below (above) 40 years. By focusing exclusively on the variables of age and education level, we can see that those mobilized by the Internet were generally underrepresented when only paper petitions were in use. In other words, the changes brought forth by the usage of e-petitions/e-referendums are complementary to the citizens targeted by political party mobilizations. It can be drawn from this analysis that the inclusion of e-democracy mechanisms, parallel to traditional paper-based channels, could end up including a public opinion most reflective of the actual (population parameter).
Cross-Tabulation of Sample Descriptive Statistics and Potential Effects of Promoting e-Petitions.
Concerning party identification, paper petitions resulted in overrepresentation of people with strong political inclinations and the underrepresentation of those with no political inclinations. Unfortunately, our data also show that after the introduction of the e-petition mechanism, such biased representation was expanded, with those with political inclinations being more likely to be affected by the Internet than those with no political inclinations.
Conclusions
Taiwanese politics involves the problem of “mobilization of bias” that is extremely difficult to eradicate. Based on transactional costs theory and a discussion of factions, traditional views on the mobilization of bias through purely ethical consciousness can never resolve this problem. Nevertheless, the rise of ICTs in the recent years has provided a “ray of hope” for optimists with regard to dealing with the mobilization of bias problem.
In spite of recent studies confirming the inequalities in American political participation and the fact that this phenomenon would not be ameliorated by novel e-democracy (Internet-based) creations (e.g., Schlozman et al., 2012), our findings suggest that the previous literatures have overlooked the diverse characteristics within different political participation mechanisms. In those mechanisms where participation costs are high, the inclusion of Internet-based channels could weaken the stranglehold political parties have on political participation mechanisms through their extensive mobilization apparatuses. When the majority of those mobilized by political parties are minorities, disadvantaged groups, who have little or no contact with information technology, the limitations imposed by the digital divide could very well limit the impact and strength of those mobilized by political parties in political participation mechanisms. In other words, digital divide is actually helpful in aiding the diverse decentralized elements of the society to counterbalance the influence of political party mobilizations. This would allow different opinions within the society to receive equal footing in the influence of the making of public policies, whether it is raising petitions or rejecting referendum issues. The result of this is that referendum and petition channels can now convey a more representative result reflective of actual public opinion.
This study begins with discussing whether e-petitions can truly be used as a means of controlling the mobilization of bias in political parties. Our results, based on poll data from citizens’ petitions held in Taiwan, reveal that those involved are generally older, with lower levels of education and strong political inclinations. The petition mechanism for democratic participation reveals that those who had previously participated in traditional paper petitions included those who were mobilized by political parties, the stronger power in the political divide. However, in terms of the “digital divide scale,” those people who had previously engaged in traditional paper petitions, those mobilized by political parties, tended to be less involved in electronics; thus, they are seen as the digital “have-nots.”
Looking at the second research question of this study, on whether the establishment of the e-petition system would help reduce the political divide problem, in terms of the two variables: age and education level, the most likely users of e-petitions in the future are indeed found to be the digital “haves” with greater engagement in electronics. This is the group of people who were mostly not part of the political party mobilization networks in the current paper-based citizens’ petitions. In other words, we find that the existence of the digital divide, in terms of e-petitions, may likely fill the existing political divide. It is unfortunate that e-democracy mechanisms are still unable to bring about greater participation from nonpartisan members of the citizenry.
Returning to the first research question of this study on inequitable political participation, it is generally thought that political participation occurs primarily as a result of mobilization by social networks, political parties, and cognition. Social networks and political parties provide direct and tangible influences and mobilizing forces, and as noted by Madison (Cooke, 1961), this is the natural factional phenomenon within any democracy. In comparison, the mobilization of cognition is an indirect and intangible method of mobilization that arises through the media. The rise of the Internet does of course mean that the transaction costs involved in cognitive mobilization can be greatly reduced. We argue in the present study that at a time when traditional political petitions have been hijacked by political parties as tools for the pursuit of their own issues, e-petitions could become a medium for cognitive mobilization, consolidating or mobilizing those who wish to participate in the ongoing political debate, but have no affiliation with any traditional political parties or existing mobilization networks. A prime example is environmental protectionist groups that seek to promote issues attracting a high degree of consensus but have insufficient social network resources available to them to initiate citizens’ petitions. This may of course indicate that the current use of traditional interpersonal networks, as petition thresholds may also encounter the problem of excessively low thresholds as well as an overabundance of referenda; these are factors also worthy of further consideration.
Certain limitations are present in this research (1) the focus on merely three variables: age, level of education, and party identification, due to the lack of data; (2) the lack of further analysis and expansion of our existing model, and (3) lack of understanding of whether other nations are also influenced by political parties utilizing local factions to dominate political participation channels.
We are uncertain whether the findings and conclusions drawn from this research can be applied to other regions. We would need to collect additional data and, if possible, further empirical studies, to be able to answer the questions and points addressed in this article in its entirety. Nonetheless, we believe, from the perspective we have taken in this article, that in future researches on e-democracy effects, the inclusion the factors of local political environments, different political participation mechanisms would be extremely important.
Footnotes
Appendix
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to thank the principle funding support from the Research, Development, and Evaluation Committee of the Executive Yuan of the Taiwanese Central Government with the funding number: RDEC-RES-097-006. Also, we would like to thank the staffing support from the Taiwan e-governance Research Center (TEG) and partial funding support from the National Science Council with the funding number: NSC-98-2414-H-004-035-MY2.