Displacement and Citizen Participation: A Comparison of the Enactment of E-Participation Platforms in Oslo and Madrid

Abstract

The growing digitization of citizen participation has been accompanied by the concern that e-participation technologies will displace traditional forms of participation and representation. This chapter contributes to the discussions on ‘hybrid’ and ‘multichannel’ participation, by arguing that the relationship between e-participation and traditional, analogue forms of citizen participation is uneasy. The level of conflict and displacement caused by the introduction of e-participation technologies depends on how they are enacted. This chapter compares the introduction of e-participation platforms in Madrid and Oslo, and finds that the new technologies in Madrid deprived traditional channels of citizen participation or their role, but in Oslo were used to complement existing forms of analogue participation. This chapter uses technology enactment theory and an inductive case-study approach, to develop the hypothesis that e-participation technologies can both be enacted in ways that add something to an institutional environment, but also to achieve drastic change and that this is the outcome of agency.