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Usages of an E-participation platform by legislators: lessons from the French parliament

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Abstract

The article intends to advance the study of e-participation in renewed directions by focusing on a category of actors that has long been overlooked: elected politicians. It zeroes in on legislators who while key actors of representative democracy chose to be involved in an e-participation initiative. This article generates theoretical propositions on how they make use of e-participation platforms in their work as parliamentarians. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews about the main e-participation platform in France, Parlement & Citoyens, the article shows that parliamentarians’ usages of such participatory tools tend either toward a policy-oriented logic or a vote-seeking purpose. These usages can also be categorized as tending toward either a representative or a participatory democracy logic. The article concludes that if platforms are originally designed as online participatory alternatives to conventional legislative processes, they are chiefly used as adjuvants to traditional political representation practices.

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Notes

  1. In July 2014, bolstered by the experience of P&C, the founders of the platform founded a civic-tech startup called Cap Collectif. This company develops participatory technologies and services (originally designed based on P&C) and sell them to customers seeking e-participation solutions to support their decisions: either municipalities, governments, assemblies, councils, associations, or private companies. Among its customer portfolio, there are French or French-speaking public institutions, such as the Public Hearing Office on the Environment of the Province of Québec (Canada) or the Parliament of Wallonia (Belgium). Several companies, professional associations, political parties, universities or unions also bought the access to Cap Collectif’s platforms.

  2. Desk research was helpful to contextualize information collected through interviews and prepare the discussions with our different interlocutors. We collected legal texts, public documents on MPs’ and Senators’ websites, data from the platform as well as press articles about Parlement & Citoyens. We also conducted a total of ten interviews with a range of different actors, including citizens who participated in consultations and the founder and president of P&C (see the list of interviews in Appendix 1). All these interviews aimed at acquiring an in-depth understanding of the platform. However, for the purpose of this article, the systematic analysis is restricted to interviews with lawmakers and their staff (parliamentary assistants) who participated to at least one online consultation on P&C.

  3. All interviewees filled and signed a consent form in which they accept their name and quotes to be published in reports and academic publications. That is why we can include direct quotes from interview transcripts. However, we decided to anonymize all quotes for privacy purpose.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Amy G. Mazur, the French Politics’ editor, and two anonymous referees for their comments on the earlier version of this article. We also thank Tiina Randma-Liiv and all the TROPICO partners, as well as the participants to the 2019 ECPR General Conference and SQSP Congress (particularly Nathalie Schiffino and Jérôme Couture), for their helpful feedbacks on this article. Finally, we express our gratitude toward all the interviewees for their willingness to participate in this research. This research was supported by the European Union Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant No. 726840 awarded to the TROPICO consortium coordinated by the University of Bergen (Transforming into Open, Innovative and Collaborative Governments).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ISPOLE – Institute of Political Science Louvain-Europe, University of Louvain, 1 Place Montesquieu, Box L2.08.07, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Samuel Defacqz & Claire Dupuy

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Correspondence to Samuel Defacqz.

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Appendix

Appendix

Appendix 1: List of interviews

  • Itw1, Parliamentary assistant of a Senator, Paris, January 2019.

  • Itw2, Founder and president of Parlement & Citoyens, CEO of Cap Collectif, Paris, January 2019

  • Itw3, Former parliamentary assistant of a Senator, Paris, January 2019

  • Itw4, Citizen using P&C, member of the association ‘Le GALAIS’ (local currency organization), Skype interview, January 2019

  • Itw5, Parliamentary assistant of a MP, Paris, January 2019

  • Itw6, Former MP (1997–2017), Puteaux, January 2019

  • Itw7, Citizen using P&C and other participatory platforms (amongst the most active users of different online participatory initiatives), Pontarlier, January 2019

  • Itw8, Senator, Paris, January 2019

  • Itw9, Parliamentary assistant of a MP, Paris, January 2019

  • Itw10, Former MP (2001–2002; 2007–2017), Nantes, February 2019

Appendix 2: Thematic tree: the usages of an e-participation platform by French legislators

See Table

Thematic axes

Themes

Legislators

Securing support to the policy

Ensure non-rejection of the policy by policy stakeholders

S2

Identify the sticking points surrounding a policy

S3, MP2

Show political support of citizens toward the policy

S3, MP1

Test proposals with citizens

MP1

Check the validity of experts' opinions with the public

MP3

Participate in a collaborative consultation (consultation about collaborative economy)

MP3

Get an overview of public opinion

MP3

Strengthening one’s political reputation

Strengthen the position of the legislator in the parliament (e.g. vis-à-vis his parliamentary group)

S1, S2, S3, MP3

Increase the reputation of the legislator

S3

Publicize the parliamentary work (parliamentary information mission)

MP2, MP3

Strengthen the position of the legislator toward the government

MP3

Collecting experiences and expertise

Collect the positions of citizen associations

S1

Collect the opinion of citizens

S1

Benefit from the expertise and experiences of citizens / stakeholders

S2, MP2

Consult the citizens to feed the parliamentary work

S3

Consult ‘non-organized’ citizens

MP1

Open the parliamentary consultation process to non-organized actors

MP2

Collect proposals for the policy field at stake

MP2

Benefit from the expertise and experiences of experts

MP2

Allow the legislator to reconnect to the actors on the ground

MP2

Promoting participative democracy

Promote and use a participative democracy tool

S2, S3, MP1

Promote and sensitize legislators about participatory democracy

MP1

Offer a participation opportunity to citizens

S1

Making the parliament more transparent to citizens

Make the parliamentary consultation process more transparent

S3, MP3

Collaborative policy-design

Involve citizens in decision-making / parliamentary work

S1

Involve policy stakeholders in decision-making

S2

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Defacqz, S., Dupuy, C. Usages of an E-participation platform by legislators: lessons from the French parliament. Fr Polit 19, 372–393 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-021-00155-9

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