Crowdsourcing and Democratic Deepening: A Critical Appraisal

The past three decades have witnessed a range of democratic innovations – from the much celebrated participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre to sit-ins to protect green spaces in Istanbul. Although the precise consequences of these innovations leave a mixed picture of success and failures, the importance of public participation and deliberation in political life has been generally considered important for democratic deepening.

Crowdsourcing legislation is one of the most recent additions to these innovations. In Finland and potentially the Philippines, ordinary citizens are given the opportunity to draft and/or comment on bills subject to parliamentary consideration through the use of technology. The lawmaking process is viewed to be more participatory, epistemically superior and responsive to citizens’ opinions by aggregating the “wisdom of crowds.”

While crowdsourcing legislation has the promise of creating more inclusive and direct forms of political engagement, my presentation aims to take stock of crowdsourcing’s normative and practical assumptions using a deliberative democratic framework. It is argued – albeit tentatively – that while the crowdsourcing can be an innovative platform in collective problem-solving, it also creates and reinforces existing hierarchies in participation.