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Exploring Drivers of Online Political Participation in the European Union

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Applied Economics in the Digital Era

Abstract

Using a sample of internet users across the European Union, this chapter investigates the drivers of citizens’ online political activities from an integrated resources approach which accounts for the effects of both traditional political participation-related resources and three types of online-specific resources. The present analysis shows that digital skills and online networks positively impact participation in three online political activities, namely, sending emails to political representatives, joining online consultations, and reading policy documents online. Socioeconomic resources are also important for online political participation, indicating that the internet does not alleviate inequalities traditionally observed in offline political activities. Moreover, citizens appear to utilize official channels for political participation at a much slower pace than the efforts made by public institutions to engage them.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Specifically, the resources required for political participation are classified into 4 groups: (1) individuals’ socioeconomic attributes and skills, which determine abilities to afford participation-related costs and the access to relevant information, respectively; (2) individuals’ political attitudes and opinions; (3) group resources, which help individuals to engage in various group activities and gain information through social networks; and (4) institutional and political environment, which directly influence the availability of channels for citizens’ participation.

  2. 2.

    Mobilization actions refer to citizens’ collective actions, such as an organized boycott, or the recent example of the “me too” movement.

  3. 3.

    For example, European Commission’s website “Your voice in Europe” provides access to several online tools which allow Europeans to join online discussions on public issues, to contact political representatives, and to provide their feedback to European institutions on specific matters.

  4. 4.

    This is the same approach as Krueger (2002) who analyzed a sample of Internet users to examine the link between online participation and socioeconomic characteristics in a hypothetical situation where equal access were fully achieved.

  5. 5.

    Following the convention in the literature (Anduiza et al. 2010a; Best and Krueger 2006; Eurostat 2015a; Krueger 2002; Vicente and Novo 2014), we approximate the level of digital skills by the number of online activities conducted out of 12 activities. This measure is then divided by 12 to convert into 0–1 scale.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Economics, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

    María Rosalía Vicente

  2. School of Economics, Finance and Property, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Hiroaki Suenaga

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  1. María Rosalía Vicente
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  2. Hiroaki Suenaga
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Correspondence to María Rosalía Vicente .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    James Alleman

  2. Temple University, Wyncote, PA, USA

    Paul N. Rappoport

  3. Orange Business Services, Saint Denis, France

    Mohsen Hamoudia

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Vicente, M.R., Suenaga, H. (2020). Exploring Drivers of Online Political Participation in the European Union. In: Alleman, J., Rappoport, P., Hamoudia, M. (eds) Applied Economics in the Digital Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40601-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40601-1_7

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