Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

with this similar composition are the results of the research: The most
common finding is that participants were able to elaborate and refine
their knowledge about the debated issue (Fung 2003: 341). However,
with regard to effects that point to an impact beyond the deliberation
itself, hardly any success can be reported. Whenever an official or
representative is involved to transfer the results into real political life,
discussions become uneven and one-sided (Button/Mattson 1999: 625-
628). If some specific policy is agreed on and recommended, it is either
ignored by the wider public or dismissed due to a lack of financial
opportunities (ibid. 629f., Smith 2009: 23). One must therefore conclude
that contemporary deliberative debating remains largely disconnected
from real political decision-making (Lösch 2003: 12).
Similar conclusions have been drawn in relation to the internet
as a facilitator of citizen participation. First of all, the most important
finding is that the internet does not generate entirely new forms of
participation, but rather provides opportunities for those who were
already active. It therefore simply reinforces existing patterns of commitment
(Metje 2005: 28/43). [2] Moreover, the effects of online participation
are the same as with deliberation: there is no substantial impact
on real political processes (Smith 2009: 147/155) and in some cases it is
impossible to overlook the “consistent and systematic disregard” on the
part of political entities (Hüller 2010: 97). It is sometimes noted that the
internet fails to create a public sphere, not only because people have
unequal opportunity to participate, but also because of its non-binding
structure and overwhelming commercialisation (Ackerly 2006: 125).
This observation suggests that the internet might be suitable for building
up and maintaining networks between interested and experienced
activists, but not for facilitating political participation in general.
If not the web, what else is capable of hosting genuine democratic
participation? To answer this question, the hypothesis is examined that
this can only happen within the framework of an accurately designed
public sphere. This concept is generally well-known and often employed
by democratic theorists who are aware of their ancient ancestors,
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DESIGNING THE PUBLIC
REALM – A PREREQUISITE
FOR DEMOCRATIC
INNOVATION
Marco Walter
2
Smith (2009: 148) argues in a very similar way. It must therefore be concluded that regarding
the competition among the thesis of reinforcement and that of mobilization through
internet-based participation (Metje 2005: 20) the former seems to be more adequate.