Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T22:32:54.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making a Difference: Toward a Feminist Democratic Theory in the Digital Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2019

Hans Asenbaum
Hans Asenbaum*
Affiliation:
University of Westminster
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay asks how the democratic ideal of inclusion can be achieved in societies marked by power asymmetries along the lines of identity categories such as gender and race. It revisits debates of difference democracy of the 1990s, which promoted inclusion through a politics of presence of marginalized social groups. This strategy inevitably entails essentializing tendencies, confining the democratic subject within its physically embodied identity. Difference democrats did not take notice of the parallel emerging discourse on cyberfeminism exploring novel identity configurations on the Internet. This essay augments the politics of presence with digital identity reconfigurations. Neither difference democrats nor cyberfeminists distinguish between various participatory sites. Drawing on conceptions of participatory spaces from development studies and deliberative democracy, this essay generates a typology differentiating between empowered spaces such as parliaments, invited spaces such as citizens' assemblies, and the claimed spaces of social movements. The democratic functions these spaces fulfil are best facilitated by three different modes of identity performance: identity continuation, identity negation, and identity exploration. A pluralization of participatory sites and modes of identity performance facilitates inclusion while tackling the essentializing tendencies in difference democracy.

Keywords

democratic theoryfeminist theorycyberfeminismonline participationanonymitydemocratic innovations
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 16 , Special Issue 1: Special Symposium on Women's Parties , March 2020 , pp. 230 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to express my thanks to Selen Ercan and Marion Stöger, whose extensive comments have helped improve this article. I am also deeply grateful to Kimmo Grönlund and the Social Science Research Institute at Åbo Akademi University for a visiting fellowship that enabled me to work on this paper. Finally, my thanks go to three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

References

REFERENCES

Asenbaum, Hans. 2018a. “Anonymity and Democracy: Absence as Presence in the Public Sphere.” American Political Science Review 112 (3): 459–72. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asenbaum, Hans. 2018b. “Cyborg Activism: Exploring the Reconfigurations of Democratic Subjectivity in Anonymous.” New Media & Society 20 (4): 1543–1563. doi:10.1177/1461444817699994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bächtiger, André, Sörndli, Markus, Steenbergen, Marco, and Steiner, Jürgen. 2005. “The Deliberative Dimensions of Legislatures.” Acta Politica 40 (2): 225–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1968. Rabelais and His World. 1st ed.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Beauvais, Edana. 2017. “Discursive Equality.” University of British Columbia.Google Scholar
Berg, Janne. 2017. “The Dark Side of E-Petitions? Exploring Anonymous Signatures.” First Monday 22 (2): 1–11.Google Scholar
Brock, Karen, Cornwall, Andrea, and Gaventa, John. 2001. “Power, Knowledge and Political Spaces in the Framing of Powerty Policy.” 143. Working Papers of the Institute of Development Studies. Brighton.Google Scholar
Brophy, Jessica. 2010. “Developing a Corporeal Cyberfeminism: Beyond Cyberutopia.” New Media & Society 12 (6): 929–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, Nancy, Schlozman, Kay, Jardina, Ashley, Shames, Shauna, and Verba, Sidney. 2018. “What Happened to the Gender Gap in Political Participaton? How Might We Explain It?” In 100 Years of the Nineteenth Amendment: An Appraisal of Women's Political Activism, ed. McCammon, Holly and Banaszak, Lee Ann, 69–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campos-Castillo, Celeste. 2015. “Revisiting the First-Level Digital Divide in the United States: Gender and Race/Ethnicity Patterns.” Social Science Computer Review 33 (4): 423–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 2012. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Coffé, Hilde, and Bolzendahl, Catherine. 2010. “Same Game, Different Rules? Gender Differences in Political Participation.” Sex Roles 62 (5–6): 318–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, Julie. 2012. Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, Stephen. 2004. “Connecting Parliament to the Public via the Internet: Two Case Studies of Online Consultations.” Information, Communication & Society 7 (1): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornwall, Andrea. 2002. “Making Spaces, Changing Places: Situating Participation in Development.” 170. IDS Working Papers. Brighton.Google Scholar
Cornwall, Andrea. 2004. “New Democratic Spaces? The Politics and Dynamics of Institutionalised Participation.” IDS Bulletin 35 (2): 1–10.Google Scholar
Cornwall, Andrea, and Coelho, Vera Schattan, eds. 2007. Spaces for Change? The Politics of Citzen Participation in New Democratic Arenas. 1st ed. London & New York: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Danet, Brenda. 1998. “Text as Mask: Gender, Play, and Performance on the Internet.” In Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, ed. Jones, Steven, 129–58. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Daniels, Jessie. 2009. “Rethinking Cyberfeminism(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment.” Women's Studies Quarterly 37 (1&2): 101–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Todd, and Chandler, Reid. 2012. “Online Deliberation: Choices, Criteria, and Evidence.” In Online Democracy in Motion: Evaluating the Practice and Impact of Deliberative Civic Engagement, ed. Nabatchi, Tina, Gastil, John, Leighninger, Matt, and Weiksner, G Michael, 1–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
della Porta, Donatella, and Rucht, Dieter. 2013. Meeting Democracy: Power and Deliberation in Global Justice Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryzek, John. 2000. Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dryzek, John. 2009. “Democtitization as Deliberative Capacity Building.” Comparative Political Studies 42 (11): 1379–1402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Claire. 2018. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. 1st ed.New York: Portfolio/Penguin.Google Scholar
Fernandez, Maria, and Wilding, Faith. 2002. “Situating Cyberfeminism.” In Domain Errors! Cyberfeminist Practices, ed. Fernandez, Maria, Wilding, Faith, and Wright, Michelle, 17–28. New York: Autonomedia and SubRosa.Google Scholar
Font, Joan, Smith, Graham, Galais, Carol, and Alarcon, P A U. 2017. “Cherry-Picking Participation: Explaining the Fate of Proposals From Participatory Processes.” European Journal of Political Research, 1–22.Google Scholar
Fox, Richard, and Lawless, Jennifer. 2014. “Uncovering the Origins of the Gender Gap in Political Ambition.” American Political Science Review 108 (3): 499–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1990. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” Social Text 25/26:56–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Nancy. 1996. “Equality, Difference, and Radical Democracy: The United States Feminist Debate Revisited.” In Radical Democracy: Identity, Citizenship, and the State, ed. Trend, David, 197–208. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gajjala, Radhika, and Oh, Yeon Ju, eds. 2012. Cyberfeminism 2.0. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.Google Scholar
Gaventa, John. 2006. “Finding the Spaces for Change: A Power Analysis.” IDS Bulletin 37 (6): 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2015. “Protest Avatars as Memetic Signifiers: Political Profile Pictures and the Construction of Collective Identity on Social Media in the 2011 Protest Wave.” Information, Communication & Society 18 (8): 916–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Carol. 1993. “Feminism and Democratic Community Revisited.” In Democratic Community: NOMOS XXXV, ed. Chapman, John and Shapiro, Ian, 396–413. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, Carol. 1996. “Diversity and Democracy: Representing Difference.” In Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed. Benhabib, Seyla, 171–86. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Grosz, Elizabeth. 2001. Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gulati, Girish. 2004. “Members of Congress and Presentation of Self on the World Wide Web.” International Journal of Press/Politics 9 (1): 22–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 149–81. London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
Jackson, Nigel, and Lilleker, Darren. 2009. “MPs and E-Representation: Me, MySpace and I.” British Politics 4 (2): 236–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Nigel, and Lilleker, Darren. 2011. “Microblogging, Constituency Service and Impression Management: UK MPs and the Use of Twitter.” Journal of Legislative Studies 17 (1): 86–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, Devin, and Rosenfield, Erica. 2013. “MP Transparency, Communication Links and Social Media: A Comparative Assessment of 184 Parliamentary Websites.” Journal of Legislative Studies 19 (4): 526–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karpowitz, Christopher, and Mendelberg, Tali. 2014. The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kolko, Beth. 2000. “Erase @race: Going White in the (Inter)Face.” In Race in Cyberspace, ed. Kolko, Beth, Nakamura, Lisa, and Rodman, Gilbert, 213–32. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Koop, Royce, and Marland, Alex. 2012. “Insiders and Outsiders: Presentation of Self on Canadian Parliamentary Websites and Newsletters.” Policy & Internet 4 (3): 112–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Raja, Raymond. 2011. “Does Transparency of Political Activity Have a Chilling Effect on Participation?” In Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association. Chicago.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1991. “Democracy, Deliberation and the Experience of Women.” In Higher Education and the Practice of Democratic Politics: A Political Education Reader, ed. Murchland, Bernard, 122–35. Dayton: Kettering Foundation.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1993. “Feminism and Democratic Community.” In Democratic Community: NOMOS XXXV, ed. Chapman, John and Shapiro, Ian, 339–95. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 1999. “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent ‘Yes.’” Journal of Politics 61 (3): 628–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane. 2005. “Quota Problems: Combating the Dangers of Essentialism.” Politics & Gender 1 (4): 621–53.Google Scholar
Mattoni, Alice, and Doerr, Nicole. 2007. “Images Within the Precarity Movement in Italy.” Feminist Review 87 (1): 130–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKenna, Brad, Gardner, Lesley, and Myers, Michael. 2011. “Social Movements in World of Warcraft.” In Proceedings of the Seventeenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, 1–8. Detroit.Google Scholar
Mortensen, Torill Elvira. 2018. “Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate.” Games and Culture 13 (8): 787–806. doi:10.1177/1555412016640408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motter, Jennifer. 2011. “Feminist Virtual World Activism: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign, Guerilla Girls BroadBand, and SubRosa.” Visual Culture & Gender 6:108–18.Google Scholar
Nakamura, Lisa. 2002. Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. New York/London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Papacharissi, Zizi. 2011. A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and the Culture on Social Network Sites. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1989. The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Peixoto, Tiago, and Fox, Jonathan. 2016. “Digital Dividends: When Does ICT-Enabled Citizen Voice Lead to Government Responsiveness?”CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1991. Engendering Democracy. 1st ed.Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1993. Democracy and Difference. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Anne. 1995. The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Plant, Sadie. 1997. Zeros + Ones. London: 4th Estate Limited.Google Scholar
Polletta, Francesca. 2002. Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhee, June Wong, and Kim, Eun-mee. 2009. “Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment.” In Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice, ed. Davies, Todd and Gangadharan, Seeta Peña, 223–32. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ruesch, Michelle Anna, and Märker, Oliver. 2012. “Real Name Policy in E-Participation: The Case of Gütersloh's Second Participatory Budget.” In CeDEM12: Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government, ed. Parycek, Peter and Edelmann, Noella, 109–124. Krems: Edition Donau-Universität Krems.Google Scholar
Sanders, Lynn. 1997. “Against Deliberation.” Political Theory 25 (3): 347–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Jan-Hinrik, and Johnsen, Katharina. 2014. “On the Use of the E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag.” 3. HIIG Discussion Paper Series.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitz, Rachel. 2016. “Intersections of Hate: Exploring the Transecting Dimensions of Race, Religion, Gender, and Family in Ku Klux Klan Web Sites.” Sociological Focus 49 (3): Routledge: 200–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Setälä, Maija, and Grönlund, Kimmo. 2006. “Parliamentary Websites: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives.” Information Polity 11 (2): 149–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sick, Andrea. 2004. “Dream-Machine: Cyberfeminism.” In Cyberfeminism: Next Protocols, ed. Reiche, Claudia and Kuni, Verena, 49–64. New York: Autonomedia.Google Scholar
Smith, Graham. 2009. Democratic Innovations: Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanyer, James. 2008. “Elected Representatives, Online Self-Presentation and the Personal Vote: Party, Personality and Webstyles in the United States and United Kingdom.” Information Systems Frontiers, Loughborough University's Institutional Repository, 11 (3): 113–31.Google Scholar
Stein, Gertrude. 2011. “Guerrilla Girls and Guerrilla Girls BroadBand: Inside Story.” Art Journal 70 (2): 88–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoycheff, Elizabeth. 2016. “Under Surveillance: Examining Facebook's Spiral of Silence Effects in the Wake of NSA Internet Monitoring.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 93 (2): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2017. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turkle, Sherry. 1984. The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. London: Granada.Google Scholar
Volkart, Yvonne. 2004. “The Cyberfeminist Fantasy of the Pleasure of the Cyborg.” In Cyberfeminism: Next Protocols, ed. Reiche, Claudia and Kuni, Verena, 97–117. New York: Autonomedia.Google Scholar
Wajcman, Judy. 2004. TechnoFeminism. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1994. “Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective.” Signs 19 (3): 713–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1997a. “Deferring Group Representation.” In Ethnicity and Group Rights, ed. Shapiro, Ian and Kymlicka, Will, 349–76. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1997b. “Difference as a Resource for Democratic Communication.” In Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. Bohman, James and Rehg, William, 383–406. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar