Is Tech a Postive for Democracy?

There is a lot to say about the role technology plays in democracy and democratic development. The US State Department's focus on internet freedom and the wider 21st Century Statecraft initiative that Secretary Clinton announced in January 2010, among other factors, has certainly increased attention to this field - which is a very good development.

One important aspect of this derives from how attention on tech in democracy and internet freedom sometimes leads to framing the issue and debate into "optimists" and "pessimists" that focus on closed, non-democratic countries at the expense of analyzing the important role technology plays in transitional or young democracies. It's important to remember that the conversation about the role of technology in democracy needs to include democracies.

It seems to me that one way this plays out is that discussion of Internet Freedom is often expanded into a broader discussion of the role of the Internet in bringing about swift transitions in authoritarian or other forms of closed societies. A false dichotomy is created between activists and authoritarians where technology must be seen as a panacea for one group at the expense of the other in the broader struggle to bring about democratic transitions in authoritarian states. The way the issue is often framed is: Was the introduction of the Internet and related technologies a net positive or negative for democracy and freedom? This question is then reduced to the corollary questions: Have these technologies been helpful to aspiring democrats and the struggle to attain basic rights and democracy? Or have they provided authoritarian states and entrenched regimes with more power to suppress political and civil rights?

Our view is that technologies are clearly a net positive for democracy, not because technology tips the balance of power to citizens in closed societies – I don’t think they do. – but given the right circumstances, innovative uses of technology combined with good organizing and strong political or civic organizations can create moments of opportunity for activists in a long term struggle to create political space or improve political rights - including the right to information using the internet and other technologies (more on that in this post).

What needs to be recognized when discussing the role of technology in democracy is that technologies are a net positive because of the important role they can play in consolidating democracy in fragile and transitional democratic states where space for civic and political engagement exists, but where democracy hasn’t fully taken root and risks backsliding toward authoritarianism if nascent democratic institutions are not strengthened. Creative uses of technology in these environments can help make these institutions more efficient, accessible and transparent. They can also help citizens, competing political parties and civic groups communicate, organize and hold governments and elected officials more accountable - and all of these factors strengthen democracies and are important factors in consolidating democratic development and avoiding backsliding.

So rather than focusing exclusively on the most closed societies when we talk about the role of technology in promoting democracy, we need to recognize the important role technology can play in supporting fragile democracies before they backslide, curtail civil liberties and become closed. Examples of current NDI programs that demonstrate this idea include our Afghanistan election data mapping project, and the Uganda Citizen Hotline.