Digital politics divide : the digital divide in building political e-practices

Abstract

This study explores the relation between Internet and politics from a cross-national perspective of analysis. In the domain of the political sciences, the Internet has been welcomed for its potential to facilitate political practice. However, it is also commonly noted that the Internet is not equally distributed and not everybody can equally make the most of its potential. This is why the Digital Divide is perceived as the obstacle which limits the potential of the Internet to influence politics. Today, we are entering the third decade after the advent of the WWW, and the Internet is used far more broadly worldwide. We also have much more empirical evidence about Internet use. However, most research until now has concentrated on Western countries which have similar political systems, and therefore neglects a larger comparative perspective. This study empirically resizes the relation of causality between the Digital Divide and the influence of the Internet on politics. I explore how other contextual factors are determinant in this regard. In order to test this empirically, I set up a dataset tracking internet use, internet infrastructure, internet politics, blogging practices and social, economic and democratic factors of over 190 countries. Through cross-national analysis, first, I size the current status of the Digital Divide across countries. Second, I explore whether and how this scenario affects the inequalities in using the Internet for practicing politics. By following a constructivist approach, I explore not only how political parties are unequally present online across countries to perform conventional forms of politics, but also how citizens and social movements use the Internet to practice civic engagement. I pay particular attention to how people use social network organization tools to empower their own information narratives. My empirical findings confirm that the Digital Divide plays a limited role in explaining the relation between the Internet and politics. Rather, the use of the Internet to practice politics is mainly determined by the political context in which political actors operate. In this framework, the Digital Divide is only one of the several factors characterizing the national context.