Digital governance and the privatization of democracy

Democratic states increasingly digitalize their public infrastructures. Digital structures of public policy-making come with a promise of more accurate, efficient, objective and fair and governance. Despite this promise, the use of digital tools in governance has been contested. The critiques, scattered across disciplines (law, public administration, media and communication studies, computer science), target specific applications and identify isolated elements of public policy-making that digitization may impair. For example, biometrics in criminal justice may undermine due process; algorithmic tools in law enforcement, social benefit or mortgage allocation, or facial recognition may entrench discrimination; demos scrapping endangers democratic representation; communication via social media platforms may increase the spread of harmful content, create echo chambers and lead to polarization. Missing in the debate is an overarching perspective teasing out the common denominator of the concerns raised, something this paper aims to address. We claim that digitization brings about the privatization of democracy by (1) unduly increasing the power of traditionally private actors such as tech corporations in the political domain without submitting them to public debate and scrutiny and (2) introducing their business models and market logics into democratic policy-making, traditionally alien to it. The privatization of democracy these processes jointly bring about creates power asymmetries that subject citizens to forms of private domination which are alien to democratic equality, disable collective structures for the realization of rights and hollow out popular sovereignty. Regaining popular sovereignty and averting the prospect of new forms of domination and discrimination requires public control over digital tools of governance making them subject to legal regulation and institutional apparatuses. We suggest some ways of democratizing the digital infrastructure so as to subject it more to democratic decision-making, deliberation and regulation.