Citizenship practices in hybrid spaces: Analyzing the effect of technology on distinctions between online/offline, global/local, and public/private in state-citizen conflict dynamics

In December 2021, the mayor of the Dutch city of Utrecht, imposed a so-called online area ban on a local resident, prohibiting him to make online statements that could be qualified as causing disorder. The resident was a 17-year-old boy who had called for a riot in Utrecht with the following message in a Telegram group he was part of: "Utrecht in rebellion, no to 2G & no to fireworks ban! 26-11-21, 19:30, Kanaalstraat, Be there!!! Bring your mates & fireworks." Ultimately, this online ban was rejected by the court. The court stated that an area ban could only be applied to public and physical spaces, and not to the Telegram group that was, instead, categorized as a private and online space. The court’s decision led to an opinion piece in a national newspaper, signed by 41 mayors, calling to "develop national legislation. To enable mayors to preventively act against online calls for riots and violence, and thereby to keep their municipalities safe." This case reveals the entanglement of technology and state-citizen interaction and -conflict in an increasingly digitized world. More so, it illustrates the way in which technology promotes the boundary-less character of such interaction: a. it takes place online and offline simultaneously; b. it is fed by global discourses and crises that spread quickly and take root in local communities; and c. it challenges our understanding of what both private and public spaces are. In other words: technology challenges the dichotomies through which we have traditionally made sense of how and where citizens participate in democratic processes and interact with state actors. However, as the online area ban was ultimately rejected, it also shows how these dichotomies are reproduced: even when these boundaries reveal grey areas and are criticized, they also remain part of the (new) realities both states and citizens grapple with. In this paper, we explore how the boundaries between online and offline, global and local, and public and private spaces are challenged and reproduced, and what that means for citizenship practices and state-citizen interaction. We consider the opportunities and challenges that this simultaneous blurring and reproduction of boundaries brings by drawing on several empirical cases from the Netherlands. So far, we distinguish two opposing outcomes: On the one hand, ‘hybrid’ spaces can foster greater inclusivity by allowing diverse voices and perspectives to interact, signaling increased civic engagement. Online, global spaces that are accessible through private platforms can serve as forums for diverse voices, enabling marginalized groups to express themselves and engage in public discourse. On the other hand, these virtual spaces can exacerbate exclusion of voices expressed offline in local communities and may further concentrate power in the hands of the global (private) entities that own the private platforms on which deliberations take place. While digital platforms and tools can offer opportunities for political participation and inclusion, they can thus also reinforce inequalities and exclusion, thereby potentially narrowing down state-citizen interaction and harming citizenship practices and democratic dialogue.