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Is Political Participation Online Effective?: A Case Study of the E-Democracy Initiative Conducted by the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies

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Patrícia Rossini at University of Glasgow
Patrícia Rossini
Rousiley Maia at Federal University of Minas Gerais
Rousiley Maia
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Abstract

The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) conducts an e-democracy initiative that enables people to participate in political decisions regarding legislation. "Portal E-Democracia" is the name of this website in which people can participate in several different ways to speak their minds regarding legislative activities. This chapter analyses the effectiveness of citizens' engagement in the edemocracy initiative through the case study of the discussion of the Internet Civilian Landmark - a bill to regulate Internet use in Brazil. The authors analyse two types of participation: comments to the draft bill and suggestions. To measure the effectiveness of user-participation in such a case of collaborative lawmaking, the authors compare the content of the first draft, the final draft, and the suggestions made through the wikilegis in order to assess whether the discussions maintained within the e-democracy platform were or were not taken into account. This procedure also reveals to what extent online discussion was able to reach political decision-makers and effectively change the Internet's Bill of Rights.
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Chapter 18
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6236-0.ch018
Is Political Participation
Online Effective?
A Case Study of the E-Democracy
Initiative Conducted by the
Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
ABSTRACT
The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies (Câmara dos Deputados) conducts an e-democracy initiative that
enables people to participate in political decisions regarding legislation. “Portal E-Democracia” is
the name of this website in which people can participate in several different ways to speak their minds
regarding legislative activities. This chapter analyses the effectiveness of citizens’ engagement in the e-
democracy initiative through the case study of the discussion of the Internet Civilian Landmark – a bill
to regulate Internet use in Brazil. The authors analyse two types of participation: comments to the draft
bill and suggestions. To measure the effectiveness of user-participation in such a case of collaborative
lawmaking, the authors compare the content of the first draft, the final draft, and the suggestions made
through the wikilegis in order to assess whether the discussions maintained within the e-democracy
platform were or were not taken into account. This procedure also reveals to what extent online discus-
sion was able to reach political decision-makers and effectively change the Internet’s Bill of Rights.
INTRODUCTION
The growing presence of organized civil society’s
actors and stakeholders and the participation of
governmental and non-governmental institutions
in the Internet motivate a debate of possible effects
of such phenomenon in various political instances,
such as participation, democratic governance and
citizenship. Within this framework, the Internet’s
democratic potential is constantly thematized as
well as questioned (Chadwick, 2009; Coleman;
Moss, 2012; Coleman; Blumler, 2009; Dahlberg,
Patrícia G. C. Rossini
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Rousiley C. M. Maia
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
346
Is Political Participation Online Effective?
2007; 2011; Maia, Gomes, Marques, 2011). How-
ever, a huge gap keeps at bay the opportunities
offered by virtual environments and an effective
strengthening of relations between elected repre-
sentatives and those they represent. The reason
for this arm’s length reality is that online political
participation depends not only on the citizens be-
ing willing to participate but also on politicians
and governments being open to recommendations
and guidance flowing in from online popular
participation. In this context, it is relevant to ask
how effective is virtual engagement vis-à-vis
institutional tools of political participation.
To address such issue, this chapter seeks to ana-
lyze the efficacy of virtual participation in Portal
E-Democracia, a tool for civil society participation
in political decision-making. This is an innovative
landmark project, created in 2007 by the Federal
House of Representatives in Brazil. It seeks to
widen and deepen popular involvement in issues
debated by their elected federal representatives.
This chapter dwells on virtual engagement on
the E-Democracia portal, and focus on the Case
Study of the bill of law of the Brazilian Internet
Civilian Landmark, whose goal is to regulate
Internet use in the country. To grasp how siz-
able is the gap between opportunities for virtual
participation and effective citizenry influence on
political decision-making, we analyzed to what
extent political participation through a virtual
platform was able to actually affect the discus-
sion of the bill of law in the Brazilian House of
Representatives.
Brazil is among the top countries investing in
democratic innovations (Avritzer, 2009; Goodin,
2008; Coelho, et al. 2005; Smith, 2009), a major
example of participatory-budget adoptions which
have, more recently, integrated virtual stages
(Peixoto, 2009; Sampaio, Maia & Marques, 2010).
In this sense, it is important to highlight that the
initial first draft of the Brazilian Internet Civilian
Landmark, that seeks to regulate Internet use in
the country, is the end result of a popular consul-
tation process stage, involving various sectors of
society in the discussion of issues to be addressed
in regulating Internet use in the country (Sampaio,
Nicolás & Bragatto, 2013; Steibel, 2012). Even
though virtual democracy initiatives run into many
barriers (social, economic, cultural), affecting
participation (Coleman; Blumler, 2009), the In-
ternet Civilian Landmark case can be is regarded
as a successful initiative of grassroots civilian
participation in decision-making processes.
Despite Brazil’s tradition of fostering popular
participation, one must carefully analyze any
sweeping generalized adoption of participative
tools that, at first sight, might suggest that the po-
litical realm would be willing to listen to what civil
society has to say. Possibilities of institutionalized
online participation are many and varied, but our
research is driven by the following questioning: Is
online political participation effective? Is a virtual
engagement in institutional tools of political par-
ticipation (in the Portal E-Democracia) capable
of influencing political decision-making?
This study is less focused on the deliberative
stage of the online discussion of the Internet
Civilian Landmark (in a Forum and Chat Rooms
designed for this purpose); it rather focuses its
attention on the efficacy of user participation in
the process. Put in more precise terms, we pay
attention to the opportunities to act and influence
the collaborative process of discussing the bill
of law, since we seek to verify whether or not
the legislative committee was open to popular
demands regarding Internet regulation.
This chapter surveys the contribution of
recent studies on virtual participation and the
adoption of digital tools by different spheres of
institutionalized politics, in order to contextualize
our research. We next lay out the methodological
procedures applied to the two participative stages
of the wikilegis tool, namely: comments and sug-
gestions. In a subsequent section, the results and
conclusions of this paper are presented. The study
argues that the legislative branch can benefit from
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