Digitalisation is transforming the institutional and social conditions under which citizens participate in democratic politics. Electronic and internet voting, digital electoral services, online political communication, and new forms of digitally mediated mobilisation are frequently presented as mechanisms capable of reducing barriers to participation and reconnecting citizens with representative institutions. Yet their democratic effects remain uncertain. Declining or uneven electoral participation, persistent abstention among particular social groups, generational differences in political engagement, territorial and transnational mobility, and continuing concerns about trust and electoral integrity suggest that technological accessibility does not necessarily translate into democratic inclusion.
This panel examines the relationship between digitalisation and electoral participation from the broader perspective of democratic legitimacy. Rather than asking simply whether digital technologies make voting easier, it investigates who participates, who remains excluded or disengaged, and under what institutional and political conditions digital innovation can meaningfully strengthen democratic participation.
Particular attention is given to electronic and internet voting, youth electoral participation, abstention and political disengagement, mobile and transnational voters, digital inequalities, trust in electoral technologies, and the interaction between online political engagement and conventional electoral participation. The panel welcomes theoretical, empirical, and comparative contributions examining both established and emerging democracies and encourages dialogue between political science, public law, electoral studies, and digital governance.
By bringing together research on technological innovation and changing patterns of electoral behaviour, the panel challenges technologically deterministic accounts of democratic modernisation. It asks whether digitalisation can address the structural causes of electoral disengagement or whether it primarily removes procedural barriers while leaving deeper inequalities of participation untouched.
Against the background of increasingly uncertain democracies, the panel ultimately considers whether digital electoral innovation can contribute to democratic resilience and inclusion and under what conditions it may instead reproduce existing inequalities, distrust and political disengagement.
