Rogers, Richard

The Issue has left the Building. The Web, New Democratic Practice and the Challenges of De-territorialisation.

Abstract

Over the past decade Northern European and other countries have witnessed the upsurge of organized national 'public debate' on leading social issues. Whilst viewed by government as a remedy for the disconnection between 'citizens' and the political process, the national 'public debate' methods and techniques have yet to take into account one of the leading explanations for such 'disconnected-ness': the challenges posed by de-territorialisation. With the aid of the Web, one may capture de-territorialisation in situ, i.e., the displacement of 'issue-making', of 'relevant' social groups, and of decision-making 'input' to networks, actors and documents outside the national institutional framework. Once we have captured the de-territorialised issue, the organization of national public debates becomes a matter of 're-territorialisation', with the Web providing indicators of the challenges ahead.

This paper takes up recent efforts made to stage a 'national public debate' on genetically modified food (with experts and laypeople in buildings), and how the Web may show why and when such 're-territorialisation' moves may fail. To do so, we follow, map and visualize the (global) circulation of the issue of genetically modified food (its networks, actors and documents). In government's endeavours to import the issue into the public debate format in the Netherlands, we watch the collision between issue networks and more conventional democratic forums. Government's main reservations and findings - 'disinterested publics', eyes glossing over carefully codified food labels in supermarkets, the departure of 15 leading social groups to another debate (in a different building filled with 'issue network' themes and players) - leads us to question how the Web may come to reveal and also accommodate forms of democratic practice..