When Private Affords Public: Politics on Platforms or Platforms for Politics?

Digital technologies are not just opening new spaces for citizen engagement: they are reshaping how people participate and deliberate in democratic processes. This chapter compares two approaches to digital platforms as means to afford political participation: a top-down implementation of state-led platforms (Basque country’s open government platform “Irekia”), and bottom-up adaptation of commercial ones (Discord server used to engage on a constitutional process in Chile). Supported by the affordances’ perspective, the chapter delves into the potentials and the constrains attached to each of the options. By confronting different platforms and different cases we highlight the main findings: the relevance of sociality in realms of political participation; the necessity by public authorities to detect the desire and enable environments that foster political participation; the creativity of the collective; and finally, it points to the benefits and relevance of small-group deliberative experiences. Implications and future research possibilities are discussed.