Best Paper Award
Section 63: The Diversity of Democratic Innovations, ECPR General Conference, Oslo 2017
The Standing Group on Democratic Innovations of the ECPR has decided to award Hans Asenbaum from the University of Westminster, UK, for his paper
”Online Anonymity in Deliberative Democracy: Disinhibition and Contestation or Deindividuation and Conformity?”
Exploring the role of online anonymity in relation to deliberative democracy is both topical and relevant to the research field of democratic innovations. Deliberative democratic theory views the diversity of opinions and identities as a necessary precondition for deliberation, while the purpose of anonymity obscures aspects of personal identity. Yet, both deliberation and anonymity share a concern for an inclusive public sphere. Asenbaum’s paper investigates whether online anonymity is conducive to deliberative democracy by drawing on two opposing theses from social psychology – disinhibition vs. deindividuation – including relevant empirical studies. The paper is well written, engages meticulously with different literatures, and successfully combines deliberative theoretical insights with empirical findings from social psychology.
Other honorable mentions among the nominated papers include “Facing disagreement: social media and public deliberation” by Joan Balcells and Albert Padró-Solanet (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) and “How participatory is your municipality? Measuring participatory, deliberative and direct democratic possibilities at the sub-national level“ by Maija Jäske (University of Turku)
November 2017
Professor Kimmo Grönlund Professor André Bächtiger
Åbo Akademi University University of Stuttgart
Convenors of the Standing Group
Dr. Staffan Himmelroos Simon Beste
Postdoctoral researcher PhD Candidate
Åbo Akademi University University of Stuttgart
(Section Chairs)