Backstage democracy: studying the conditions for implementing participatory democratic methods

This project intends to provide in-depth knowledge about how advisors at Digidem Lab, who work with public participation, provide and are provided with conditions for strengthening democracy. Over the past 30 years, Swedish municipalities have worked actively to increase public participation for citizens in between elections. The work with public participation has become increasingly professionalized and technologized. There is a lot of research evaluating the effects of participatory democratic methods. However, there is a lack of research on the organizational conditions that construct the frames for these practices. That is, what happens backstage in the internal work of both Digidem Lab and municipalities, where frameworks, opportunities and limitations for participation are created. This project wants to contribute to increasing knowledge about this by:
- discursively analyzing the knowledge conveyed by Digidem Lab's experts in meetings with municipalities and other public actors
- studying the frames (possibilities and limitations) that are constructed for the implementation of the methods in the meeting with municipalities and other actors
- analyze the possible effects of these discourses and frameworks on municipal democracy work.
Method and theory for the project are drawn from discourse theory, qualitative analysis and ethnographic methods in the form of participant observation, document analysis, conversation analysis and interviews.