Special Issue on 'Data-driven elections and voter surveillance: implications and challenges for democratic societies'

Sunday, August 18, 2019 - 00:00

Call for papers of Internet Policy Review

Data-driven elections and voter surveillance: implications and challenges for democratic societies

Topic and relevance

Asthe emergence of big data analytics has enabled organisations to target consumers in an increasingly granular manner, so the same techniques are being used to influence voters (Chester & Montgomery, 2017). Practices observed extensively in the US (integrated voter management platforms, the use of social media to analyse issue trends and to micro-target precise segments of the electorate, mobile campaigning tools, digital campaigning through automated software programmes or “bots”, and more advanced online behavioural marketing techniques based on AI and machine learning) are gradually appearing in Europe and other democratic societies (Bennett, 2013; 2015; Tactical Tech, 2019). Thus, more data on voters are being captured, and those data are increasingly shared through a complicated network of organisations within the contemporary campaign “ecosystem” (Kreiss, 2016).

The effects of the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal are still unfolding. There have been a variety of regulatory initiatives (in Canada, Europe, the US, and the UK) (ICO, 2018; OIPCBC, 2019). There is a higher level of media attention. And there is a wide variety of scholarly research. We are now in a position to understand the risks at individual and macro levels, to assess the state of the debate (academic and regulatory) in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and to identify the various questions about data-driven elections that will need resolution going forward by both scholars and regulators.

Scope of the special issue

This special issue seeks to nurture an interdisciplinary discussion of the nature and impact of “data-driven elections”. It has a wider focus than that of “micro-targeting” - the subject of a former special issue of Internet Policy Review (Bodó, Helberger, & DeVries, 2017). The framing of the problem in terms of “data-driven elections” permits a broader analysis of the relationship between data analytics and different social and policy issues: privacy, disinformation, election integrity, and the larger surveillance of the electorate (Barocas, 2012).

The issue has an international scope. We hope for a wide range of empirical cases from which to draw comparative reference points and implications for policy (both in Europe and elsewhere). The issue also intends to offer a more nuanced understanding of the intersection between data-driven elections and regulation. There was considerable emphasis in the 2017 issue on data protection and the General Data Protection Regulation. But it is also important to examine these questions in a broader legal context, and to consider the wider effects of election law and administration (Bennett, 2016).

We also intend to raise some more profound conceptual questions about the terms of the debate. Our use of the term “surveillance” is explicitly intended to link the debates about the use of data analytics in elections with the interdisciplinary tradition of surveillance studies (e.g., Lyon, 2007). The framing of the problem in terms of “voter surveillance” invites scholars to think about the monitoring of the electorate in different terms, and to analyse the distinctive dynamics and characteristics of surveillance in the electoral context, as distinct from that in governmental or corporate environments (Bennett, 2015).

Focus of the papers

We seek submissions that will complement papers presented at a workshop held in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on 29-30 April 2019, organised by the Big Data Surveillance Project, centered at the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queens University, in conjunction with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia. This interdisciplinary and international gathering brought academic researchers into conversation with government regulators and civil society groups. We seek papers that address the following questions:

What are the contemporary trends in voter analytics in different societies, and how are they shaped by distinctive legal, institutional and cultural factors?
What is the profile of the current campaign ‘ecosystem’ in different societies?
What is the impact of data-driven elections on privacy, civil liberties, and other democratic values?
What are the key questions in striking the appropriate balance between freedom of political speech and privacy rights and interests?
How should these practices be regulated, and by whom?
What are the larger surveillance implications of voter analytics in the electoral process?

We are also looking for a broad geographical focus, and will welcome submissions from scholars in various countries, but especially from the Global South.

We are interested in both scholarly papers, as well as briefer essays and commentaries.

Special issue editors

Colin Bennett (cjb@uvic.ca)
Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Victoria, BC, Canada
colinbennett.ca

David Lyon (lyond@queensu.ca)
Professor, Department of Sociology,
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Important dates

Release of the Call for papers: 13 June 2019

Full draft submission. All details on text submissions can be found under http://policyreview.info/authors: 18 August 2019

Comprehensive peer review and feedback: 19 August - 13 October 2019

Resubmission deadline: 24 November 2019

Publication: December 2019

References

Barocas, S. (2012). The price of precision: Voter microtargeting and its potential harms to the democratic process. PLEAD '12 Proceedings of the first edition workshop on Politics, elections and data, 31-36. doi: 10.1145/2389661.2389671

Bennett, C. (2013). The politics of privacy and the privacy of politics: parties, elections and voter surveillance in Western democracies. First Monday, 18(8). doi: 10.5210/fm.v18i8.4789

________. (2015). Trends in Voter Surveillance in Western Societies: Privacy Intrusions and Democratic Implications. Surveillance and Society, 13(3-4), 370. doi: 10.24908/ss.v13i3/4/5373

_______. (2016). Voter databases, micro-targeting, and data protection law: can political parties campaign in Europe as they do in North America? International Data Privacy Law 6(4), 261-275. doi: 10.1093/idpl/ipw021

Bodo, B., Helberger, N. and C. de Vreese. (2017). Political Micro-targeting. Internet Policy Review, 6(4). doi: 10.14763/2017.4.776

Chester, J. and K. Montgomery. (2017). The role of digital marketing in political campaigns. Internet Policy Review, 6(4). doi: 10.14763/2017.4.773

Hersch, E. (2015). Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kreiss, D. (2016). Prototype Politics: Technology-Intensive Campaigning and the Data of Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lyon, D. (2007). Surveillance Studies: An Overview. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia (OIPCBC). (2019). Full Disclosure: Political Parties, Campaign Data and Voter Consent. Investigation Report P19-01 https://www.oipc.bc.ca/investigation-reports/2278

Tactical Tech. (2019). Personal Data: Political Persuasion. https://tacticaltech.org/#/projects/data-politics/

U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) (2018). Democracy Disrupted? Personal information and political influence. https://ico.org.uk/media/2259369/democracy-disrupted-110718.pdf