Golbraykh V. B. Environmental Public Initiative in the Internet as a New Public Participation Practice. Tomsk State University Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science, 2016, №4, pp. 340-350.

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Abstract

Internet as a new a new public participation practice. The author sees political participation as an activity that aims to influence authorities' actions. Such an influence may be direct (an accomplishment of certain policy) or indirect (an influence on a selection of people who will accomplish this policy). Due to growing importance of the Internet, we observe new forms of political participation over recent years. On the one hand, the Internet is able to mobilize politically inactive population by reducing differences in knowledge of social and political problems among citizens who belong to different social groups. Nevertheless, on the other hand, digital inequality (ability to access the Internet) reduces possibilities for political participation in the Internet. A gathering of signatures for online petitions takes a special place among new forms of political participation. Online petitions are used in order to draw attention to particular problems, to provide a support for declared goals, and to influence decisions of authorities. The author depicts specific features of environmental issues in online petitions and the main environmental issues that disturb citizens. Additionally, the author discusses whether signing of petitions is a form of such a behavior as slacktivism when organizers and participants restricted themselves only with petition signing or additionally the employed the other forms of activities in order to reach their goals. The study shows that a significant part of online petitions composes of environmental petitions. At the same time, participants most of petitions receive small rate of support. The main variables that influence this form of political participation are sharpness of environmental problems, availability of the Internet, and a level of public activities in the region. The analysis does not found a significant correlation between levels of petitions' support and solutions of environmental problems. The organizers of petition gatherings used the other forms of political participation only in half of their initiatives; and only an absolute minority of participants in these gatherings employed Internet resources for mobilization of potential supporters. That is why one may assume that such a form of political participation is just slacktivism.