Page 44 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Plan of the Book 17:40
in the political “market,” technological or otherwise. Political parties fall
somewherebetweenthesetwocategoriesinthattheyareprivatecompeti-
tiveorganizationswithautonomyoverinternalorganizationandstrategy
but highly institutionalized in law and electoral rules. The contemporary
information revolution plays out differently in the realms of economics
andpolitics–notonlymoreslowly,butalsoinqualitativelydifferentways.
Of course, these processes have important normative implications.
While this book is not oriented toward the interpretation or analysis of
philosophical problems associated with information and democracy, it
does summarize links from the empirical and theoretical problems to
normative matters. For instance, a central normative problem concerns
the possibility of tradeoffs within democratic systems between equality
and a coherent, integrated public sphere, tradeoffs that are mediated by
the cost and degree of institutionalization of information. To the extent
that changes in the cost and accessibility of information tend to deinsti-
tutionalize certain features of politics, they contribute toward the goal
of political equality. As Robert Dahl argues, telecommunication technol-
ogy makes possible a more equitable distribution of political information
35
about a broad array of subjects. While the future state of the so-called
digital divide is unclear, as we see in Chapter 5, evidence from the con-
temporary information revolution supports Dahl’s claim.
On the other hand, as political structure becomes flexible and in many
cases unpredictable, and as citizens are exposed to a greater variety of
competing elite views and demands as a result of the information abun-
dance, the formation of coherent and stable public opinion may grow
more difficult rather than less so. One effect of the constraints on in-
formation that institutions create is more integrated, coherent public
agenda and opportunities for stable preferences that can, in principle,
command broad support. As information becomes more abundant and
less well institutionalized, possibilities for unstable cycling of agendas
and preferences may arise. The possibility that political equality and the
achievement of a deliberative public good may be linked through control
over information is one of the most consequential normative problems
raised by the information regimes model.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

To advance claims about the role of information in democracy is to
tackle a subject of sobering proportions. In framing this analysis, I have

35 Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics.

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