Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 5-1-2015 Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden Kirk M. Winans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Winans, Kirk M., "Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden" (2015). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Running head: E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden by Kirk M. Winans Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Graduation Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science Science, Technology and Public Policy Department of Public Policy College of Liberal Arts Rochester Institute of Technology May 1, 2015 E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Direct E-Democracy and Political Party Websites: In the United States and Sweden A thesis submitted to The Public Policy Department at Rochester Institute of Technology By Kirk M. Winans Under the faculty guidance of Franz Foltz, Ph.D. Submitted by: Kirk M. Winans Signature Date Accepted by: Dr. Franz Foltz Thesis Advisor, Graduate Coordinator Signature Date Associate Professor, Dept. of STS/Public Policy Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Rudy Pugliese Committee Member Signature Date Professor, School of Communication Rochester Institute of Technology Dr. Ryan Garcia Committee Member Signature Date Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science Rochester Institute of Technology ii E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures............................................................................................................... v Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 4 Direct Democracy ....................................................................................................................... 4 The Paris Commune .................................................................................................................... 4 Theories of Democracy ............................................................................................................... 7 Models of Democracy ................................................................................................................. 9 Party Systems ............................................................................................................................ 11 Interactivity, Interaction, and Participation of State Legislature Websites ............................... 12 Three-way Communication ....................................................................................................... 15 What are Interactivity and Interaction and why are they important? ........................................ 16 Interactivity in Campaigns ........................................................................................................ 17 Democracy in Sweden ............................................................................................................... 19 Why Sweden? ............................................................................................................................ 20 Political Finance ........................................................................................................................ 21 Political Party Structure and Ideology ...................................................................................... 24 Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Strategies in Political Parties ............. 27 Net Parties ................................................................................................................................. 28 Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 29 Method .......................................................................................................................................... 30 Websites to study ...................................................................................................................... 30 Feature Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 31 Agenda Setting and Decision Making Features ........................................................................ 32 Other Data Collected ................................................................................................................. 34 Findings......................................................................................................................................... 35 Overview of the United States’ Parties ..................................................................................... 35 The United States’ Major Parties .............................................................................................. 36 The United States’ Minor Parties .............................................................................................. 38 iii E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES Overview of Sweden’s Parties .................................................................................................. 40 Sweden’s Major Parties ............................................................................................................. 41 Sweden’s Minor Parties ............................................................................................................ 42 Direct Democracy Parties.......................................................................................................... 44 E-Democracy Features .............................................................................................................. 47 Overall Quality of Websites ...................................................................................................... 49 Percentages of Features by Direction of Communication ......................................................... 50 Types of E-Democracy Evident in the Websites ...................................................................... 51 Discussion ..................................................................................................................................... 54 Question 1: How does the presence of interactive features on major political party websites in the United States compare to that of Swedish political party websites when measured by the facilitation of three-way communication?................................................................................. 54 Question 2: How does the presence of interactive features compare between major and minor political parties’ websites? ........................................................................................................ 56 Question 3: How do the direct e-democracy, or net-party websites compare to the rest in terms of interactivity? ......................................................................................................................... 57 The Countries Compared .......................................................................................................... 59 Question 4: Do the source and level of resources available to a party play a role in determining the quality of the party websites? .............................................................................................. 59 Policy Recommendations.............................................................................................................. 62 Funding Political Parties ........................................................................................................... 62 Incentivize Direct Democracy within Political Parties ............................................................. 64 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 65 Limitations of the Study ............................................................................................................ 66 Future Work .............................................................................................................................. 67 References ..................................................................................................................................... 69 iv E-DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTY WEBSITES List of Tables and Figures Figure 1: Models of E-Democracy ................................................................................................. 9 Figure 2: Six-Part Model of Cyber-Interactivity .......................................................................... 15 Figure 3: Revised User-to-User Interactivity Model .................................................................... 18 Table 1: Features Analyzed .........................................................................................................