“Digital democracy” covers everything from publishing a decision to letting people make one. The four rungs are very different amounts of power, and most projects sit on the bottom two.
Told, asked, heard, deciding — the four rungs and how much power each one actually hands over.
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| Rung | What happens | The test |
|---|---|---|
| Told | The decision is published | Nothing about it lets anybody take part |
| Asked | Views collected before deciding | Is there a published response saying what changed? |
| Heard | Proposals come from people | Can somebody put a question on the agenda? |
| Deciding | A binding vote on a real budget or rule | Can the outcome be overturned by whoever ran it? |
The rung that matters most: Setting the question is a larger share of the power than answering it. A consultation on somebody else's three options hands over much less than it appears to.
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Who takes part is as important as how much power they get. Digital participation is not evenly distributed, and a badly designed process amplifies whoever already had the most say.
Real-world examples you can name
Decidim, Barcelona's participation platform — launched 2016, open source
A platform where residents propose, debate and vote on city policy, with proposals traceable from submission to decision. Its code is open, so other cities run their own instances.
Who it affected: Residents who would not attend an evening meeting but will use a phone.
Estonia's internet voting — national use since 2005; over half of votes cast online by 2023
Voters authenticate with a national ID card or mobile ID and may re-vote online during the advance period, with the last vote counting and a paper ballot overriding it. Critics argue verifiability and coercion remain unsolved.
Who it affected: Estonian voters, and every state weighing convenience against verifiability.
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica — disclosed March 2018; US FTC penalty July 2019
A personality-quiz app collected data not only from the people who installed it but from their friends, reaching tens of millions of profiles, which were then used to target political advertising. Facebook was fined US$5 billion by the FTC over its privacy practices.
Who it affected: Facebook users who never installed the app, and voters targeted by the campaigns.
What skews who takes part
- Time. Reading a proposal and writing a response takes an hour that not everybody has.
- Confidence. People who expect to be listened to participate more, which is itself unevenly distributed.
- Language and format. A consultation written in official language selects its own respondents.
- Visibility. People only respond to what they see, and what they see is ranked by something outside the process.
How this is tested — HL asks you to design or judge a participation process, and the ladder is the framework that makes that precise. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 Section B — extended response
- Extended response on digital democracy
- Concepts — power, identity — named explicitly
Paper 3 — the intervention paper
- Recommend a participation mechanism for a described decision
- Justify the rung you chose, and why not higher
The trap: calling rung two rung four: Most projects consult and are described as letting people decide. Naming your rung honestly is worth more than claiming a higher one.
Explain one reason why an online consultation may hand over less power than it appears to.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Recommend one way a city could give residents real influence over local spending, and justify it.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.