Usages of an E-participation Platform by Legislators: Lessons from the French Parliament

The article intends to advance the study of e-participation in renewed directions by focusing on a category of actors that has long been overlooked: elected politicians. It zeroes in on legislators who while key actors of representative democracy chose to be involved in an e-participation initiative. This article generates theoretical propositions on how they make use of e-participation platforms in their work as parliamentarians. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews about the main e-participation platform in France, Parlement & Citoyens, the article shows that parliamentarians’ usages of such participatory tools tend either towards a policy-oriented logic or a vote-seeking purpose. These usages can also be categorized as tending toward either a representative or a participatory democracy logic. The article concludes that if platforms are originally designed as online participatory alternatives to conventional legislative processes, they are chiefly used as adjuvants to traditional political representation practices