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Artificial Democracy

Artificial Democracy

The Impact of Big Data on Politics, Policy, and Polity

Edited by Cecilia Biancalana and Eric Montigny

Published by: University of British Columbia Press

Imprint: UBC Press

200 Pages, 152.00 × 229.00 mm, 2 tables, 1 chart

Hardcover
9780774871013
Published: June 2025

£88.00

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Description
Contents
Authors

Democracy and data have a complicated relationship. Under the influence of big data and artificial intelligence, some democracies are being transformed, for better or worse, as relations between citizens, political parties, governments, and corporations are being redrawn.

Artificial Democracy explores the ways in which data collection and analytics, and their application, are changing political practices, government policies, and even democratic polities themselves. With an international roster of multidisciplinary contributors, this highly topical collection takes a comprehensive approach to big data's effect on democracy, from the use of micro-targeting in electoral campaigns to the clash between privacy and surveillance in the name of protecting society.

Artificial Democracy tackles both the dangers and the potentially desirable changes made possible by the symbiosis of big data and artificial intelligence. It explores shifts in how we conceptualize the citizen–government relationship and asks important questions about where we could be heading.

Introduction: Towards an Artificial Democracy? / Eric Montigny and Cecilia Biancalana

Part 1: Polity: A Regulatory Framework for a Democratic Use of Data and AI

1 Big Data and Electoral Democracy: The Epistemic Risk / François Blais

2 Big Data: A Collective Resource of Connected Worlds / Pierre Trudel

3 The Democratic Specifications / François Pellegrini

Part 2: Politics: Use of Data, Profiling, and Personalizing in Electioneering

4 The Closing of Ranks: The Collusion of Federal Political Parties and the Resistance to Privacy Regulation / Colin J. Bennett

5 Digital Data as a Lens on Voters' Lifestyle: Theoretical Perspectives and Insights / Catherine Ouellet and Yannick Dufresne

6 What's Behind Micro-Targeting? The Role of Party Members. Ethnography of a Data-Driven Campaign in Turin / Cecilia Biancalana

Part 3: Policy: Surveillance and Data Protection During the COVID-19 Pandemic

7 Surveillance Capitalism Meets the Pandemic: Surveillance Challenges to the "Social Contract" / David Lyon

8 The Use of COVID-19 Exposure Notification Apps in Canada: A Deep Dive in the Provincial Privacy Frameworks / Pierre-Luc Déziel

Conclusion: Democracy as an Artifact / Julia Rone and Cecilia Biancalana

Cecilia Biancalana is a researcher in political science at the University of Turin. She has worked at the Istituto Carlo Cattaneo in Bologna and the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Milan, and has served as a senior researcher at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.

Eric Montigny is a professor of political science at Université Laval and co-director of the Laboratoire international associé sur les partis politiques, la représentation et le développement durable (International Laboratory on Political Parties, Representation, and Sustainable Development) in collaboration with the Université de Lausanne. He is an associate researcher in the Groupe de recherche en communication politique (Political Communication Research Group) and the research chair on democracy and parliamentary institutions at Université Laval.

Contributors: Colin Bennett, François Blais, Pierre-Luc Déziel, Yannick Dufresne, David Lyon, Catherine Ouellet, François Pellegrini, Julia Rone, Pierre Trudel