The Political Conflict Potential of Digitalization

• In Event: Poster Session: Foundations of Political Theory & Technological Change and Societal Conflict
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Technological Change and Societal Conflict

Abstract

Does digitalization-induced societal change provide the social basis for a nascent political conflict? Grounded in cleavage theory, we study to what extent there is fertile breeding ground among citizens for a developing political conflict caused by the digital revolution. We argue that digitalization creates winners and losers through the unequal distributions of digital skills and workplace automation risk. Analyzing focus groups in Switzerland, we first show that citizens express concerns about the digital society and their digital skill level, both for work and private life, which partially align with existing inequality. Building on these results, we move beyond studies of specific digitalization processes to conceptualize winners and losers of digitalization in a broad manner. Our multidimensional approach includes a socio-structural, human capital, and attitudinal dimension. In an original survey representative of the Swiss population, we develop precise indicators to operationalize our conceptualization of winners and losers and test whether they show preferences that align along this divide on digitalization vis-a-vis traditional policy issues. Our study serves two goals. It first benchmarks the impact of the digital revolution on the formation of political conflict from a cleavage perspective. Second, it analyzes the influence of digitalization on political preferences relative to traditional political divides, such as class and education, and on economic and cultural issues. Overall, this study sheds light on the potential of digitalization to shape political competition in an era of increasingly rapid changes due to the ever-growing adoption of path-breaking digital technologies.

Authors

• Alvaro Canalejo Molero, University of Lucerne

• Alexander H. Trechsel, University of Lucerne

• Mathilde M. van Ditmars, University of Lucerne