Beyond access: social, institutional and cultural barriers to digital citizen participation in a well-equipped European City
Résumé
The digitalisation of urban governance has generated substantial interest in the potential of digital tools to broaden citizen participation. Yet empirical evidence from well-equipped European cities reveals a persistent paradox: technical infrastructure alone does not translate into inclusive democratic engagement. This article examines the structural barriers to digital citizen participation through a qualitative case study in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium—a university city with advanced digital infrastructure and an active civil society, yet where the municipality’s first digital participatory initiative achieved only 4% citizen turnout. Drawing on 12 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups with 38 participants, this study identifies four empirical findings. First, a reversed generational paradox: younger citizens possess strong digital competencies but low participatory motivation, while older civically engaged citizens lack the digital literacy to access online tools. Second, institutional and algorithmic distrust—rather than technical barriers—constitutes the primary structural obstacle to participation. Third, hybrid participation combining digital and in-person modalities has emerged as a de facto practice driven by pragmatic adaptation rather than institutional strategy. Fourth, citizens express widespread resistance to the perceived dehumanisation of participatory processes, reflecting deep cultural attachments to human-centred democratic engagement. These findings address two interrelated research questions concerning the nature of these barriers and their structural interaction, guided by the overarching objective of developing the civic engagement divide as an integrative analytical framework. Together, these findings support the concept of a civic engagement divide—a fourth-order barrier to digital democratic inclusion specific to well-equipped urban contexts—with direct implications for e-participation design and urban governance policy.
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