Sub-National Democracy and Politics Through Social Media

Th is book analyzes the impact of social media on democracy and politics at the subnationallevel in developed and developing countries. Over the last decade or so, socialmedia has transformed politics. Off ering political actors opportunities to organize, mobilize,and connect with constituents, voters, and supporters, social media has becomean important tool in global politics as well as a force for democracy. Most of the availableresearch literature focuses on the impact of social media at the national level; this bookfills that gap by analyzing the political uses of social media at the sub-national level.
Th e book is divided into two parts. Part One, “Social Media for Democracy” includeschapters that analyze potential contributions of social media tools to the realizing ofbasic values of democracy, such as public engagement, transparency, accountability,participationand collaboration at the sub-national level. Part Two, “Social Media inPolitics” focuses on the use of social media tools by political actors in political processesand activities (online campaigns, protests etc.) at the local, regional and stategovernment levels during election and non-election periods. Combining theoreticaland empirical analysis, each chapter provides evaluations of overarching issues, questions,and problems as well as real-world experiences with social media, politics, anddemocracy in a diverse sample of municipalities. Th is volume will be of use to graduatestudents, academicians, and researchers, in several disciplines and fi elds, such as publicadministration, political science, ICT, sociology, communication studies and publicpolicy as well as politicians and practitioners.