Cite Tronconi, F., & Bailo, F. (2024). The other side of platform politics. Law-making and online participatory democracy in the Five Star Movement. Swiss Political Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12613

Our study on the Italian Five Star Movement’s Lex Eletti platform utilised a comprehensive dataset covering 516 draft bills, statistics on MPs’ and party members’ online interactions, and MPs’ legislative activity in Parliament from 2013 to 2020. We employed transformer models and sentence embeddings to compare the draft bills posted on Lex Eletti with their parliamentary counterparts. This method allowed us to measure the extent of changes resulting from the online participatory process and assess the engagement levels between MPs and ordinary party members.

The results revealed that Lex Eletti had minimal impact on the legislative process. Only a few MPs consistently used the platform, and user engagement significantly declined over time. Interaction between MPs and platform users was limited, with most bills reaching Parliament with little to no modifications despite the participatory process. The findings indicate that the Five Star Movement’s attempt to enhance democratic participation through Lex Eletti did not significantly affect the legislative activity, highlighting the challenges of integrating digital platforms into traditional law-making processes.