Civic Hackathons and Democratic Transformation: #WirVsVirus in Terms of Political Representation

Abstract

The article deals with the case of the civic hackathon #WirVsVirus, which was organised in reaction to the corona pandemic and officially endorsed by the federal government. It aims at discussing the normative implications of this technologically oriented political format. How are different social representation claims formulated and negotiated in and through civic hackathons? Our analysis shows that the hackathon constitutes a successful representative claim on behalf of civic tech initiatives vis-à-vis the administrative state. While this claim is primarily about establishing a new format for efficient and subsidiary problem solving in the wake of the crisis, the hackathon’s participatory promises are only partially fulfilled. The hackathon was rather open towards input from civil society and in this way attracted a great deal of public interest. Despite this fact, due to its technological-organizational structure and its competitive, solution-oriented procedure, decision-making power remains largely with the hackathon’s organizers.