Offline connections, online votes: The role of offline ties in an online public election

Abstract

Building democratic communities and fostering inclusive participation is challenging, especially in participatory organisations where governance and sustained contributions are critical. This study explores the dynamics of election participation within the peer-production project Wikipedia, a prime example of an online collaboration model of democratic organisation where democratically elected administrators wield special rights. While previous research on online governance has predominantly focused on online interactions, this study shifts the spotlight to the influence of offline interactions occurring at various gatherings and meetings. Using fixed effects models and large-scale observational data spanning 20 years of offline and online actions, this study finds significant effects of offline meeting participation on users’ voting behaviour. It makes use of novel data sources to emphasise the significance of offline relationships in shaping online (democratic) processes and shows that traditional findings of political science and election research regarding social capital and social networks hold within an online context.