Digital citizen participation in policy conflict and concord: Evaluation of a web‐based planning tool for railroad infrastructure

Infrastructure siting has been shown to lead to high contestation across political systems. To counteract this, policymaking has introduced participatory instruments that were recently supplemented by web‐based tools. Drawing on theoretical perspectives on policy conflict, this paper investigates how different conflict intensities reflected in public discourses can shape citizens' perceptions on the potential and limitations of digital participation tools. To this end, we conducted a survey experiment with students who evaluated the potential functions of a web‐based tool considering criteria, such as transparency, efficiency, and inclusion of new expertise. Participants were randomly assigned fictitious project descriptions that used either conflict or concord words. The results show that while users see several positive influences of digital tools on increased transparency and inclusivity in participation processes, this perception is negatively influenced by a supposedly high level of conflict. Furthermore, digital public participation in railroad planning is perceived as contributing to decreasing escalation and strengthening the democratic quality of policy processes. However, digital participation can only develop its strengths if there are accompanying measures and discourses to secure trust. In addition, the tool's potential seems to be higher in less escalated conflict situations and fully escalated situations than in asymmetrically escalated conflicts. 摘要 事实证明，基础设施选址会导致政治系统之间的激烈争论。为解决这种争论，决策引入了参与性工具，近期又补充了基于web的工具。基于政策冲突的理论视角，本文研究了公共话语中反映的不同冲突强度如何影响公民对“数字参与工具的潜力和局限性”的感知。为此，我们对学生进行了一项调查实验，这些学生评价了一项基于web工具的潜在功能，衡量了透明度、效率和“融入新专业知识”等标准。参与者被随机分配了虚构的项目描述，后者使用了政策冲突或政策协调的语言。结果表明，虽然用户观察到数字工具对“提高参与过程中的透明度和包容性”一事产生了一些积极影响，但这种感知受到了所谓的高度冲突的负面影响。此外，铁路规划中的数字公共参与被认为有助于减少事态升级并加强政策过程的民主质量。然而，只有当存在相应的措施和话语来确保信任时，数字参与才能发挥其优势。此外，比起不对称的冲突升级情境，该工具在冲突升级较少的情境和冲突完全升级的情境下的潜力似乎更高。 Resumen Se ha demostrado que la ubicación de la infraestructura genera una gran controversia entre los sistemas políticos. Para contrarrestar esto, la formulación de políticas ha introducido instrumentos participativos que recientemente se complementaron con herramientas basadas en la web. A partir de perspectivas teóricas sobre conflictos de políticas, este artículo investiga cómo las diferentes intensidades de conflicto reflejadas en los discursos públicos pueden moldear las percepciones de los ciudadanos sobre el potencial y las limitaciones de las herramientas de participación digital. Con est