The changing notions and perceptions of state surveillance and their relation to political participation: an interdisciplinary, mixed‐method study Session: PARALLEL SESSION 10 – Democracy II Date and time: 26th April 2014. (11:00‐12:30) Author: Dimitris Tsapogas
Only a number of U.S.-based studies have tried so far to understand the relationship between state surveillance perceptions and political participation. In addition, despite the well-known theoretical and empirical connection between surveillance and individual, non-political behavior, research on political participation rarely incorporates government surveillance into individual-level empirical models (Best and Krueger 2011). The small amount of literature that is available on the subject contains sometimes opposing and mixed views, when it comes to state surveillance. My PhD research focuses on the changing notions and perceptions of citizens regarding state surveillance and the implications for offline and online political participation. This research seeks to answer how and to what extent does state surveillance modify citizens‘ willingness and behaviour in the context of political participation. The country of Greece was used as a European case study and all empirical data were collected from Greek respondents. Greece has had a long authoritarian surveillance legacy that aimed at socio-political control (Samatas 2004, 2005). Moreover, in a number of European surveys, Greek respondents appeared to show the highest levels of concerns about data protection, the highest levels of worries about leaving personal information online (Flash Eurobarometer No 225) as well as particularly low levels of trust in democracy, the government, the parliament and the police (European Social Survey 2010). Also, due to the on-going economic, political and social crises in Greece, civic and political participation are of crucial importance, constituting Greece as an important case study to focus on. Drawing on a mixed mode, national survey and a series of focus groups and interviews that recruited participants from the whole political spectrum, this paper is discussing the results of this study and is presenting a methodological framework and theoretical model that can be tested across other countries.
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