‘Digital citizen vigilance’ makes republican theory real

Journal article

In the modern digital era public services and public administrators are increasingly accountable (often in real time) to citizens querying or critiquing policy mistakes or decisions or actions, or voicing complaints and demanding redress, directly in the sphere of public debate, using social media and networks. Citizens’ posts often relay compelling evidence to back up their messages, using photographs, videos, sound recordings, digital scanning of documents and materials. They can now also employ AI-synthesized data-collation and analysis of government messages and documents in ways that are hard to brush off or ignore. Critical messages often go viral or trigger ‘pile-ons’ of many others endorsing them, creating strong incentives for public administrators and politicians to resolve or counter them in real-time. These direct action capabilities of citizens have made a reality of a whole range of ‘republican virtues’ previously recommended by influential philosophical positions, but yet problematic because they were very high cost to enforce and very rarely effective. Because actions such as re-posting or ‘liking’ social media messages are low cost, political scientists have tended to underrate them as purely symbolic or non-serious. Yet since they are practicable for diverse interests and are unmediated, continuously operative, cumulative en masse and in real time, and are easily metricized, they have become far more visible and effective than the high-cost ‘legacy’ forms of participation celebrated by democratic theory. They can force even the most rash or ill-intentioned governments and administrations to admit truths, recognize misbehaviours and mistakes, and change course—as with the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and multiple online reactions against ICE killings of US citizens in Minneapolis in early 2026. Digital citizen vigilance can thus substantially improve policy delivery, social welfare and democratic responsiveness. Instead of only deploring the serious downsides of digital changes caused by disinformation and populism (greatly magnified wherever democratic ‘micro-institutions’ have been weakened), public administration scholars and practitioners alike need to recognize and positively embrace the enhanced capabilities for ordinary (well-intentioned) citizens to vigilantly hold public governance actors to account.

Authors: Dunleavy, P; Margetts, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Frontiers Media
• Journal: Frontiers in Political Science
• Volume: 8
• Article number: 1810168
• Publication date: 2026-05-26
• Acceptance date: 2026-03-30
• DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2026.1810168
• EISSN: 2673-3145
• ISSN: 2673-3145
• Language: English
• Keywords: citizen redress; citizen participation; digital government; democracy; public administration; public management and governance; social media; republican theory