Social media is used in a wide range of governance and civic engagement activities. In democracies, it is becoming a mainstream contributor to policymaking and political participation. Meanwhile, the literature on non-democratic states largely views its role as an influencer of bottom-up collective action or as a top-down channel for service delivery. In such "closed" settings, the influence of social media on policymaking is not thoroughly addressed. Do participatory social media applications affect policymaking in non-democracies, beyond the two prevailing views? This paper explores this question by extracting lessons from the UAE's "national brainstorming session"; a rare large-scale social media initiative for policy formulation in a region not much used to public engagement in governance. Based on an in-depth case study, the findings suggest that social media can influence policy formulation in non-democratic settings; highlighting an area for further research.
['Fadi Salem']
Brainstorming the Nation through Social Media: Emerging Open Governance in Closed Contexts?