Democracy, trust and influence¶

Missing cards

Two sources have no PDF and no card: karlsen2021valg (Karlsen 2021) and oecd2022trust (OECD 2022). The page builds on the other eight. Richardson et al. 2019 has only been read through the introduction.

Primary document in the cluster

Sivertsen et al. 2026 (FFI) is a primary document. The page only describes what the report itself says and how it refers to other sources, without analysing it.

What the cluster is about¶

The cluster is the largest and most mixed [T]. It has three threads.

The first concerns trust and transparency in democracy. Warren 2018 distinguishes between trust in the administration and trust in political institutions, and argues that democratic participation should involve ‘engaged distrust’ (pp. 76–80) [U]. Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2013 find that transparency has a subdued and sometimes negative effect on trust (p. 575) [U].

The second concerns data, elections and political influence: Cambridge Analytica, micro-targeting and the regulation of parties' use of data (Hankey et al. 2018; Richardson et al. 2019; Steiger 2019) [U]. Aytac 2024 concerns democratic control of platforms' algorithms (p. 1431) [U].

The third concerns foreign information influence. EEAS 2025 is an EU report on FIMI (p. 1) [U], and the FFI report maps foreign influence around the 2025 Norwegian parliamentary election (Sivertsen et al. 2026, p. 3) [U].

Sources in the cluster¶

Source	Main claim in one sentence	Role in the cluster (central/peripheral)
Warren 2018	The paradox of democracy and trust disappears when forms of trust are distinguished (p. 76) [U]	Central for trust [T]
Grimmelikhuijsen et al. 2013	Officials should expect no wonders from transparency (p. 584) [U]	Central for transparency [T]
Steiger 2019	Big data operations can undermine democracy, and international law can protect against this (p. 74) [U]	Central for privacy and democracy [T]
Hankey et al. 2018	Political influence with data is only possible because personal data is collected and sold at scale (p. 11) [U]	Central for data and elections [T]
Richardson et al. 2019	Political actors' largely unregulated use of personal information is no longer acceptable (p. 14) [U]	Frame for Steiger [T]
Aytac 2024	Citizen boards can control Big Tech's algorithms without giving the state too much power (p. 1431) [U]	Peripheral [T]
EEAS 2025	FIMI is a strategic instrument in threat actors' foreign policy (p. 38) [U]	Role unclear [T]
Sivertsen et al. 2026 (FFI)	Primary document: mapping of foreign influence around the 2025 election (p. 3) [U]	Primary document
Karlsen 2021	No PDF	–
OECD 2022	No PDF	–

Shared questions and assumptions¶

Several sources link privacy directly to democracy: Steiger through seven elements of democracy (pp. 80–81), Hankey et al. by calling data rights the next generation of human rights (p. 43), and Richardson et al. by saying regulation is needed to protect public discourse and participation (p. 14) [U].
Cambridge Analytica is a shared case for Hankey et al. (pp. 14–17), Richardson et al. (pp. 1–2) and Steiger (pp. 74–78) [U].
Platforms are central. Hankey et al. write that there are no democratic checks on the platforms' power (p. 18), and Aytac that Big Tech's algorithms give a small elite control over visibility (pp. 1434–1435) [U].
Trust and transparency are treated in Warren and Grimmelikhuijsen et al., but not linked there to data or privacy [T].

Disagreements and tensions¶

The role of the state: Checked against the source texts:
- Steiger describes a state duty to protect individuals against human rights violations by private actors (pp. 86–87) [U].
- Richardson et al. write that some European governments are more actively defending democratic participation (p. 13) [U].
- Aytac warns that extensive state involvement might jeopardise the autonomy of the digital public sphere as much as Big Tech (p. 1437) [U].
- The sources thus assess the state's role towards the platforms differently, but they do not debate each other [T].
Transparency and trust: Checked against the source texts:
- Warren writes that public trust requires public transparency and transparent systems of oversight (p. 90), but also that transparency has costs when it is made to carry the weight of institutional norms (p. 91) [U].
- Grimmelikhuijsen et al. find experimentally that transparency has a subdued and sometimes negative effect on trust (pp. 575, 584) [U].
- Both suggest that transparency is not enough on its own, but with different methods (conceptual analysis and experiment) [T].
Data protection law as the answer: Hankey et al. write that data protection alone is insufficient (p. 40), but that the existing data rights regime is a primary solution and that the shift needed is cultural (p. 43) [U]. Steiger argues that democracy must be considered in addition to privacy (pp. 78, 93) [U]. These are different emphases, not a direct disagreement [T].

Use of concepts¶

Trust: Warren defines trust as a judgement that another is motivated and competent to act in one's interests without being monitored (p. 75) [U]. Grimmelikhuijsen et al. use a psychological definition involving willingness to accept vulnerability (p. 577) [U].
Transparency: Grimmelikhuijsen et al. define transparency as available information that allows outsiders to monitor an organisation (p. 576) [U].
FIMI: EEAS defines FIMI as a mostly non-illegal pattern of manipulative behaviour (p. 4) [U]. The FFI report adopts the same definition and specifies it further (Sivertsen et al. 2026, pp. 13–14) [U].
Micro-targeting: Richardson et al. define political micro-targeting as data-driven voter research combined with personalised political advertising (p. 4) [U].
No separate concept pages have been made yet (docs/begreper/).

Connections to other clusters¶

Privacy and law: Steiger and Hankey et al. treat privacy as a human right (Steiger 2019, p. 88; Hankey et al. 2018, p. 34) [U]. See personvern-rett.
Governance and surveillance: Steiger and Hankey et al. use the NSA and Snowden (Steiger 2019, pp. 74–78; Hankey et al. 2018, p. 25) [U]. See styring-overvaking.
State and politics: NOU 2022:11 cites a 2022 OECD report on trust in Norway (p. 61, note 14) [U]. Whether this is oecd2022trust needs checking [T].

Document chain between the sources¶

The FFI report cites the third EEAS FIMI report (Sivertsen et al. 2026, p. 9, note 6) and uses the EEAS definition of FIMI (p. 13) [U].
Steiger 2019 is chapter 5 of the book introduced by Richardson et al. 2019 (Richardson et al. 2019, pp. vi, 8) [U].
Hankey and Naik also wrote chapter 11 of the same book (Richardson et al. 2019, p. 12) [U].

Possible use in the thesis [T]¶

Warren and Grimmelikhuijsen et al. can help in reading how the documents use trust and transparency, which recur in NOU 2022:11 [T].
The link between privacy and democracy (Steiger, Hankey et al., Richardson et al.) can be compared with how Norwegian documents justify privacy [T].
The information influence thread (EEAS, FFI) is further from the research question on private data. Whether it belongs depends on how Rebekka delimits the thesis [T].

Open questions for Rebekka¶

Do you have the PDFs for Karlsen 2021 and OECD 2022?
Are EEAS 2025 and the FFI report objects of analysis or sources of knowledge (checkpoint 0)?
Should the cluster be split in two: trust and transparency on one side, data and elections on the other?
Which chapters of Richardson et al. do you use?