Social media and local representation: an in-depth case study of municipal government in British Columbia

Ambition theory in political science has looked to explain why politicians choose to seek, or choose not to seek, election or reelection. In British Columbia, there has a been a high-profile public narrative surrounding the departures of elected officials at the local level in recent years. Much of this has focused on how social media has affected the experience of being an elected official. This case study interviews current and past elected officials to investigate this phenomenon in British Columbia, using a process-tracing approach to produce both empirical and theoretical inferences for ambition theory that have broad application across contemporary democracies. This dissertation tests three hypothesized causal mechanisms. The first is that politicians are experiencing online negativity, both directly and indirectly, and in turn this negativity is affecting how politicians weigh the cost-benefits of seeking re-election. The second is that the personal and public lives of politicians are increasingly blurred, leading to a loss of personal privacy for politicians. This is in turn affecting how politicians weigh the cost-benefits of seeking re-election. The third is that local politicians are changing how they gather, weigh, and respond to citizen feedback as a result of experiencing online negativity. The first is clearly moved towards confirmation in a Bayesian sense, the second is moved away from confirmation but replaced with an alternative mechanism, and the third is replaced with four more detailed alternative mechanisms. These findings provide important empirical and theoretical insights on their own, but they also make the case for a mechanism-based approach for future work on ambition theory. This study also reveals important insights into the role of traditional media institutions in preserving the democratic ideals of local government institutions. I utilize Robert Dahl's criteria for a democratic process to unpack the normative implications of these process-tracing insights for local democracy.