Reviewer: A
1) Is the subject matter relevant?
Yes
2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?
The paper is interesting and the focus on capabilities is productive. And as far
as I can tell, the relevant literature, including very recent one, is referenced.
What is perhaps missing is a more explicit discussion on the limitations of this
approach.
3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?
One problem is the phrasing of one of the questions, namely “What do these
capabilities tell us about resisting transitions more broadly?” What exactly is
to be resisted, the (digital) “transition” more generally, or the far-right using
the transition’s potential to further their agenda? The Q suggests the former,
the main argument the latter. This imprecision appears in the paper again and
again.
Perhaps the concept of “transition” should be bit clarified. A transition implies
the change from A to B. What what is A and what is B? Or, is this seen as
something more open, an IT-enabled social transformation whose direction is
contested? The article, IMHO, focuses on one conflict over the direction of
this transformation.
4) Is the article well written?
Overall, it’s not poorly written, but sometimes it’s a bit imprecise and inelegant, impeding the flow of reading. To paraphrase David Graeber. It’s not always “kind to the reader”.
“Political and social theorist Michael Edwards highlights three ways collective life can be understood as civil society (2014).” Wouldn’t it be easier to say, “… highlights three collective dimensions of civil society.”
“Technologists have their own myth of transition, disruption (Lepore, 2014)” this could be rephrased easily to be more elegant and easy-to read, eg. “.. their own myths of transition and disruption…”
“Finally, the substantive goal of this paper has been achieved.” I would leave out such formulation, because they sound a bit self-congratulatory. It’s for the reader, not the author, to decide of the paper managed to fulfill its goals.
5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?
The introduction is takes too long to provide an overview of the article. I propose to move the section on the socio-economic crises and its consequences to section II.
The structure of the paper is a bit convoluted. It might help to move section 2.3 further up, to clarify the perspective on IT and social change. Perhaps Langdon Winner is a bit too prominent here, given that the paper is quite old.
I would structure it like this: Intro, theories of transition, sociol-political background, info on Uplift. The we have all the context we need to proceed to the actual research.
Reviewer: B
1) Is the subject matter relevant?
The articles takes on the important task of understanding how civil society can mitigate the
harms of far-right extremism through collective action. By transforming this question into a case
study of Uplift’s Far Right Observatory, the article does important work of reflecting on how this
mitigation can begin. I was particularly impressed with the model presented at the end of the
paper where collective actions were broadly conceived as: the application of law, localizing acts
of content regulation, being attentive to the network of power between civil society organizations
and more established infrastructural and media institutions. The case of Uplift provided
interesting and unique data on how this model could be mobilized. However, the quality of the
writing and the structure of the paper prevents the significance of its contribution from being
readily understood.
2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?
After reading the first few pages of the paper, the context and the review of literature provided
led me to believe that the paper was focusing specifically on far-right activity. This was
confirmed by the concentration on exploring the conditions that facilitated its contemporary
emergence. However, the content of the empirical study is not about far-right activity itself.
Instead, the study is an examination of the capacity to observe and mitigate the harms of the far-
right. Because this is the primary site of study, it was surprising not to find a review of literature
of other similar organizations or even theoretical literature describing the necessity of such
organizations to maintain civil democracies. I think that shifting the emphasis of the literature
review towards organizations combating far-right extremism, rather than extremism itself, would
better prepare the reader for understanding Uplift’s novel project. What I did find intellectually
interesting was the content of Table 3. In fact, it was only after reading that table that I
understood how all the pieces of the article were intended to fall into place. I would suggest that
this table (or a comparable sentence / paragraph about it) should appear much sooner in the paper
as it answers the question that is not fully articulated in the beginning: What are the harms of far-
right activity to civil society?
3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?
Considering the comments concerning the literature review, it was difficult to assess the degree
to which Uplift is presenting unique capacities to mitigate the harms of far-right activity amongst
similar organizations. While there is a brief moment where it is related to other advocacy groups,
it would have been preferable to know how Uplift’s organizational structure, capacities, and
successes compare to these other groups.
4) Is the article well written?
Unfortunately, the value of the empirical study is hidden behind the significant number of typos,
incomplete sentences, and missing punctuation. While these issue exists throughout the paper,
most of the obvious errors occur in sections 1 and 2. In this regard, the paper requires an
attentive and careful process of proofreading by the author to finesse the structure and quality of
the paper’s sentences. These surface-level issues also extend into the organization of the paper as
a whole. It came as a surprise later on in the paper that the focus of the empirical study was not
just the organization Uplift, but specifically its Far-right Observatory — a term that only first
appears on page nine. The paper would be much more successful in communicating the value of
the study if it was restructured to highlight the Observatory from the very start. Both these
sentence-level and structural issues have made it difficult to assess the quality of the research
conducted and to understand precisely how the author came to their conclusions. This means that
even after a substantial effort to increase the quality of the writing, there may be further
methodological and theoretical concerns that would emerge.
5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?
I would recommend that the introduction needs to be significantly rewritten to make a clear
connection between the topic of mitigating far-right activity, the literature review that directly
supports the empirical study, and the study itself. Again, I think that this could be a valuable
contribution of research, but it needs a scaffold to support it.
Reviewer: C
1) Is the subject matter relevant?
Yes
2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?
Yes, the treatment of transition as a “negative” process that needs to be “stopped” is
interesting.
I think that a wider comparative analysis of similar initiatives and/or research work
would be important to include. Unfortunately, I cannot provide concrete references,
and I would say it is not enough to include such work as references, but comment on
their own results and how they compare with this very interesting case.
Perhaps there are also studies for the case of Uplift and others from different
disciplinary perspectives, e.g., anthropology or ethnography? I think it would be
interesting to include some discussion on the complexity of managing organizations,
the role of different actors, human relationships, etc. Also, perhaps work on more
“technical” questions regarding privacy and security for the type of digital solutions
discussed.
Finally, another important missing discussion in this paper, is the question of how to
complement resistance to collective action toward positive change. How Uplift sees
its role to this end?
3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?
It is a strong point of this paper the active involvement of the author in the case study
presented. However, this pauses some methodological questions and I think it would
be important to give some more information on the specific role of the author and thementioned discussions/interactions that led to the conclusions summarized in the
different tables.
And additional point that perhaps could be discussed:
The main “solution” proposed in this paper comes through a sort of “left” surveillance.
I understand the logic of it, but it could also backfire somehow if the protect society
from far-right extremism we should exercise a form of “left” surveillance.
4) Is the article well written?
The paper feels written in a rush. There is a lot of room for improvement in the writing
and structure.
5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?
I would reduce significantly the introduction and I would add more details on the “raw
data” leading to the presented tables. And ideally, also one more section comparing
Uplift with other case studies and commenting on the details of the exchanges
between the other like-minded organizations mentioned, MoveOn in the US,
Campact in Germany, 38 Degrees in the UK and GetUp! in Australia.
