By Mateus Correia de Carvalho (PhD researcher, EUI) and Rachel Griffin (postdoctoral researcher, Duisburg-Essen University)

This post presents the report ‘Who speaks and who is heard?’ on civil society participation and participatory justice in DSA systemic risk management. In it, we examine the early practice of DSA participation to understand how it is unfolding in practice. Drawing on a qualitative empirical study with civil society actors of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and activities, we traced the mechanisms used by those actors, their perceptions about the usefulness of different spaces of participation, the strategic considerations determining when, where, whether, and how to participate, as well as the obstacles and inequalities hampering meaningful participation. Regarding these inequalities, we propose to understand them as a matter of participatory justice, making some recommendations to improve the overall inclusiveness of DSA participation in systemic risk management.