The current momentum of digitization in administration, the welfare state, and public services is often framed as a necessity for modernization. At the same time, there are growing indications that so-called “digital by default” strategies, automated decision-making systems, and mandatory online authentication are creating new axes of exclusion. Against this backdrop, this paper reconstructs the “digital underclass” as a renewed figure of social inequality: not primarily as a deficit of individual subjects, but as the result of institutional implementation logics, normative settings, and infrastructural prerequisites that selectively enable or even deny access. However, the research subject focuses on three analytical complexes: (1) accessibility standards and their scope, (2) enforced digitalization as a mode of governance and organization, and (3) the justifiability of a human right to analog participation as a counter-principle to the de facto lack of alternatives to digital access. In this context, methodologically, the contribution is based on an internationally oriented research overview that synthesizes empirical studies on digital exclusion, political science work on digital governance, and legal and standards-related contributions on accessibility. Moreover, the evaluation focuses on the tensions between formal norm validity and practical effectiveness, between promises of efficiency and participation risks, and between inclusion as a target formula and the real burdens arising from digital access obligations. Firstly, the results show that accessibility laws and standards—in particular WCAG 2.2, BITV 2.0, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), and EN 301 549, which serves as an operational ICT testing and procurement framework—formalize accessibility requirements but are often undermined in institutional implementation practice by fragmented responsibilities, weak enforcement, inadequate procurement and quality assurance routines, and the externalization of adaptation efforts to users. Thus, accessibility is asserted as a norm but is only realized to a limited extent as a reliable participation infrastructure. Secondly, it is clear that enforced digitization, particularly in welfare state contexts such as benefit administration, health, and counseling, increases administrative hurdles, creates dependencies on end devices and identity infrastructures, and promotes “self-optimization” practices; this means there is no effective reduction of complexity in line with DIN EN ISO 9241-110 regarding human-computer interaction principles, which results in the stabilization of social inequalities in a praxeological sense. Thirdly, also from a human rights and democratic theory perspective, it can be argued that analog access should not be treated as residual goodwill but as an independent condition for effective participation that also applies where digital systems are formally designed to be barrier-free. In practical terms, this study leads to a conclusion that is not only normatively necessary but also practically operationalizable in terms of institutional controllability: participatory digitization is not an add-on to the modernization of administrative or private-sector services but rather an infrastructure decision subject to legal, design, and governance requirements, whose legitimacy is measured by the criterion of real participation. It follows that digital transformation, insofar as it takes place in areas critical to participation, must be linked to binding multi-channel access: digital procedures must not act as exclusive gatekeepers but must be flanked by enforceable analog alternatives and low-threshold support paths to transform autonomy into a guaranteed opportunity rather than a condition of competence. Operationally, this paper is only feasible if organizations do not moralize about exclusion risks retrospectively but rather test them prospectively and in a consequence-oriented manner, namely, through standardized accessibility and exclusion tests that do not stop at formal conformity but rather capture usage interruptions, error risks, cognitive overload, and assisted third-party use as indicators of structural exclusion. The DIN EN ISO 9241 series of standards provides a consistent testing and justification framework for precisely this purpose: DIN EN ISO 9241-11 links the assessment to effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in the real context of use; DIN EN ISO 9241-110 specifies the minimum interaction-logical requirements of controllability, self-descriptiveness, conformity with expectations, and error tolerance; and DIN EN ISO 9241-210 commits institutions to a human-centered, iterative development and evaluation practice throughout the entire life cycle of interactive systems. From this perspective, participation should not be treated as a rhetorical value but as a governance mechanism: digital innovations must be translated into procedures that involve those affected as epistemically relevant actors and continuously align systems with non-discrimination, task appropriateness, social permeability, and democratically accountable accessibility in everyday practice. Otherwise, digitalization remains structurally vulnerable to transforming participation into a selective achievement of those who are already connected—and thus stabilizing precisely those patterns of exclusion that it purports to overcome programmatically.
Giovanni Vindigni (Sun,) studied this question.