E-petitioning as Online Collective Action in We the People: The Case of the Legalization of Marijuana in the US.

The purpose of this research is to find further evidence that e-petitioning is a form of online collective action. From 2011- 2020, individuals have been able to express their policy preferences on We the People (WtP), the first web-enabled petitioning system for the US federal government. This Internet-based platform created by the Obama Administration allowed people to create and/or sign petitions and solicit support for policy suggestions. Using WtP petition data, this case study examines a set of petitions that were initiated by NORML, a national organization that advocates for marijuana law reforms, and other organizations starting the day WtP was launched on 9/22/2011 that include policy suggestions relating to marijuana legalization. Using data mining techniques, namely market basket analysis and social network analysis, I found evidence of the mobilization of online “communities” for various policy suggestions to address the issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana in the US.