Electronic Democracy

Many advocates of deliberative democracy see in the Internet a new opportunity for the development of public spaces, public spheres, and places where deliberation can take place. An important element of the notion of the public sphere in general and of deliberation specifically, is the quality of the debate. In the past decade, many studies have been conducted to evaluate online discussions in light of the ideal notion of the public sphere. However, a wide gap exists between theoretical approaches and the actual operationalization of such theories for empirical research. In an attempt to bridge this gap we develop a method for examining the extent to which Internet forums meet the normative requirements of rational-critical debate, reciprocity, and reflexivity. The methodological approach consists of a textual analysis of the contributions made to an online forum. The coding scheme presented in this article is based on a case study (UK Online) and guided by the theoretical notions of deliberative democracy.

Talking politics online is not exclusively reserved for those spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. However, past net-based public sphere research has focused mostly on political spaces thereby neglecting an array of other genres. The aim of this article is to move beyond politically oriented communicative spaces by investigating political talk within the British reality TV discussion forum Wife Swap. The purpose is to see whether a forum dedicated to reality TV provides the communicative space, content, and style for politics that extends the public sphere. The central question is whether it fulfils the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation. Moreover, the analysis moved beyond a formal notion by investigating how expressives influence the more traditional elements of deliberation. The findings revealed that Wife Swap participants engaged in political talk that was often deliberative. Moreover, it was a space where the use of expressives played a key role in enhancing such talk.

Although television has been traditionally the main channel of mass communication between candidates and electors, social media has emerged as a new channel, becoming a relevant platform where a dynamic flux of information is shared by electors and candidates.The role of social media can be considered from a classical perspective, in other words, as a tool or asset to be managed. Or, it can also be viewed as a new dimension of development that encourages political participation. Considering the Barack Obama's 2007-2008 presidential campaign established an opening point in the use of new technologies of information and Internet in electoral campaigning throughout the world, the main objective of our work is to evaluate the role of social media in the last Chilean presidential campaign.

The progress of civilization, supported by the development of new technologies, leads to a series of social, economic and political changes. Information Society in their expectations and through access to knowledge, significantly affect the change in the model of democracy, causing a kind of return to the original forms of communication in relation citizen-government. It is accompanied by a shift of social and civic activism from real to virtual world. In the literature, the use of information and communication technologies in the democratic system is called: electronic democracy. Its pillar is a civic network democracy, implemented in various forms of online activity. A good example of this type of activity are the new social movements, as a result of a number of processes taking place in modern society. Many of them are characterized by high efficiency operation, and in recent years we have seen their significant impact on the functioning of political systems.
The basic research problem in this article focuses on the activities of the new social movements, especially of a political nature. Among the numerous examples of this type of movements, both in democratic and authoritarian regimes, I have chosen to analyse three: the Burmese National League for Democracy, organizations sites in South Korea and the protest movements in the Arab Spring. For this purpose, I used the method of case study and comparative analysis. The main research goal is therefore to present the role of new media in shaping the new social movements, and consequently their activities overlap changes in the political system.

This extensive unpublished paper, prepared in 2012 and not yet revised  since then, summarizes a series of my previously published papers on the same topic. On this page you can also find a pdf version, though it can only be downloaded and is not readable online, for some obscure conversion reasons.

The developing 'global' network of computers, popularly referred to as the net, has sparked enthusiastic claims that this new medium holds the potential to revolutionise democracy. Central to this rhetoric is the concept of cyberspace. This virtual meeting place, created by computer networks, enables public interaction and information sharing. It is seen as providing the basis for the revitalisation of the public sphere and democracy. This article explores this prospect in relation to the political economy of the medium's ownership and control. I argue that the net's democratic potential is being limited by the rapid colonisation of cyberspace by capital. As a result, more than universal access to the net will be required to fulfil its democratic promise. Spaces for deliberative interaction in cyberspace also need to be protected and enhanced. Yet, democratisation beyond cyberspace may not automatically follow. Researchers and policy makers must pay greater attention to the systemic impediments involved. This, I conclude, is prerequisite to realising the democratic potential of the net.

Artykuł dotyczy problemów związanych z demokracją elektroniczną. Odniesiono się w nim między innymi do idei demokracji. Wskazano na aspekty funkcjonowania e-demokracji.
The article outlines the development of ICT. It also attempts to analyze the impact of ICT on democracy, politics and society. Furthermore, it presents the positions of the most important investigators of the problem and attempts to review current definitions.

The emergence of the blockchain phenomenon affects various aspects of human life. Public sector reforms are also influenced by this trend. E-government leaders around the world are tentatively beginning to grasp the potential of blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, especially with regard to their promise to provide more decentralized information management solutions in government and make public digital platforms more transparent and efficient. Software developers around the world have come up with a range of digital solutions to accelerate these reforms. Given the multidimensional nature of e-government, it is interesting to understand in which areas blockchain has the potential to promote innovation, what processes and procedures can be automated using blockchain technology, and what illustrative examples of government efficiency can be observed in this area.

O tema da participação política, como todo mundo sabe, é um dos mais tradicionais da agenda de pesquisa sobre a democracia. No mesmo diapasão, o conjunto de temas que relacionam participação política civil e internet - ou, num quadro mais amplo, participação, engajamento cívico e tecnologias para comunicações digitais online - tem sido consideravelmente visitado nas últimas duas décadas. Falo de um “conjunto de temas” porque, a rigor, trata-se de vários veios discursivos que, de um modo ou de outro, implicam ou consideram frontalmente o problema da participação política mediada por tecnologias digitais.

e-Government and e-Democracy constitute a central theme in information society policy at all levels: local, regional, national, European and even globally. To this direction, a variety of efforts have been made and many systems have been developed. This paper proposes a methodology for designing and implementing web-based services that can support e-Democracy practices. Furthermore, the paper presents and describes the effort made by a Greek political party to this direction, for the design and development of a unified framework for providing, supporting and managing e-Democracy services. The paper describes the actions taken and the work done according to the proposed methodology.

The crisis in Ukraine is an unprecedented OPPORTUNITY. Never before has there been such a global opposition to psychotic “political” intention than the global righteous indignation expressed relative to Putin’s psychotic unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Experiencing such a crescendo of humanitarian solidarity is extremely rare and fleeting, and it is only possible because of the technological Fourth Estate (the electromagnetic media-field) that has framed the political issues involved. There can be no question that the current crisis in Ukraine has global significance, and media-framing of this fact has been compelling. However, the technology of “psychological framing” with information and communication technologies (ICTs) has advanced much further than longstanding advertising techniques of coercion through target-market identification that still holds the media captive. Science has now established the fact that human perceptions of ontological “reality”—in a context of the electromagnetic (EM) unified field of quantum field theory (QFT)—have the structure of NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE.  In other words, reality has dramatic structure.  “An infinity of energetic resonances cavort in the form of “personal/collective dramas”. Good dramatic structure was defined by Plato who established the “framework” (character, exposition, lysis) that is a problem-solving formula that widely in use (Lakoff, G, 2008, 2002; Jacoby, 1973; Jung, C, 1933). The salient feature of Plato’s dramatic architecture is “plot” which unfolds from “exposition” (statement of a story’s problem) to lysis (resolution of the story’s problem) with adherence to “premise” (Schafer, SB, 2007; Glassner, A, 2004, p. 69).

The significance of this fact is that with the emergent media-age of virtual illusion, humans have the power to frame reality with the technological media—agency that should be attuned to FIRST CAUSE INTENTION (FCI). Proof of this fact can be stipulated because of the existence of the media-field that exemplifies this human creativity. What is not currently “known”, or yet deduced, is that this human creation—like a Jungian dream—can provide “meaningful insight” as to both human and divine PURPOSE. The media-field is structurally framed to accomplish meaningful insight about FIRST CAUSE INTENTION (FCI).  That divinely inspired FCI exists for the purpose of creating “responsible embodied transduction of EM energies” into an essentially humanitarian resonant quality in the dimension of material form.  The virtual media-field is the best example of this “embodied” purpose, but the toxic state of the media reflects a serious failure of responsibility for creating FCI COHERENT ENTRAINMENT (universal harmony).

Humanitarian craftsmen now have the responsibility to “intuit” FCI and to devise the “blueprint” (frame) for a Global Culture of Conscience (Soul). Currently, the media is structured to lead us into entropy (death), so change must be immediate. When mediated rhetorical dynamics are translated into the dynamics of physics and “coherent entrainment”, the DNA of First Cause media-framing becomes very specific and quantifiable. In-order to optimize the fleeting “opportunity” presented by the Ukrainian struggle, humanitarians must consciously accept the dynamics of EM coherent entrainment with the planetary Soul.

This chapter analyzes the negative impact as well as the positive contributions that new digital technologies may have and make on deliberative democracy. As for their negative consequences, five major threats are identified: i) a risk of suffering interferences and violations of our privacy rights and civil and political liberties, ii) the risk of manipulation of and domination in our democratic politics, both at the level of public deliberation and our voting systems, iii) the risk of growing social polarization, fake news and hate speech, iv) the risk of an unprecedented concentration of power in a few, mostly private or authoritarian, hands, and v) the risk of the growing complexity of our societies and of the challenges we globally face. As for the positive contributions, this chapter reviews some examples of how digital technology may strengthen our collective intelligence and our processes of political aggregation, deliberation and collaboration. This analysis comes, however, only in the last section (number 4) of the chapter, after having introduced the topic in section 1, having explained what the model of deliberative democracy is in section 2, and having examined in greater detail why the idea of collective intelligence is so relevant for deliberative democracy and which are its main elements or components in section 3.

Democracy has never been more popular. It is successfully practiced today in a myriad of different ways by people across virtually every cultural, religious or socio-economic context. The forty-five essays collected in this companion suggest that the global popularity of democracy derives in part from its breadth and depth in the common history of human civilization. The chapters include exceptional accounts of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, modern Europe and America, among peoples’ movements and national revolutions, and its triumph since the end of the Cold War. However, this book also includes alternative accounts of democracy’s history: its origins in prehistoric societies and early city-states, under-acknowledged contributions from China, Africa and the Islamic world, its familiarity to various Indigenous Australians and Native Americans, the various challenges it faces today in South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the latest democratic developments in light of globalization and new technologies, and potential future pathways to a more democratic world. Understanding where democracy comes from, where its greatest successes and most dismal failures lie, is central to democracy’s project of inventing ways to address the need of people everywhere to live in peace, freedom and with a say in the decisions that affect their lives.

El artículo está dividido en tres partes. En la primera, explicamos brevemente los rudimentos de la tecnología blockchain y sus aplicaciones más comunes para el Estado. En la segunda, analizamos las posibilidades que ofrece blockchain para la instrumentación de las elecciones a gobernantes y las votaciones en referéndum. En la tercera, analizamos los desafíos de esta tecnología para la transparencia de gobierno. Finalmente, se presentan las conclusiones.

Author is a researcher working in the educational project " E-Government 2.0 in Practice'' realized since 2014 under the European Commission's program ERASMUS+. The project developed innovative and interdisciplinary teaching curricula in the area of e-Government 2.0, offering a new quality of university education as regards the content provided and educational tools applied, in the subjects covering: Web 2.0 in public administration, particularly practical use of the ICT tools in the field of e-participation, e-consultations, e-petitions, e-democracy, crowdsourcing, collaborative decision-making, open data re-use etc. The knowledge database, the case studies, the new curricula, teaching methods and didactic tools have been created and are available for a free use for all interested universities. The paper includes the following subjects, reflecting the scope of work carried out in the project: identification of the contemporary political, social, technical and research trends in the e-Government 2.0 area, the key questions outlining an e-Government 2.0 framework, proposed typology of the e-Government 2.0 websites and internet applications, as well as information about access to the results of the project. The project results are available for all the interested educational organizations under creative commons license on the http://www.egov2.eu website. Every university can therefore implement the project results in the educational program.

A deepening political crisis in Europe is accompanied by increasing civil discontent which directly translates into decreasing trust in political systems and political outcomes deficit of legitimacy. It is already contributing to the emergence of potentially dangerous and exclusive policies as populism and Euroscepticism is on spectacular rise, endangering liberal democracies of the continent and the European regional project. Therefore, a search for political innovation that could effectively address these issues is excessively justified. This thesis seeks to offer a solution by investigating the possibilities to extend popular sovereignty of citizens via the better integration of technological advances into the political life of European states. Such intention could not only carry the possibility to nurse some of the most serious societal grievances but also would adopt the conduct of 21st century politics to the ongoing trends set out by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Kabupaten Sragen merupakan salah satu kabupaten yang menarik untuk dicermati dalam kaitannya dengan penyelenggaraan pemerintahan yang baik (good governance). Pertama, Kabupaten Sragen sampai tahun 2008 telah meraih sejumlah penghargaan terkait dengan penyelenggaraan pemerintahan. Kedua, Kabupaten Sragen termasuk salah satu dari sedikit daerah di Indonesia yang telah berhasil mengembangkan jaringan e-government sampai ke tingkat desa. Paper ini merupakan studi pendahuluan mengenai penyelenggaraan pemerintahan daerah di Kabupaten Sragen dengan menggunakan e-government. Pembahasan paper ditekankan pada substansi, implementasi, dampak, dan faktor pendukung keberhasilan dari kebijakan e-government di Kabupaten Sragen.

This article focuses on the technological affordances and use of Rousseau, the decision-making platform of the second largest Italian political party, the Five Star Movement. Crossing an empirical observation of the platform’s functionalities with data regarding its use and qualitative data collected during the 2016 and 2017 national meetings of the Five Star Movement, the essay argues that Rousseau supports an emerging “direct parliamentarianism,” which allows party members to entertain an ostensibly direct relationship with the party in public office, at the expense, however, of deliberative processes that may allow them to influence the party agenda. Thus Rousseau leaves the deliberative, and strictly parliamentary moment in the hands of elected representatives and party leaders, leaving to the party base the task of choosing between options that have been defined elsewhere.

El dilema de fondo atañe a la tentación de sustituir la democracia representativa por la tuitera. Porque si la tecnología nos puede facilitar en cuestión de pocos segundos el número de ‘likes’ que una actuación política genera en los electores, ¿para qué seguir con la ‘vieja’ normalidad de la democracia representativa, a veces imprevisible y penosa como el caso que nos ocupa? ¿Para qué elegir a un partido que trata de aunar intereses a menudo contradictorios (partido atrapaloto) para conseguir más votos, si los tuits (y similares) nos pueden facilitar la lógica situacional de saber cuántos ciudadanos apoyan una política o un candidato propuesto? Y de saberlo casi al momento.

The dramatic increase in the use of the World Wide Web and the Internet in government may foreshadow important changes in the nature of governance. A number of theorists have posited that the adoption of networked information systems is accompanied by inevitable shifts toward democratic government. Others argue that technologies are secondary factors in changes in levels of democracy or types of governance. Our article examines the openness of cabinet-level websites in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and post-communist countries as a measure of an important aspect of governance that has only recently been operationalized. It provides a brief review of other studies in this field and the directions in which they are heading. The article analyzes the effects of political, cultural, economic, and technical factors on openness of cabinet-level websites in OECD and post-communist countries. The question is whether the level of democracy and cultural legacies affect openness of electronic governments. The study employs statistical analysis of a comparative database of national-level public agency websites that is produced by the Cyberspace Policy Research Group (CyPRG). The dependent variable is based on transparency and interactivity scores and availability of cabinet-level websites. The independent variables include Freedom House and Polity indexes of democracy, historical legacy, religious tradition, and the GDP per capita and number of Internet users per 1,000 people. Regression analysis shows that democracy, historical legacies, level of economic development, and religious tradition affect openness of cabinet-level websites in OECD and post-communist countries. This study demonstrates need to distinguish between cyberdemocracy and “Potemkin e-villages,” that is, window-dressing, in electronic governments.

New e-participation services are heralded as an important means to achieve “citizen-centric government”. The project “Citizen-centric e-Participation” is a trilateral collaboration project between Sweden, Estonia and Iceland, combining research with networking to enhance e-participation in three countries. The project network includes partners from local governments, experienced researchers in the field as well as software companies that are exploring new possibilities and markets.
The project, which is running between 2012-14, is funded by Vinnova, Rannis, Nordforsk & Estonian Ministry for Economic Affairs and Communications. The main partners include Örebro University, Praxis Center for Policy Studies, Citizens Foundation, imCode Partner, the City of Reykjavik and Haparanda and Borås municipalities.
Engaging citizens in policy-making is an important aspect of the design and delivery of better public policies and a core element of what is sometimes called ”good government” or ”citizen-centric government”. Using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to gather and analyze public input is expected to stimulate public deliberation. The project explores links between standardized e-participation models and the particularities of local contexts.
This report presents case studies of the e-participation policy development in Sweden, Estonia and Iceland. The case studies give readers a background to the political context and policy as well as technological development in each country and present analyses of important e-participation initiatives in each country.

We suggest a set of procedures utilising a range of technologies by which a major democratic deficit of modern society can be addressed. The mechanism, whilst it makes limited use of cryptographic techniques in the background, is based around objects and procedures with which voters are currently familiar. We believe that this holds considerable potential for the extension of democratic participation and control.

Ever since the advent of the Internet, political communication scholars have debated its potential to facilitate and support public deliberation as a means of revitalizing and extending the public sphere. Much of the debate has focused on the medium’s potential in offering communicative spaces that transcend the limitations of time, space and access (and the traditional mass media) whereby open communication, deliberation and exchange of information among the public can prosper. Following the initial enthusiasm over the possibilities of a more interactive and deliberative electorate, along with the cyber-pessimist response, a growing body of rich empirical research into online deliberation has arisen in its wake. In search of online deliberation, scholars have conducted a broad range of investigations, developing several prominent directions in the field. One popular line of research has been the study of informal political talk through the lens of public sphere ideals.The aim of this chapter is to detail and discuss this growing body of research and its significance. First, I begin by discussing what scholars mean by political talk and why it is thought to be essential for (a more deliberative) democracy. Following this, the major findings to date are set out focusing specifically on three of the most common features of political talk investigated by scholars in the field. I discuss scholarly disagreement and offer my thoughts and critical reflection on the topic. Finally, the chapter ends with several recommendations for future research into informal political talk in the Internet-based public sphere.

This paper examines the theoretical approaches to electronic democracy, its
significance and the possibilities in its broad and restricted realization during
the process of e-government creation and the development of e-governance.
The methodological basis of the investigation is an analysis of the theoretical
foundations and the international practices applied in order to involve citizens
in the decision-making process and data about the electronic participation of
citizens gathered by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social
Affairs. The practical significance of the present investigation is to define the
correlation between the real state of the electronic participation of citizens and
the proclaimed purposes of electronic democracy. The problems that make the
circumstances around the formation of electronic democracy in Ukrainian more
complicated have been defined and directions for the development and
improvement of electronic interaction have been offered.

English: This work investigate how an information system for social movements and local development processes can contribute to the construction of collective proposals among its many participants. For this, it brings a reflection on several concepts, namely: Critical Theory of Technology, Solidarity Technology, Free Software, Participation, Cooperation, Consensus, Participatory Management, Democracy (Representative, Participatory, Direct and Edemocracy), Action Research, Participatory Design and Agile Methodology. Concluding, seven guidelines for the development of these information systems are presented from the dialogue between these concepts and analysis of Community Web Portal of Cidade de Deus (www.cidadededeus.org.br) and the information system of the Solidarity Economy movement Cirandas (www.cirandas.net), namely: (1) guidance for user goals, (2) collective administration, (3) active moderation, (4) flexibility, (5) evaluation of participation, (6) transparency, and (7) emancipatory process.

Portugues: Este trabalho busca responder como um sistema de informação voltado para movimentos sociais e processos de desenvolvimento local pode contribuir para a construção de propostas coletivas entre seus diversos participantes. Para isso, traz uma reflexão sobre diversos conceitos, a saber: Teoria Crítica da Tecnologia, Tecnologia Social, Software Livre, Participação, Cooperação, Consenso, Gestão Participativa, Democracia (Representativa, Participativa, Direta e Virtual), Pesquisa-Ação, Participatory Design e Métodos Ágeis. Ao fim, sete diretrizes para o desenvolvimento desses sistemas de informação são apresentadas a partir do diálogo entre esses conceitos e a análise do Portal Comunitário da Cidade de Deus (www.cidadededeus.org.br) e do sistema de informação do movimento da Economia Solidária Cirandas (www.cirandas.net), a saber: (1) orientação por objetivos dos usuários; (2) administração coletiva; (3) moderação ativa; (4) flexibilidade; (5) avaliação da participação; (6) transparência; e (7) processo emancipatório.

O artigo trata da discussão sobre o emprego da internet como meio e ambiente de práticas políticas destinadas a reforçar a participação dos cidadãos no campo político. Primeiro, apresenta-se a idéia da internet como meio de participação popular no debate público, como
instrumento de expressão de grupos da sociedade civil e de pressão sobre os produtores de decisão política e como recurso para a
intervenção do público na esfera da decisão política. Examina-se, em seguida, a idéia de democracia digital ou da internet como possibilidade de incremento das práticas e oportunidades democráticas. Por fim, discutem-se os limites e as possibilidades da democracia digital no nosso sistema político.

The aim of this study then is to move beyond politically oriented discussion forums by also examining the  communicative practices of participants within fan-based forums. The focus is on how participants talk politics in online informal discussion forums. By informal discussion forums, I am referring to those forums that are not bound to any formal predetermined agendas such as e-consultations or e-juries, but rather to forums who’s primary purpose is to simply provide a communicative space for talk, e.g. fan-based discussion forums, news media message boards, and Usenet newsgroups. By political talk, I am referring to everyday, informal, political conversation carried out freely between participants in these online spaces, which is often spontaneous and lacks any purpose outside the purpose of talk for talk sake, representing the practical communicative form of what Habermas (1984, p. 327) calls communicative action. It is through this type of everyday political talk whereby citizens achieve mutual understanding about the self and each other, and it represents the fundamental ingredient of the public sphere.

The purpose of this study first is a normative one; it is to examine the democratic quality of this fundamental ingredient, of the communicative practices of participants within online discussions forums in light of a set of normative conditions of the public sphere. It is also to move beyond a formal notion of deliberation (beyond rationality via argumentation) by providing a more accurate account of how the political emerges in online discussions (particularly within nonpolitically oriented forums), how people actually talk politics in those discussions, and finally, how alternative communicative forms such as humor, emotional comments, and acknowledgements interact and influence the more ‘traditional’ elements of deliberation (e.g. rational-critical debate and reciprocity). Consequently, I present the following three research questions, which are central to this study:

To what extent do the communicative practices of online political discussions satisfy the normative conditions of the process of deliberation of the public sphere?

What role, if any, do expressives (humor, emotional comments, and acknowledgements) play within online political discussions and in relation to the normative conditions of deliberation?

How does political talk emerge in nonpolitically oriented discussion forums?

Together, the answers to these questions present a more comprehensive account of online political talk. They seek not only to offer insight into the quality of such talk, but also to provide a better understanding of its expressive and affective nature. Moreover, they seek to improve our understanding of how political talk occurs outside the realm of politically oriented discussion forums, and how it emerges in such communicative spaces. Therefore, in order to answer these questions and provide this insight, I examine and compare political talk within three online discussion forums of the Guardian, Big Brother, and Wife Swap. A comparative study design with normative, descriptive, and explorative characteristics was utilized. A content analysis with both qualitative and quantitative features was employed as the primary instrument for examination. Additional textual and network analyses were carried out to provide more depth to the investigation.

Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin itmesi ile toplumsal dönüşüm yaşanmaktadır.
Bilgi toplumu şartları; internet aracılığıyla genişleyen siyasal katılım imkanları, çevrimiçi kamusal uygulamalar bütünü olarak e-devlet ve demokrasinin elektronik dönüşümü ile
siyasal alana yansımaktadır. Bireylerin BİT erişim imkanları ve yetenekleri arasındaki
farktan kaynaklanan sayısal uçurum, e-demokrasinin önündeki en önemli tehdidi
oluştururken, kamu otoritesinin gözetim araçlarının da güçlendiği gözlenmektedir.
Buna karşılık, yeni teknoloji sayesinde bilginin dolaşımının önündeki birçok engelin
kalktığı, maliyetin düştüğü ve etkileşim platformlar sayesinde toplumsal örgütlenmenin
kolaylaştığı görülmektedir. BİT kullanımının yaygınlaşması ile demokrasiler kendiliğinden
e-demokrasiye dönüşmeyeceği gibi, e-demokrasinin temsili demokrasinin sorunlarını
çözüp çözemeyeceği de tartışmalıdır. Bu çalışma ile e-demokrasinin sunduğu umutlar ve
yol açtığı riskler tartışmasına katkı sağlanmak amacı güdülmüştür.

There is a social transformation spurred by the information and communications
technologie: Enlarging political participation via Internet and on-line public practices are
the reflections of e-state and e-democracy on the political area. Digital divide, which is
emerged from the difference among individuals about opportunities to access ICT, is the
most important threat to realize e-democracy ideal. In addition, public surveillance means
are gaining strength. On the other hand, obstacles to reach information are disappearing,
costs are reducing and platforms to interact are developing. All these factors are paving
the way for easier organization of societie: ICT usage doesn’t mean that all democracies
will transform into e-democracies or e-democracy will solve problems of representative
democracie: In this study it is supposed to contribute the argument about opportunities and
risks of e-democracy.

In this paper I briefly discuss the preconditions of democratic e-governance, which in this context emphasizes the role of technology in government-citizen interaction designed along the principles of participatory democracy. I will first provide some clarification to the terminology of this research field and outline the connections between the concepts of e-Governance, e-Government and e-Democracy. The next section discusses structures and processes of democratic e-Governance. Lastly, issues of e-participation as a core of democratic e-Governance are outlined followed by a discussion of the development towards ubiquitous network democracy as a possible future direction of e-Democracy. The main message of this presentation is to highlight the need to conceptual clarity of this field as well as a need to focus on transformative power of ICTs in reinventing our conceptions and practices of democratic governance.

For a sound and working democratic system, citizen engagement in politics is of utmost importance. Especially in today’s world where international politics are interrupted by populist political elites and authoritarian governments, civic engagement functions as an essential element of check and balance mechanism in the overall political system. As the opportunities for political participation increase, participation means and channels diversify every day.

In this context, political participation research in modern world is very promising in terms of understanding contemporary debates and key concepts of political participation. This book contains eight articles on political participation and current debates from theoretical examinations to specific practices. The articles prepared with different perspectives from different parts of the world make an academic contribution in the light of concepts that have changed meaning and changed globally.