From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human rights
The
spread of free information through the internet has encouraged freedom
and human development. The internet is used for promoting
human rights—including
free speech,
religion, expression, peaceful assembly, government accountability, and
the right of knowledge and understanding—that support democracy. An
E-democracy process has been recently proposed in a scientific article
for solving a question that has crucial importance for all humans in
the 21st century: "As planet Earth citizens, will you stop the climate
from warming?" The author proposes to use a cell-phone for answering
this question during the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo
2020.
Expanding democracy
The Internet has several attributes that encourage thinking about it as a democratic medium. The lack of
centralized control makes
censorship difficult. There are other parallels in the social design in the early days of the internet, such as the strongly
libertarian support for
free speech, the
sharing culture that permeated nearly all aspects of Internet use, and the outright prohibition on commercial use by the
National Science Foundation. Another example is the unmediated mass communication on the internet, such as through
newsgroups, chat rooms, and
MUDs. This communication ignored the boundaries established with
broadcast media, such as
newspapers or
radio, and with one-to-one media, such as letters or
landline telephones.
Finally, because the Internet is a massive digital network with open
standards, universal and inexpensive access to a wide variety of
communication media and models could actually be attained.
Some practical issues involving e-democracy include: effective
participation; voting equality at decision stage; enlightened
understanding; control of the agenda; and inclusiveness. Systemic issues may include cyber-security concerns and protection of sensitive data from third parties.
Improving democracy
Strictly speaking, modern democracies are generally representative
democracies, where the people elect representatives to make laws and
policies; they are not direct democracies, where the people decide
matters directly. They may be referred to as more or less "democratic"
depending on how well the government represents the will of the people. A
shift to E-democracy would resemble a change in the form of government
(from Republic to democracy) as much as an improvement in the existing
system.
Democracy in America has become reliant on the Internet because
the Internet is a primary source of information for most Americans. The
Internet educates people on democracy, helping people stay up to date
with what is happening in their government. Online advertising is
becoming more popular for political candidates and group's opinions on
propositions.
The Internet is the first place that most people look for information
and often the only place that they look. The reason for this, and
especially for younger voters, is that it is easy and reliable when used
correctly, thus lowering an individual's workload. This gives the user a
sense of instant gratification that is crucial in the era of
multitasking on computers. If the information is not easy to find then
most people will not look for it. Because the Internet is so
user-friendly, people are more likely to research and get involved in
politics. The Internet allows people to express their opinions about the
government through an alias, anonymously and judgment free.
Since a person can express himself anonymously and from the comfort of
his own home, the Internet gives incentive for people to participate in
the government. Because of the number of people who use the Internet, a
person who puts his ideas on a high-traffic website is capable of having
influence over a large number of people.
The Internet enables citizens to get and post information about
politicians, and it allows those politicians to get advice from the
people in larger numbers. This collective decision making and
problem-solving gives more power to the citizens and helps politicians
make decisions faster. This creates a more productive society that can
handle problems faster and more efficiently. Getting feedback and advice
from the American population is a large part of a politician's job and
the Internet allows them to function effectively with larger numbers of
people's opinions. With this heightened ability to communicate with the
public, the American government is able to function more capably and
effectively as a Democracy.
Generation X became
disillusioned that even large-scale public
protests such as the
UK miners' strike (1984–1985) were seen to fail a decade before
information technology became generally available to individual citizens.
E-democracy is sometimes seen as a remedy to the insular nature,
concentrated power, and lack of post-election accountability in
traditional democratic process organized mostly around
political parties.
Tom Watson, the
Deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party, said:
It feels like the Labour frontbench is further away from
our members than at any point in our history and the digital revolution
can help bring the party closer together ... I'm going to ask our NEC to
see whether we can have digital branches and digital delegates to the
conference. Not replacing what we do but providing an alternative
platform. It's a way of organising for a different generation of people
who do their politics differently, get their news differently.
Effects
"E-democracy
offers greater electronic community access to political processes and
policy choices. E-democracy development is connected to complex internal
factors, such as political norms and citizen pressures" and in general to the particular model of democracy implemented. E-democracy is therefore highly influenced by both internal factors to a
country and by the external factors of standard innovation and
diffusion theory.
People are pressuring their public officials to adopt more policies
that other states or countries have regarding information and news about
their government online. People have all governmental information at
their fingertips and easy access to contact their government officials.
In this new generation where internet and networking rule everyone's
daily lives, it is more convenient that people can be informed of the
government and policies through this form of communication.
In
Jane Fountain's (2001)
Building the Virtual State,
she describes how this widespread e-democracy is able to connect with
so many people and correlates it to the government we had before.
Fountain's framework provides a subtle and nuanced
appreciation of the interplay of preexisting norms, procedures, and
rules within bureaucracies and how these affect the introduction of new
technological forms... In its most radical guise, this form of e-
government would entail a radical overhaul of the modern administrative
state as regular electronic consultations involving elected politicians,
civil servants, pressure groups, and other affected interests become
standard practice in all stages of the policy process (Sage).
Cities in states with Republican-controlled legislatures, high
legislative professionalization, and more active professional networks
were more likely to embrace e-government and e-democracy.
Occupy movement
Following the
financial crisis of 2007–08 a number of social networks proposed demonstrations such as the
Occupy movement.
15-M movement
The
15-M Movement started in Spain and spread to other European countries. From that emerged the Partido X (
X Party) proposals in Spain.
Arab Spring
During the "Arab Spring,"
online activists led uprisings in a dozen countries across
North Africa and the
Middle East. At first,
digital media allowed pro-
democracy
movements to use the internet against authoritarian regimes; however,
these regimes eventually worked social media into their own
counter-insurgency
strategies. Digital media helped to turn individualized, localized, and
community-specific dissent into structured movements with a collective
consciousness about both shared grievances and opportunities for action.
Egyptian Revolution
On January 25 of 2011, mass protests began in
Cairo, Egypt, protesting the long reign of Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, the high unemployment rate, government corruption,
poverty, and
oppression
within society. This 18-day revolution did not begin with guns,
violence, or protests, but rather with the creation of a single Facebook
page which quickly gained the attention of thousands, and soon
millions, of Egyptians, spreading into a global phenomenon.
The internet empowered protesters and allowed for anyone with access to
the internet be involved in the democratization process of their
government. In order to have a democratic, free nation, all information
that can be shared, should be shared. Protestors communicated,
organized, and collaborated through the use of this technology with real
time, real impacts.
Technologies played an enormous role on the world stage during this
time. Even when the regime eliminated all access to the Internet in a
failed attempt to halt further political online forums, Google and
Twitter teamed up, making a system that would get information out to the
public without having access to the internet.
The interactivity of media during this revolution boosted civic
participation and played a monumental role in the political outcome of
the revolution and the democratization of an entire nation.
The revolution in Egypt has been understood by some as an example
of a broader trend of transforming from a system based on group control
to one of "networked individualism". These networked societies are
constructed post -"triple revolution" of technology, which involves a
three-step process. Step one in the "triple revolution" is "the turn to
social networks", step two: "the proliferation of the far-flung,
instantaneous internet", and step three: "the even wider proliferation
of always-available mobile phones".
These elements play a key role in change through the Internet. Such
technologies provide an alternative sphere that is unregulated by the
government, and where construction of ideas and protests can foster
without regulation. For example, In Egypt, the "April 6 Youth Movement"
established their political group on Facebook where they called for a
national strike to occur on April 6. This event was ultimately
suppressed, however; the Facebook group remained, spurring the growth of
other activist parties to take an online media route. The Internet in
Egypt was used also to form connections with networks of people outside
of their own country. The connections provided through Internet media
sources, such as Twitter allowed rapid spread of the revolt to be known
around the world. Specifically, more than 3 million tweets contained six
popular hashtags alluring to the revolt, for example, #Egypt and
#sidibouzid; further enabling the spread of knowledge and change in
Egypt.
Kony 2012
The Invisible Children's Kony 2012 video was released March 5, 2012,
initiating an online grassroots campaign for the search and arrest of
Joseph Kony.
Invisible Children, the non-profit organization responsible for this
video campaign, was founded on the mission to bring awareness to the
vile actions of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), located in Central
Africa, and the arrest of its leader, Joseph Kony. In the video, Jason
Russell, one of the founders of Invisible Children, says that "the
problem is that 99% of the planet doesn't know who [Kony] is" and the
only way to stop him is by having enough support from the people to
convince the government to continue the hunt for him.
So, Invisible Children's purpose for the video was to raise awareness
by making Kony famous through the ever-expanding market of social media
and to use the technology we have today to bring his crimes to light.
On March 21, 2012, a group of 33 Senators introduced a resolution
condemning "the crimes against humanity" committed by Joseph Kony and
the LRA. The resolution supports the continued efforts by the US
government to "strengthen the capabilities of regional military forces
deployed to protect civilians and pursue commanders of the LRA, and
calls for cross-border efforts to increase civilian protection and
provide assistance to populations affected by the LRA." Senator
Lindsey Graham,
a co-sponsor of the resolution stated that "When you get 100 million
Americans looking at something, you will get our attention. This YouTube
sensation is gonna help the Congress be more aggressive and will do
more to lead to his demise than all other action combined".
India Against Corruption 2011-12
India Against Corruption
(IAC) is an anti-corruption movement in India which was particularly
prominent during the anti-corruption protests of 2011 and 2012, the
central point of which was debate concerning the introduction of a Jan
Lokpal bill. During that time it sought to mobilize the masses in
support of their demands for a less corrupt society in India. Divisions
amongst key members of the IAC's core committee eventually led to a
split within the movement. Arvind Kejriwal left to form the Aam Aadmi
Party, while Anna Hazare left to form Jantantra Morcha.
Long March (Pakistan)
In December 2012, after living for seven years in
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, Qadri returned to Pakistan and initiated a political campaign.
Qadri called for a "million-men" march in Islamabad to protest against
the government's corruption.
On 14 January 2013, a crowd marched down the city's main avenue.
Thousands of people pledged to sit-in until their demands were met. When he started the long march from Lahore about 25,000 people were with him.
He told the rally in front of parliament: "There is no Parliament;
there is a group of looters, thieves and dacoits [bandits] ... Our
lawmakers are the lawbreakers.".
After four days of sit-in, the Government and Qadri signed an agreement
called the Islamabad Long March Declaration, which promised electoral
reforms and increased political transparency.
Although Qadri called for a "million-men" march, the estimated total
present for the sit-in in Islamabad was 50,000 according to the
government.
Requirements
E-Democracy
is made possible through its role in relevancy of participation, the
social construction of inclusiveness, sensitivity to the individual, and
flexibility in participation. The Internet provides a sense of
relevancy in participation through allowing everyone's voice to be heard
and expressed. A structure of social inclusion is also provided through
a wide variety of Internet sites, groups, and social networks, all
representing different viewpoints and ideas. Sensitivity to the
individual's needs is accomplished through the ability to express
individual opinions publicly and rapidly. Finally, the Internet is an
extremely flexible area of participation; it is low in cost and widely
available to the public. Through these four directions,
E-Democracy and the implementation of the Internet are able to play an active role in societal change.
Internet access
The E-democratic process is hindered by the
digital divide
between active participants and those who do not participate in
electronic communities. Advocates of E-democracy may advocate government
moves to close this gap. The disparity e-governance and e-democracy between developed and developing worlds has been attributed to the
digital divide.
Practical objections include the
digital divide between those with access and those without, as well as the
opportunity cost
of expenditure on e-democracy innovations. There is also skepticicsm of
the amount of impact that they can make through online participation.
Security and the protection of privacy
The government must be in a position to guarantee that online
communications are secure and that they do not violate people's privacy.
This is especially important when considering electronic voting. An
electoral voting system is more complex than other electronic
transaction systems and the authentication mechanisms employed must be
able to prevent ballot rigging or the threat of rigging. This may
include the use of smart cards that allow a voter's identity to be
verified whilst at the same time ensuring the privacy of the vote cast.
Electronic voting in Estonia
is one example of a method to conquer the privacy-identity problem
inherent in internet voting systems. However, the objective should be to
provide equivalence with the security and privacy of current manual
systems.
Government responsiveness
In
order to attract people to get involved in online consultations and
discussions, the government must respond to people and actively
demonstrate that there is a relationship between the citizen's
engagement and policy outcome. It is also important that people are able
to become involved in the process, at a time and place that is
convenient to them but when their opinions will count. The government
will need to ensure that the structures are in place to deal with
increased participation.
In order to ensure that issues are debated in a democratic,
inclusive, tolerant and productive way, the role that intermediaries and
representative organizations may play should be considered. In order to
strengthen the effectiveness of the existing legal rights of access to
information held by public authorities, citizens should have the right
to effective public deliberation and moderation.
Types of interaction
3D e-democracy roadmap: transcending the trade-offs
[31]
E-democracy is the use of
information and communication technologies and strategies in
political and
governance processes.
E-democracy has the potential to overcome the traditional trade-off
between the size of the group that participates in the democratic
process and the depth of the will expression (see Figure).
Traditionally, large group size was achieved with simple
ballot voting,
whereas the depth of the will expression was limited to predefined
options (what's on the ballot), while depth of will expression was
achieved by limiting the number of participants through
representative democracy (see Table). The
social media Web 2.0
revolution has shown to achieve both, large group sizes and depth of
will expression, but the will expressions in social media are not
structured and it is difficult (and often subjective) to make sense of
them (see Table). New information processing techniques, including
big data analytics and the
semantic web have shown ways to make use of these possibilities for the implementation of future forms of e-democracy. For now, the process of e-democracy is carried out by technologies such as
electronic mailing lists,
peer-to-peer networks,
collaborative software,
wikis, Internet forums and
blogs.
Forms of democracy trade-off table
[31]
E-democracy has been analyzed with regard to the different stages of
the democratic process, such as "information provision, deliberation,
and participation in decision-making.", by the hierarchical level of government, including
local communities,
states/regions,
nations and on
the global stage and by its reach and scope of involvement, such as the involvement of
citizens/
voters,
political organizations, the
media,
elected officials,
political organizations, and
governments.
As such, "its development is conditioned by such pervasive changes as
increased interdependency, technological multimediation, partnership
governance, and individualism."
Social media sites, such as
Facebook,
Twitter,
WordPress and
Blogspot, are playing an increasingly important role in democratic deliberations. The role of
social media in e-democracy has been an emerging area for e-democracy, as well as related technological developments, such as
argument maps and eventually, the
semantic web.
Another related development consists in combining the open
communication of social networking with the structured communication of
closed panels including experts and/or policy-makers, such as for
example through modified versions of the
Delphi method
(HyperDelphi) to combine the open communication of self-organized
virtual communities with the structured communication of closed panels,
including members of the policy-community.
This approach addresses the question of how, in electronic democracy,
to reconcile distributed knowledge and self-organized memories with
critical control, responsibility and decision. The social networking
entry point, for example, is within the citizens' environment, and the
engagement is on the citizens' terms. Proponents of e-government
perceive government use of social networks as a medium to help
government act more like the public it serves. Examples of state usage
can be found at The Official Commonwealth of Virginia Homepage, where citizens can find
Google tools and
open social forums. Those are seen as important stepping stones in the maturation of the concept of e-democracy.
Civic engagement
Civic engagement includes three dimensions:
political knowledge
of public affairs, political trust for the political system, and
political participation in influencing the government and the
decision-making process. The internet aids civic engagement by providing a new avenue to interact with by governmental institutions. Proponents of E-democracy believe that governments can be much more actively engaged than presently, and encourage citizens to take their own initiative to influence decisions that will affect them.
Many studies report increasing use of the internet to find
political information. Between 1996 and 2002, the number of adults who
reported that the internet was significant in their choices increased
from about 14 to 20 percent.
In 2002, nearly a quarter of the population reported having visited a
website to research specific public policy issues. Studies have shown
that more people visit websites that challenge their point of view than
visit websites that mirror their own opinions. Sixteen percent of the population has participated in online political
culture by interacting with political websites through joining
campaigns, volunteering time, donating money, or participating in polls.
According to a survey conducted by Philip N. Howard, almost two-thirds
of the adult population in the United States has had some online
experience with political news, information, or other content over the
past four election cycles.
They tend to reference the websites of special interest groups more
than the websites of specific elected leaders, political candidates,
political parties, nonpartisan groups, and local community groups.
The
information capacity available on the Internet allows citizens to become more knowledgeable about government and political issues, and the
interactivity
of the medium allows for new forms of communication with government,
i.e. elected officials and/or public servants. The posting of contact
information,
legislation,
agendas, and policies makes government more
transparent, potentially enabling more informed participation both online and offline.
According to Matt Leighninger, the internet impacts government in
two main ways, empowering individuals, and empowering groups of people.
The internet gives interested citizens better access to the information
which allows them to impact on public policy. Using online tools to
organize, people can more easily be involved in the policy-making
process of government, and this has led to increased public engagement.
Social media sites support networks of people; online networks affect
the political process, including causing an increase in politicians'
efforts to appeal to the public in campaigns.
For e-democracy provides a forum for public discussion. An
e-government process improves cooperation with the local populace and
helps the government focus in upon key issues the community wants
addressed. The theory is that every citizen has the opportunity to have a
voice in their local government. E-democracy works in tandem with local
communities and gives every citizen who wants to contribute the chance.
What makes an effective e-democracy is that the citizens not only
contribute to the government, but they communicate and work together to
improve their own local communities.
E-democracy is the use of
information and communication technologies
(ICT) to support the democratic decision-making processes. ICTs play a
major role in organizing and informing citizens in various forms of
civic engagement. ICTs are used to enhance active participation of
citizens and to support the collaboration between actors for
policy-making purposes within the political processes of all stages of
governance.
The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
lists three main factors when it comes to ICTs promoting civic
engagement. The first of these is timing; most of the civil engagement
occurs during the agenda-setting in a cycle. The second key factor is
tailor; this refers to the idea of how ICTs are changing in order to
allow for more civic engagement. The last of these factors is
integrations; integration is how new ICTs are combining the new
technological ways with the traditional ways in order to gain more civic
engagement.
ICT creates the opportunity for a government that is
simultaneously more democratic and more expert by creating open online
collaboration between professionals and the general public. The
responsibility of gathering information and making decisions is shared
between those with technological expertise and those who are
professionally considered the decision-makers. Greater public
participation in the collaboration of ideas and policies makes
decision-making is more democratic. ICT also promotes the idea of
pluralism within a democracy, bringing new issues and perspectives.
Regular citizens become potential producers of political value
and commentary, for example, by creating individual blogs and websites.
The online political sphere can work together, like ABCNews did with
their Campaign Watchdog effort, where citizens by the polls reported any
rule violations perpetrated by any candidate's party.
In 2000, Candidate's for the United States presidential race
frequently used their websites to encourage their voters to not only
vote, but to encourage their friends to vote as well. This two-step
process, encouraging an individual to vote and to tell his or her
friends to vote, was just emerging at that time. Now, political
involvement from a variety of social media is commonplace and civic
engagement through online forums frequent. Through the use of ICTs,
politically minded individuals have the opportunity to become more
involved.
Youth engagement
Young people under the age of 35, or
Generation X and
Generation Y, have been noted for their lack of political interest and activity.
[55] Electronic democracy has been suggested as a possible method to increase
voter turnout, democratic participation, and political knowledge in youth.
The notion of youth e-citizenship seems to be caught between two
distinct approaches: management and autonomy. The policy of "targeting"
young people so that they can "play their part" can be read either as an
encouragement of youth activism or an attempt to manage it.
Autonomous e-citizens argue that despite their limited experience,
youth deserve to speak for themselves on agendas of their own making. On
the contrary, managed e-citizens regard young people as apprentice
citizens who are in a process of transition from the immaturity of
childhood to the self-possession of adulthood, and are thus incapable of
contributing to politics without regulation. The Internet is another
important issue, with managed e-citizens believing young people are
highly vulnerable to misinformation and misdirection. The conflict
between the two faces of e-citizenship is a view of democracy as an
established and reasonably just system, with which young people should
be encouraged to engage, and democracy as a political as well as
cultural aspiration, most likely to be realized through networks in
which young people engage with one another. Ultimately, strategies of
accessing and influencing power are at the heart of what might first
appear to be mere differences of communication styles.
The Highland Youth Voice demonstrated the attempt to increase
democratic involvement, especially through online measures, in Scotland.
The youth population is increasingly more prominent in governmental
policy and issues in the UK. However, involvement and interest have been
decreasing. In 2001 elections in the United Kingdom to Westminster, the
turnout of 18- to 24-year-olds was estimated at only 40%, which can be
compared to the more than 80% of 16- to 24-year-old who have accessed
the internet at some time in their life.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child have promoted
and stressed the need to educate the younger population as citizens of
the nation in which they live in, and promote the participation and
active politics which they can shape through debate and communication.
The Highland Youth Voice aims to increase the involvement of the
younger generation through understanding their needs and wishes for
their government, through an understanding of their views, experiences,
and aspirations. Highland Youth Voice gives young Scots a chance to
influence the decision makers in the Highlands.
The members age from 14 to 18 and the parliament as a whole is an
elected body of around 100 members. They are elected directly through
schools and youth forums. Through the website, those involved are able
to discuss the issues important to them. The final prominent democratic
aspect of the website is the elections for members, which occur every
other year. These three contents of the website allow for an online
forum in which members may educate themselves through Youth Voice,
partake in online policy debates, or experience a model of e-democracy
in the ease of online voting.
Civil society
Citizens' associations play an important role in the democratic
process, providing a place for individuals to learn about public affairs
and a source of power outside that of the state, according to theorists
like
Alexis de Tocqueville. Public policy researcher
Hans Klein at the
Georgia Institute of Technology notes that participation in such forums has a number of barriers, such as the need to meet in one place at one time.
In a study of a civic association in the northeastern United States,
Klein found that electronic communications greatly enhanced the ability
of the organization to fulfill its mission. The lower cost of
information exchange on the Internet, as well as the high level of reach
that the content potentially has, makes the Internet an attractive
medium for political information, particularly amongst social interest
groups and parties with lower budgets.
For example, environmental or social issue groups may find the
Internet an easier mechanism to increase awareness of their issues, as
compared to traditional media outlets, such as television or newspapers,
which require heavy financial investment. Due to all these factors, the
Internet has the potential to take over certain traditional media of
political communication, such as the telephone, the television,
newspapers and the radio. The
civil society has gradually moved into the online world.
There are many forms of association in civic society. The term
interest group
conventionally refers to more formal organizations that either focus on
particular social groups and economic sectors, such as trade unions and
business and professional associations, or on more specific issues,
such as abortion, gun control, or the environment.
Other traditional interest groups have well-established organizational
structures and formal membership rules, and their primary orientation is
toward influencing government and the policy process. Transnational
advocacy networks bring together loose coalitions of these organizations
under common umbrella organizations that cross national borders.
Novel tools are being developed that are aimed at empowering
bloggers, webmasters and owners of other social media, with the effect
of moving from a
strictly informational use of the Internet to using the Internet
as a means of social organization not requiring top-down action.
Calls to action,
for instance, are a novel concept designed to allow webmasters to
mobilize their viewers into action without the need for leadership.
These tools are also utilized worldwide: for example, India is
developing an effective
blogosphere that allows
internet users to state their thoughts and opinions.
The Internet may serve multiple functions for all these
organizations, including lobbying elected representatives, public
officials, and policy elites; networking with related associations and
organizations; mobilizing organizers, activists, and members using
action alerts, newsletters, and emails; raising funds and recruiting
supporters; and communicating their message to the public via the
traditional news media.
Deliberative democracy
The Internet also plays a central role in
deliberative democracy, where deliberation and access to multiple viewpoints is central in decision-making.
The Internet is able to provide an opportunity for interaction and
serves as a prerequisite in the deliberative process as a research tool.
On the Internet, the exchange of ideas is widely encouraged through a
vast number of websites, blogs, and social networking outlets, such as
Twitter; all of which encourage freedom of expression. Through the
Internet, information is easily accessible, and in a cost effective
manner, providing access and means for change. Another fundamental
feature of the Internet is its uncontrolled nature, and ability to
provide all viewpoints no matter the accuracy. The freedom the Internet
provides is able to foster and advocate change, crucial in E-Democracy.
A recent advancement in the utilization of E-Democracy for the deliberative process is the
California Report Card created by the Data and Democracy Initiative of the
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at
University of California, Berkeley, together with Lt. Governor
Gavin Newsom. The
California Report Card, launched in January 2014, is a mobile-optimized web application designed to facilitate online
deliberative democracy.
After a short opinion poll on 6 timely issues, participants are invited
to enter an online "café" where they are placed, using
Principal Component Analysis,
among users with similar views. They are then encouraged to engage in
the deliberative process by entering textual suggestions about new
political issues and grading other participants' suggestions. The
California Report Card prides itself on being resistant to private agendas dominating the discussion.
Another example is
openforum.com.au,
an Australian non-profit eDemocracy project that invites politicians,
senior public servants, academics, business people and other key
stakeholders to engage in high-level policy debate.
An alternative to the SOPA and PIPA, the
Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act) is supported by Google and Facebook. The OPEN Act website Keep The Web Open
[67] provides full access to the bill. The site also incorporates user input, over 150 changes have been made by users.
The
peer-to-patent
project allows the public to do research and present the patent
examiner with 'prior art' publications which will inform them of the
novelty of the invention so that they can determine whether the
invention is worthy of a patent. The community elects ten prior art
pieces to be sent to the patent examiner for review. This enables the
public to directly communicate with the patent examiner. This form of
e-democracy is a structured environment which demands certain
information from participants that aid in the decision-making process.
The goal of the project is to make decision-making process is made more
effective by allowing experts and civilians who work together to find
solutions. Beyond citizens checking a box that reduces opinions to a few
given words, citizens can participate and share ideas.
Voting and polling
Another great hurdle in implementing e-democracy is the matter of
ensuring security in internet voting systems. Viruses and malware could
be used to block or redirect citizens' votes on matters of great
importance; as long as that threat remains, e-democracy will not be able
to diffuse throughout society. Kevin Curran and Eric Nichols of the
Internet Technologies Research Group noted in 2005 that "a secure
Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the
first secure networked application ever created in the history of
computers."
Government transparency and accessibility
Through ListServs,
RSS
feeds, mobile messaging, micro-blogging services and blogs, government
and its agencies can share information to citizens who share common
interests and concerns. Some government representatives are also
beginning to use
Twitter which provides them with an easy medium to inform their followers. In the state of
Rhode Island, for instance, Treasurer
Frank T. Caprio is offering daily tweets of the state's cash flow.
A number of non-governmental sites have developed
cross-jurisdiction, customer-focused applications that extract
information from thousands of governmental organizations into a system
that brings consistency to data across many dissimilar providers. It is
convenient and cost-effective for businesses, and the public benefits by
getting easy access to the most current information available without
having to expend tax dollars to get it. One example of this is
transparent.gov.com, a free resource for citizens to quickly identify the various
open government initiatives taking place in their community or in communities across the country. A similar example is
USA.gov, the official site of the United States government, which is a directory that links to every federal and state agency.
E-democracy leads to a more simplified process and access to
government information for public-sector agencies and citizens. For
example, the
Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles simplified the process of certifying driver records to be admitted in county court proceedings.
Indiana
became the first state to allow government records to be digitally
signed, legally certified and delivered electronically by using
Electronic Postmark technology.
The internet has created increased government accessibility to
news, policies, and contacts in the 21st century: "In 2000 only two
percent of government sites offered three or more services online; in
2007 that figure was 58 percent. In 2000, 78 percent of the states
offered no on-line services; in 2007 only 14 percent were without these
services (West, 2007)"(Issuu). Direct access via email has also
increased; "In 2007, 89 percent of government sites allowed the public
e-mail a public official directly rather than simply e-mailing the
webmaster (West, 2007)"(Issuu).
Opposition
Information and communications technologies
can be used for both democratic and anti-democratic ends.(e.g. both
coercive control and participation can be fostered by digital
technology)
George Orwell's in his
Nineteen Eighty-Four is one example of the vision of the anti-democratic use of technology.
Objections to direct democracy are argued to apply to e-democracy, such as the potential for direct
governance to tend towards the polarization of opinions,
populism, and
demagoguery.
Internet censorship
In a nation with heavy government censorship, e-democracy could not
be utilized to its full extent. Governments often implement internet
crackdowns during widespread political protests. In the middle-east in
2011, for example, the multiple cases of internet blackouts were dubbed
the "Arab Net Crackdown". The list of countries that have been reported
to have initiated internet lockdowns is a long one. Libya, Egypt,
Bahrain, Syria, Iran, and Yemen are all countries whose leaders
implemented complete censorship of the internet in response to the
plethora of pro-democracy demonstrations in their respective nations.
These lockdowns were primarily put in place in order to prevent the
leakage of cell phone videos that contained images of the violent
government crackdown on protesters.
Concerns with populism
In
a study conducted that interviewed elected officials in Austria's
parliament, opinions were widely and strongly against e-democracy. They
believed that the citizens were uninformed and that their only way of
expressing their opinions should be to vote; sharing opinions and ideas
was strictly the job of the elected.
Alternatively, theories of
epistemic democracy
have indicated that more engagement of the populace has benefited the
aggregation of knowledge and intelligence, and thus permitted
democracies to track the truth better.
Stop Online Piracy Act
Many Internet users believed that Internet democracy was being
attacked in the United States with the introduction of H.R. 3261,
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), in the United States House of Representatives.
A Huffington Post Contributor noted that the best way to promote
democracy, including keeping freedom of speech alive, is through
defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act.
It is important to note that SOPA was postponed indefinitely after
major protests arose, including by many popular websites such as
Wikipedia, which launched a site blackout on January 18, 2012.
In India, a similar situation was noted at the end of 2011, when
India's Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal suggested that
offensive content may be privately "pre-screened" before being allowed
on the Internet with no rules for redressal.
However, more recent news reports quote Sibal as saying that there
would be no restrictions whatsoever on the use of the Internet.
Government models
Representative democracy
The radical shift from representative government to internet-mediated
direct democracy is not likely. However, a "hybrid model" that uses the
internet to allow for greater government transparency and community
participation in decision-making is on the horizon.
Committee selection, local town and city decisions, and otherwise
people-centric decisions would be more easily facilitated. The
principles of democracy are not changing so much as the tools used to
uphold them. E-democracy would not be a means to implement direct
democracy, but rather a tool to enable more participatory democracy as
it exists now.
Virtual Democracy
Virtual
Democracy is a global political system where people of all intelligent
species and races gather to propose and vote on laws on internet forums
like virtual-democracy.org and democratie-atlanta.org
This system was rediscovered by Lucian Ilea in January 2016 when
he created a website with 9 domains and 63 subdomains featuring
presentations of the Virtual Democracy system in both Romanian and
English languages on democratie-virtuala.com and atlantia.online with
the actual voting forums found on democratie-atlanta.org and
virtual-democracy.org
In order to attract people there are sections devoted to music and film
on muzica.space, pictures on e-world.site, and an online computer store
found at ihl.space and ihl-data.com
The sites functioned for 2 years from January 2016 to November 2017.
Electronic direct democracy
Proponents of E-democracy sometimes envision a transition from a
representative democracy to a
direct democracy carried out through technological means, and see this transition as an end goal of e-democracy. In an Electronic
direct democracy (EDD) (also known as
open source governance or
collaborative e-democracy), the people are directly involved in the
legislative function by electronic means. Citizens
electronically vote on legislation, author new legislation, and recall representatives (if any representatives are preserved).
Technology for supporting EDD has been researched and developed at the
Florida Institute of Technology, where the technology is used with student organizations. Numerous other software development projects are underway, along with many supporting and related projects.
Several of these projects are now collaborating on a cross-platform
architecture, under the umbrella of the Metagovernment project.
EDD as a system is not fully implemented in a political
government anywhere in the world, although several initiatives are
currently forming.
Ross Perot was a prominent advocate of EDD when he advocated "electronic
town halls" during his 1992 and 1996
Presidential campaigns in the
United States.
Switzerland, already partially governed by direct democracy, is making progress towards such a system.
Senator On-Line,
an Australian political party established in 2007, proposes to
institute an EDD system so that Australians can decide which way the
senators vote on each and every bill. A similar initiative was formed 2002 in Sweden where the party
Direktdemokraterna, running for the
Swedish parliament,
offers its members the power to decide the actions of the party over
all or some areas of decision, or to use a proxy with immediate recall
for one or several areas.
The first mainstream direct democracy party to be registered with any country's electoral commission [checked against each country's register] is the UK's
People's Administration Direct Democracy party.
The People's Administration have developed and published the complete
architecture for a legitimate reform to EDD [including the required
Parliamentary reform process]. Established by musicians [including Alex
Romane] and political activists, the People's Administration advocates
using the web and telephone to enable the majority electorate to create,
propose and vote upon all policy implementation. The People's
Administration's blueprint has been published in various forms since
1998 and the People's Administration is the first direct democracy party
to be registered in a vote-able format anywhere in the world - making
the transition possible through evolution via election with legitimate
majority support, instead of potentially through revolution via
violence. The
Direktdemokraterna party in Sweden also advocates EDD.
Liquid democracy
Liquid democracy, or direct democracy with
delegable proxy,
would allow citizens to choose a proxy to vote on their behalf while
retaining the right to cast their own vote on legislation. The voting
and the appointment of proxies could be done electronically. Taking this
further, the proxies could form
proxy chains,
in which if A appoints B and B appoints C, and neither A nor B vote on a
proposed bill but C does, C's vote will count for all three of them.
Citizens could also rank their proxies in order of preference, so that
if their first choice proxy fails to vote, their vote can be cast by
their second-choice proxy.
Wikidemocracy
One
proposed form of e-democracy is "wikidemocracy", with a government
legislature whose codex of laws was an editable wiki, like Wikipedia. J
Manuel Feliz-Teixeira believes we have the resources to implement
wikidemocracy today. He envisions a wiki-system in which there would be
three wings of legislative, executive and judiciary roles for which
every citizen could have a voice with free access to the wiki and a
personal ID to continuously reform policies until the last day of
December (when all votes would be counted).
Advantages to wikidemocracy include a no-cost system with the removal
of elections, no need for parliament or representatives because citizens
directly represent themselves, and ease of access to voice one's
opinion. However, there are obstacles, uncertainties and disagreements.
First, the digital divide and low quality of education can be deterrents
to achieve the full potential of a wikidemocracy. Similarly, there is a
diffusion of innovation in response to new technologies in which some
people readily adopt novel ways and others at the opposite end of the
spectrum reject them or are slow to adapt.
It is also uncertain how secure this type of democracy would be because
we would have to trust that the system administrator would have a high
level of integrity to protect the votes saved to the public domain.
Lastly, Peter Levine agrees that wikidemocracy would increase discussion
on political and moral issues, but he disagrees with Feliz-Teixeira who
argues that wikidemocracy would remove the need for representatives and
formal governmental structures.
Wikidemocracy is also used to mean more limited instantiations of
e-democracy, such as in Argentina in August 2011, where the polling
records of the presidential election were made available to the public
in online form, for vetting. The term has also been used in a more general way to refer to the democratic values and environments offered by wikis.
Some in
Finland
recently undertook an experiment in wikidemocracy by creating a "shadow
government program" on the Internet, essentially a compilation of the
political views and aspirations of various groups in Finland, on a wiki.
