Electronic Democracy

Developing Strong Democracy Using Technology

Qualitative changes in Western liberal democracies since the 1960s, brought about in part by processes associated with globalization, a broadening of popular culture supported by a burgeoning mass media, the emergence of many different interest and pressure groups, a turn to individualism, and a drive towards private accumulation, have led to disillusionment and disenchantment with traditional politics. Younger people in particular appear to be wholly uninterested and disengaged. However, it appears that when there is a focus on participation and community, democracy can flourish, especially when the focus is on aspects of community emerging from civic participation. Many different roles can be developed for technology in society, and there is potential—if efforts are underpinned by a supportive moral basis—to evolve a more democratic society and a more involved citizenship, supported by information and communication technologies. By the end of the 1990s, there was some evidence of an emerging political will to encourage citizens to use information and communication technologies to participate in political decision-making processes and to engage with politicians and one another.

Place-Based Community Networks

Besides being disengaged from politics, citizens in Western industrialized democracies are increasingly dislocated from traditional communities and disconnected from civic values. Sociologist Robert Putnam has argued that civic associations and organizations are the basis of democracy and that citizens in regions characterized by low levels of civic involvement tend to feel oppressed, estranged, and helpless. In the last three decades of the twentieth century, new forms of communitarianism have arisen that combat declining civic involvement and consequent estrangement. Among the community-oriented activities that the community activists and volunteers of those decades undertook were designing and providing low-cost public access to a range of local community networks and online information and communication resources. Community networks were designed to address community and publicinterest issues in public spheres that were largely separate from government and the market.

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