e-Democracy For New Democratic Paradigm
Kranti Bir Chhetry
The innovative use of new media to significantly enhance democratic governance by facilitating more direct participation by citizens in the political decision-making arena is known as e-democracy. Utilising communications technology to promote more effective democratic politics is an entirely new concept. But the more recent potential of the Internet to place greater power in the hands of individual citizen vis-୶is their political representatives, institutions of entrenched interest and even the policy decisions of global corporations has led some to suggest that e-democracy offers the prospect of an entirely new democratic paradigm.
The notion of tele-democracy precedes e-democracy and relates to earlier experiments conducted with TV technologies. A more important distinction, however, can be made between e-democracy and the related concept of e-government. While the former is more focused upon the emergence of new political cultures where technology enables the empowerment of the people (demos), e-government refers to the attempts to use ICTs to restructure the existing institutions of government. Thus e-democracy developments can be viewed as attempts to challenge the limitations of traditional representative models of government and replace them with alternative repertoires of democratic expression and activity emanating from the citizen. In contrast, many e-government initiatives have been concerned with re-energising public administrations through improvements in electronic service delivery, organisational change and cost cutting. Although valuable for most situations, not all developments fall neatly into this categorisation between e-democracy and e-government, and it is, perhaps, the outcomes arising from the tensions between these two approaches which will have the most significant impact upon democratic governance in future.
The reason for the discovered enthusiasm for democratic renewal through the use of ICTs is due to a number of related factors. First of these is the widespread dissatisfaction with modern liberal democratic politics, which is being witnessed in most of the mature democratic nations. In Europe and North America, electoral turnouts have been decreasing, party membership has fallen and disenchantment with dislocation of the politicians, particularly among the young, is a common concern. This dislocation of the political process from the everyday interests of many citizens is further widened in many countries by the decline in ideological political discourse and a related breakdown of class-based political organisation. Second, this disillusionment with the political system has been further reinforced by a perceived weakening of the nation-state's ability to represent the interests of citizens in the face of emerging forces of globalisation. For some commentators, political power has shifted from elected politicians and is increasingly in the hands of global corporate executives whose decisions often have direct significance for the life experiences and opportunities of most of the world's populations.
Yet governments increasingly seem to be impotent in the face of such corporate power as a consequence of their desire for inward investment. Thus, together with a largely privately owned mass media, nation-states are often regarded as colluding with corporations to satisfy their business interests rather than the interests of their citizens. Issues of child labour practices, environmental damage or threats to human health and welfare are sidelined in the competitive race between governments to provide tax incentives, deregulation policies and diminished employment protection in order to attract corporate investment.Third, the disenchantment with existing democratic systems and politicians has, in part, stimulated the emergence of a new political culture based upon new social movements and activity loosely formed around universal values and moral principles such as environmentalism, animal rights and a range of human rights issues. Sceptical of current political rhetoric and the will of politicians to tackle these important political issues, activists have rejected traditional highly organised, institutionalised, class-based politics. Instead they have sought democratic expression through the new social movements that observe lifestyle politics and politics of affinity which reaches beyond nation-state borders. e-Democracy initiatives may manifest themselves in a variety of forms which may be regarded as reactions to the disillusionment with the democratic politics outlined above.
The new media are increasingly becoming a significant feature of national and local elections. Political parties and candidates are becoming rapidly aware of the potential of the Internet or canvassing voters, fundraising and motivating supporters. However, web-based communication technologies have also been used to challenge the 'sound byte' media campaigns and make candidates more directly responsive to the voice of the electorate. In the USA, for example, websites such as DemocracyNet and RedWhiteandBlue have attempted to provide neutral sites where citizens can obtain information about the candidates and interrogate them on issues which may influence their voting preference. Furthermore, the technology can be used to verify statements made by political candidates and provide almost instantaneous refutations where appropriate. Tactical voting has also been a feature of web-based campaigning.As a means to engender the more informed public deliberation so essential to strong democratic politics, electronic forums have been utilised. Again, these 'citizen forums' may take different forms such as locality-based citizen forums. For some enthusiasts, the new networked structure of the Internet heralds a return to the direct democracy of Ancient Greek city-states. Citizens connected to an electronic forum are able to have informed debates and make decisions online without recourse to the institutions of representative democracy.
However, the practicalities of the modern world make it highly unlikely that we will see the early demise of our political representatives as a consequence of the Internet. More important may be the questions raised by such electronic forums and virtual public spaces for improving our existing institutions of democratic governance.
Experiment in ICT use
To date, there have been several 'experiments' in the use of the new ICTs to facilitate e-Democracy. Limited in number, it is also, perhaps, too early to draw firm conclusions from such experiments about their capacity to renew interest in democracy and bring governments and public services closer to the people. Research by some scholars has challenged the idea that electronic forums foster more deliberative democratic activity. Instead of reasoned argument, a picture emerges either of like-minded people seeking political solace for their views online or of a few dominant voices taking over discussions.
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