Selected Issues of E-Democracy and Political E-Participation

Abstract

The development of information technology and the development of a network society have encouraged a rise of e-democracy. It can not be regarded as a form of democracy because it is a phenomenon qualitatively different from democracy, similarly the network society is not the virtual equivalent of a civil society. It has been hypothesized that the development of information technology perhaps improves the state of democracy in some aspects and to some scale, but only if the system is real and not just declaratively democratic in the initial situation, regardless of technological progress. One of the elements that constitute democracy, including political participation, is a civic consciousness. On the web, the cyber-society constituting the anti model of civil society (Castells) implements the needs dictated by consumerism and consciousness of the consumer but not the ethos of civic and citizen awareness. Therefore, the rating of e-democracy dynamics in individual countries should not be the basis for conclusions about the condition of the existing democracy there.