Abstract
It has been argued that the widespread use of information and communications technology has contributed to a crisis in traditional systems of representative democracy and that a new form of informational or digital democracy is emerging. Hence a key claim made in current discussions of ‘electronic’ or ‘digital’ democracy is that information and communications technologies have a role to play in providing opportunities for government and citizens to engage in direct rather than representative forms of democracy. Using a deliberative democratic framework this paper presents results from a case study of decision-making on a professional development workshop in information and communications technology skills. The discussion highlights some of the problems of engaging in a democratic process that places a premium on deliberation and negotiation. These problems include different conceptions of democracy and of the public good, time constraints, education for democracy; and the relationship between decision-making and action. The paper concludes that if information and communications technology are to help democracy to expand beyond its current representative model and incorporate more direct and deliberative forms then both government and citizens may need to learn procedures as to how to engage in this deliberative process.
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Foster, J. (2001). Towards a Democratic Education for E-government. In: Schmid, B., Stanoevska-Slabeva, K., Tschammer, V. (eds) Towards the E-Society. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, vol 74. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47009-8_49
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47009-8_49
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