E-democracy

From DoWire Wiki

Defining E-democracy

The working definition for e-democracy on DoWire.Org is:

E-democracy represents the use of information and communication technologies and strategies by democratic actors within political and governance processes of local communities, nations and on the international stage. Democratic sectors/actors include governments, elected officials, the media, political organizations, and citizen/voters.

To many, e-democracy suggests greater and more active citizen participation enabled by the Internet, mobile communications, and other technologies in today’s representative democracy as well as through more participatory or direct forms of citizen involvement in addressing public challenges.

Source: Steven Clift's E-Democracy Resource Links

The framework is presented in his Global E-Democracy Trends this way:

E-democracy is:

• the use information and communication technologies and strategies by democratic sectors
• within the political processes of local communities, states, nations and on the global stage.

E-democracy ...

• is now, what kind is it?
• is accelerating "as is" politics
• will promote active citizen participation only with the "e-citizen" perspective included

Each democratic sector is contributing to e-democracy and needs to do its part. Only with democratic intent and the application of best practices across all democratic sectors will e-democracy be viewed as a positive contribution. E-democracy success will be achieved when we drop the "e" and simply call it democracy.