E-democracy as Ideological Basis of Public Administration Digitalization: Contradictions

Abstract

The electronic form of democracy carries the potential to resolve the crisis of the systems of the modern democratic structure, but recently its concept has been increasingly criticized. In this regard, researchers are interested in identifying the causes of this trend. The author suggests that the essence of the problem of e-democracy is in its internal contradictions: a) the convergence of the concept with other theories of democracy; b) ethical issues of the ICT exploitation within the political sphere. The former includes the combination in a single construction of fundamental features of both direct, deliberative and representative democracy in a single construction; substitution of the principles of direct democracy by the principles of plebiscite democracy; multidirectional aspirations expressed in involvement with the simultaneously existing internal apathy to the political sphere. Ethical contradictions: maximizing transparency with high manipulability; independence of decisions with controversial anonymity; reducing bureaucratic procedures as fraud acts increase; reduced number of absentists with persisting distrust of the system. Also, the methods of e-democracy within one society can create premises for both digital authoritarization and the strengthening of the role of civil society.

Keywords

• e-democracy
• direct democracy
• representative democracy
• deliberative democracy
• digital technology
• remote electronic voting