In recent years, several case studies have emerged illustrating the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and in particular the expansion of the Internet and mobile cell phones on socio-political activities. This paper investigates ...

In this paper we discuss the development of tools to support a system for e-democracy that is based upon and makes use of existing theories of argument representation and evaluation. The system is designed to gather public opinions on political issues ...

Decision analytic methods are being increasingly used to help to articulate and structure debate and deliberations among citizens and stakeholders in societal decisions. Methods vary, but, essentially, a public authority or agency, when faced with a ...

The expansion of new platforms of digital democracy does not necessarily entail an increase in citizen participation. The VOTESCRIPT group has made a sociological analysis to determine the causes of this apparent failure, reaching the conclusion that ...

In recent years, several case studies have appeared on how mobile telephones, SMS and the Internet had an impact on political activities. It has been widely argued that information and communication technology (ICT) is influencing democracy all over ...

It is argued that Pettit's conception of "contestatory democracy" is superior to deliberative, direct and epistemic democracy. The strong and weak points of these conceptions are discussed drawing upon the work of a.o Bruce Bimber. It is further argued ...

The concepts of electronic government and electronic democracy have common roots in that electronic government must rest on, and support, democratic principles. This article discusses how the components of a democratic society are treated as they are ...

A healthy civil society has long been held as vital to a healthy democracy and there is interest in whether the Internet affects this linkage. This paper explores the relationships between offline and online modes of associational life and also analyzes ...

This article explores the issue of trust in the context of the e-electoral process based on the experience gained through the 2002 and 2003 U.K. e-voting pilots. In our analysis, we adopt a process-stage approach to e-elections. We identify the different ...

Since the 1990s, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become popular instruments for delivering government services, encouraging citizen participation, and improving public trust. However, although governments around the globe have ...

Over the last 15 years, there has been a gradually increasing awareness of the need to consider innovative applications of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) for participation that enables a wider audience to actively contribute to democratic ...

This article considers the implications that the use of free and open-source software in government might have for democracy and public participation. From a constructionist perspective, the democratic 'effects' of non-proprietary software are contingent ...

This paper lays theoretical and software foundations for a World Wide Argument Web (WWAW): a large-scale Web of inter-connected arguments posted by individuals to express their opinions in a structured manner. First, we extend the recently ...

In this article, the authors examine the possibilities of information communication technology and e-government to enhance democracy. The authors summarize the known problems of representative democracy and direct democracy and inquire whether e-government ...

A growing number of research contributions deal with the issues of technologically mediated participation in public decision-making in an ever-wider number of disciplinary fields. As research on eParticipation begins to mushroom, the effort of the international ...

Despite the notable growing citizens participation enabled by the new advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), especially with the introduction of web 2.0, developing countries seems to lag way behind in the utilization of these ...

this paper presents a conceptual model for collaboration between government, individuals and voluntary organizations to provide innovative digital services to the public. The government provides the necessary infrastructure, application software and ...

Academics and researchers face a challenge of making sense of the role e-democracy plays in the democratic process and with what implications. This requires a deeper understanding of the objectives and assumptions that underpin e-democracy innovations, ...

In this paper, we present a case study of human-information interaction in the online realm of politics. The case study consists of a participant observed while searching and browsing the internet for campaign information in a mock-voting situation while ...

The intensive use of ICT, which penetrates all parts of the society, challenges current models for governance and democratic control. This paper analyses these challenges within a number of those areas where the impact of ICT have been most visible. ...