The Illiberal Culture of E-Democracy

Abstract

Abstract Efforts to create e-democracy do not necessarily enhance liberal democratic politics, tending instead toward illiberal polities because of the underlying technological culture of e-democracy. Technologies are not value-neutral artifacts but rather social practices in which values and meanings are central elements. The complex of values and meanings creates a culture to each technology that is implemented along with that technology. Implementing a technology thus moves society in the direction of the underlying culture of the technology. Electronic liberal democracy cannot be constructed by simply adapting Internet-based technologies as is because the underlying culture of those technologies, when implemented in specifically political practices, runs counter to the principles of liberal democracy. Three aspects of that culture in particular-that the Internet is a commodity, that direct democracy is the most preferable form of democracy, and that the Internet is an individualized public forumshape ...