Abstract
This conceptual paper attempts to understand the necessity of intertwining Democracy and e-Democracy for the success of institutionalization of e-Democracy. In this respect, it proposes the "Four-Forces Framework of Democracy" and their Drivers. The paper also explores the challenges that e-Democracy may face in its growth and evolution, highlights the risks involved in ignoring the challenges, and suggests the future direction. In the present scenario, there is a considerable push for Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The paper discusses whether this will lead to the strengthening of people's voice and empowerment of the individual and collective aspirations. Societies in their evolution develop cultural contexts, social and ethnic values. It is a challenge for any e-Democracy to integrate them into its mechanisms. In the Indian context, it is essential to develop foresight on how e-Democracy gears-up to also address various contradictions and conflicts, which are possible due to the digital-divide, multitude of people's aspirations, socio-cultural diversity, space for democratic thinking, etc. Keeping many aspects of Democracy and governance into consideration, the paper focuses on how ICT and e-Democracy will honour people's aspirations in the coming years, to keep the public, individual, and society, vibrant and democratically functioning.
Highlights
High-speed growth of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and leaders' eagerness to integrate ICTs in governance are at the base of this challenge for three reasons – first, that Democracy has given sufficient space and time for people to grow and evolve together. It would be a challenge for e-Democracy to provide similar space and time to people, where they would collectively develop into better e-Democracy; second, the high-speed growth of ICT may leave little time and opportunity for stocktaking, thereby bringing flaws into the e-democracy; and thirdly, the nature and skills required for e-communication and e-engagement are different from the traditional modes of communications adopted for people's engagement
For the institutionalization of e-Democracy, it is pertinent that the Governments, planners, practitioners, and other stakeholders in society address the challenges and the risks leading to enhanced faith in, and participation of the masses in, the e-democratic processes and decision-making
In the Indian context, it would mean integrating the nuances of parliamentary Democracy into the systems and processes being designed for e-Democracy, and not leaving the process of transition to ICT and e-Government
Summary
Since e-Democracy is in initial phase in India, the paper proposes the need for ‘Institutionalization of e-Democracy’, where the norms, functioning and goals, are set in the initial phases This is required for the reason that e-Democracy may not be understood as a system that merely uses ICT in the Democracy. The paper explores the current understanding of the e-Democracy and discusses how democracies, across the world, are embracing and integrating ICT tools and platforms in their shift towards e-Democracy. It elaborates on the challenges involved in this transition and the risks involved in overlooking some of those challenges, in general, and especially with respect to India. It suggests the framework for future work on e-Democracy in the form of "Institutionalization of e-Democracy" which is applicable for democracies in general and to India, in particular
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