eDemocracy

When the topic of "e-Government" is discussed, it often focuses on the delivery of government services through electronic access channels (electronic service delivery or ESD). If we look back to some of the original thinking about how new technologies such as the Internet might change the shape of our democratic institutions, however, we find a focus on citizen participation/engagement and the potential for the Internet to empower citizens in the democratic decision-making process.

Spectacular advances in communications technology open, for the first time, a mind-boggling array of possibilities for direct citizen participation in political decision-making.
- Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, 1980

People are not interested in information on screens, if that is all you have to sell-unless you offer a way for people to interact with one another.
- Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community, 1993

The advanced telecommunications networks being built today could support increased civic participation - or they could encourage sound bites and demagoguery. They could support the electronic equivalent of public spaces, where people come together as informed citizens--or they could provide only electronic malls, where people are targeted as spectators and consumers. At stake here are the workings of democracy.
- Benton Foundation, Telecommunications and Democracy , 1995

As the thrust to move all government service online as fast as possible gives way to a more considered strategy that focuses on leveraging technology to meet the needs and expectations of citizens, governments are increasingly returning to the question of whether technology can be used to support citizen engagement in the democratic process.

This section of the ICCS web site is dedicated to sharing the knowledge that is being gained as governments across Canada and around the work experiment with electronic democracy.

Merely applying technology and observing its effects will not suffice; nor can we hope to strengthen or safeguard democracy by standing by and allowing technological change to continue apace, unexamined and unfiltered by the values we hold dear. To do so would surrender our future to directions we may not now understand and might not accept if we did.
- F. Christopher Arterton, Teledemocracy: Can Technology Protect Democracy?, 1987