Electronic democracy (e-democracy) - a form of democracy, characterized by the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) as the main means for collective thinking (crowdsourcing) and administrative processes (informing, joint decision-making - electronic voting, monitoring the execution of decisions, etc.) at all levels - starting from the level local government and ending with international.
The concept of the effectiveness of e-democracy is based on how theoretical studies(information theory of democracy), as well as experimental data obtained, for example, in the course of research on collective intelligence.
Terminology
A distinction should be made between e-democracy and e-government. Steven Clift points out:
"Electronic democracy" (e-democracy) and "electronic government" (e-government) are completely different concepts. If the latter means increasing the speed and convenience of access to public services from anywhere and at any time, then the former refers to the use information technologies to empower every citizen.
Some researchers (for example, sociologist I. Eidman) use the term network democracy instead of the term e-democracy.
Electronic democracy in Russia
E-democracy in Russia is taking its first steps. Below is a list of recent projects that are in various stages of development.
e-government expert center
In 2012, the Expert Center for Electronic State was established. The head of the Expert Center is Pavel Khilov. The main tasks of the activity of the Expert center of the electronic state:
development and dissemination of expertise in the field of regional and municipal informatization, the formation of the information society and e-government;
organization of professional discussions of initiatives and preparation of proposals for the formation of priority areas for the development of information technologies and state policy in the areas of e-government, e-democracy and regional informatization;
formation of an independent mechanism for monitoring and evaluating the current results of the entities' activities Russian Federation in the field of application of information technologies, implementation of projects in the field of creation and implementation of tools for e-democracy and e-government at the regional and municipal levels;
development of human resources to solve the problems of information technology development at the regional and municipal levels;
promotion of Russia's place in international ratings of ICT development.
In November 2012, the Expert Center held the first large-scale crowdsourcing in Russia among specialists in the field of information technology to determine priorities in regional informatization.
"Alter Russia"
Volkov said that the technological system for the implementation of the project will be created in October 2011.
Lawyer and blogger Alexei Navalny, who was present at the presentation of the book, declared his support for the ideas of cloud democracy.
On June 7, sociologist and networking specialist Igor Eidman criticized the project of "cloud democracy", in particular the idea of matrix delegation. According to Eidman, under Russian conditions, it will lead to mass buying and extortion of powers of attorney for voting, to the dominance of opposition "leaders" who control the votes of ordinary participants.
On June 19, Leonid Volkov and Fyodor Krashennikov spoke about their project to the participants of the Anti-Seliger civil forum.
On July 3, at a meeting of the Federal Political Council of Solidarity, the concept of "cloud democracy" was called promising for the implementation of the Internet democracy project, one of the four strategic projects of the movement.
On October 2, at the civil forum "Last Autumn", a presentation of the site "Democracy 2", created in line with the concept of "cloud democracy", took place. At the same time, the registration of participants on the site began.
Currently, the site is in the testing phase, its functionality is gradually expanding. As of October 16, 2011, the site had about 1000 members (Federation group).
On October 22, an improved version of the site appeared, including a new design, new comment notifications, private messages, vote delegation, a petition mechanism, and the Democracy Today newspaper.
On December 27, Andrei Illarionov, a well-known economist and public figure, published a keynote article “December theses for the citizens of Russia”, in which, in particular, he recommended using the Democracy 2 website to discuss and resolve all issues related to the general civil movement and organize voting for participants . Illarionov's article was published on many opposition sites. After that, the number of participants in the Democracy 2 website increased rapidly and in mid-January 2012 was close to 3,000.
On January 9, 2012, Igor Eidman again sharply criticized the Democracy 2 project, pointing out the lack of an effective mechanism for correct mass voting, the closeness of the development team, lack of transparency in funding, etc. He also accused the authors of the project of plagiarizing their ideas. Eidman approached Alexei Navalny with a proposal to raise funds from the public for an e-democracy project, form a supervisory board, and hold an open tender to select a contractor to create an e-democracy website.
On January 16, 2012, a beta version of the site was launched, which will implement all the necessary functionality.
The project is funded by businessman Sergiy Kolesnikov, who previously accused Putin of corruption; Kolesnikov is currently in hiding in the United States. According to Leonid Volkov, Kolesnikov took upon himself the obligation not to interfere in the affairs of the project and to transfer all rights to it into the hands of the community of its users.
"Democrat"
Candidates from the general civil list, as well as three curias - left, liberal and nationalist - participated in the elections. A total of 45 people were elected. A total of 211 candidates applied for seats in the Constitutional Court. The Coordinating Council is elected for one year, after which new elections will be held.
Political network of direct e-democracy
At the first stages of voting, there were big cheating of certain candidates (mostly with Jewish surnames in order to discredit the project) using bots. Then the organizers to some extent cleaned up the results from the bots' votes, introduced a captcha and limited multiple voting from one IP address (no more than once per hour). The results have become more adequate.
After the election, some deputies prepared video messages to voters, which were published on the Novaya Gazeta website. However, then (as of March 2012) the Network Parliament did not carry out any activity (see, for example, the entry in the blog of deputy Litvinov).
In the course of the Foundation's activities, "Web Neighbors" and "Direct Wikidemocracy" were added to the number of its projects. On February 25, 2012, the FRED held the first foresight on the topic of e-democracy in Russia, in which the Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Igor Shchegolev took part. After the first Federal Congress on e-democracy held on May 17-18, 2012, the FRED, together with the Pirate Party of Russia, focused on working on an alternative concept for the development of e-democracy in Russia.
Internet Party of the Russian Federation
The first Russian political party registered by the Ministry of Justice, assembled via the Internet, and the first party with an interactive political program, IPRF has set itself the goal of collecting the best intellectual resources of the Runet and giving everyone the opportunity to participate in the development, adoption and promotion of serious political decisions. The party leadership constantly emphasizes that the main goal of the IPRF is practical work, not protest.
Pirate Party of Russia
Electronic democracy and open government is one of the main activities of the Pirate Party of Russia, as well as its main political goal.
Portal of Civil Rights and Responsibilities Where to Whom
Electronic democracy on this portal is implemented through the service of compiling complaints and statements to any authority in Russia, free online preparation of claims and other statements.
Internet portal "Persons of the Saratov province"
Of particular note is the experiment with conducting polls on the Internet when appointing certain leaders in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. In August 2011, Governor N.V. Komarova appointed the director of the Department of Physical Culture and Sports based on the results of a public discussion of candidates. Similarly, the appointment of the director of the district department of education and youth policy in November of the same year. At the same time, 80,318 people took part in the survey conducted on the governor's blog. In June 2012, the regulations for the appointment of the chief physician of the District Clinical Hospital in Khanty-Mansiysk were adopted, according to which 2 candidates with the highest rating among TV viewers during the TV debates will be submitted for approval.
Activities of the President of the Russian Federation on the development of e-democracy in Russia
The activities of the President of the Russian Federation are of great importance for the development of e-democracy in the Russian Federation.
Thus, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of May 7, 2012 No. 601 “On the main directions for improving the system government controlled» The Government of the Russian Federation was instructed to ensure the implementation of the following measures: - to form a system for disclosing information about the draft regulatory legal acts being developed, the results of their public discussion, bearing in mind:
creation of a single resource in the Internet information and telecommunications network (hereinafter referred to as the Internet) for posting information on the development of draft regulatory legal acts by federal executive authorities, the course and results of their public discussion;
the use by federal executive authorities for the purpose of public discussion of draft regulatory legal acts of various forms of public consultations, including departmental resources and specialized resources on the Internet; providing at least 60 days for public consultations;
obligatory generalization by federal executive authorities - developers of draft regulatory legal acts of the results of public consultations and placement of relevant information on single resource on the Internet;
Approve the concept of the "Russian public initiative", providing for: the creation of technical and organizational conditions for the public presentation of citizens' proposals using a specialized resource on the Internet from April 15, 2013; consideration of these proposals, which received the support of at least 100 thousand citizens within one year, in the Government of the Russian Federation after these proposals have been worked out by an expert working group with the participation of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, members of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and representatives of the business community ;
Provide access on the Internet to open data contained in the information systems of bodies state power Russian Federation.
Notes
- e-government expert center
- Yesterday and tomorrow of "cloud democracy" Radio Liberty. 06/07/2011
- Cloud Democracy. Kasparov.ru 06.06.2011
- Igor Eidman. Democracy: cloudy or real? 06/07/2011
- Decisions of the Federal Political Council of the UDM "Solidarity". 07/04/2011
- "Last Autumn" Presentation of the e-democracy project
- Dmitry Chirkov. First major innovations. 22.10.2011
- December theses for citizens of Russia 27.12.2011
- Igor Eidman. "Decembrists" and electronic democracy. 01/09/2012
- Leonid Volkov, Fedor Krasheninnikov. Democracy2: RELOAD 01/15/2012
- Udaltsov: the opposition expects to attract 100,000 people to the elections to the coordinating council. Vedomosti, 08/18/2012
- Direct e-democracy network rules "Putin must go". Viewed on 27.02.2011
- D. Baranovsky. Once again about the idea of the project. Blog of the movement "Just Russians"
- Working group of the Council of the Movement. "Just Russians"
- We choose the network parliament of Runet. New Newspaper. March 28, 2011
- [TO. Poleskov. ONLINE PARLIAMENT: The final voting will end today at 23:59 Moscow time. Novaya Gazeta, 04/04/2011]
- Igor Eidman. News of electronic democracy. 04/25/2011
- [TO. Poleskov. Who are all these people? Runet users have chosen an alternative parliament for the first time. Novaya Gazeta, 04/24/2011]
- Representatives of RARIO took part in a press conference dedicated to the establishment of the Fund for the Development of Electronic Democracy, RARIO. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
- Foundation for the Development of Electronic Democracy. Founders (Russian). Archived
- Foundation for the Development of Electronic Democracy. Projects (Russian). Archived from the original on August 19, 2012. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
- Rassypnova, K. The ideas of the "volunteers" of the Fund for the Development of Electronic Democracy will be taken into account when creating an "open" government - Shchegolev, ITAR-TASS(February 25, 2012). Retrieved 3 July 2012.
- Work continues on an alternative concept for the development of e-democracy in Russia, Electronic Democracy Development Foundation. Retrieved 3 July 2012.
- Lenta.ru: The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation registered the "Internet Party"
- Slon.ru: The Ministry of Justice registered the "Internet Party"
- Internet Party Program
- Lenizdat.ru: "Internet Party of the Russian Federation": Trample squares of 50-100 people does not seem appropriate
- Manifesto of the Pirate Party of Russia
- Service for compiling Complaints and Applications to any authority
- Igor Trofimov: “It’s already harder for officials not to react” // Vzglyad. May 03, 2012
- Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated October 20, 2010 No. 1815-r
- Uzbekova A. Fishermen rush to bite // Russian newspaper: newspaper. - M ., October 25, 2011. - No. 5615 (239).
e-democracy. Principles for introducing technology into the democratic process
Electronic democracy
The world of the 21st century is electronic and mobile. At the end of the last century, trends towards the digitization of society were clearly visible. Therefore, it is not surprising that this digital trend should affect many other facets of life. The concepts of e-government, e-democracy and e-participation discussed and implemented in a variety of ways as there is a growing need for participation in the political decision-making process. Indeed, the Internet can be seen as an opportunity to bridge the gap between the rulers and the ruled. In a sense, institutions have been unable to take advantage of new technologies.
Today, e-democracy is still in its infancy. It seems that websites with political information appeared only a few years ago. The same can be said about the development of the first e-democracy tools for e-forums and e-voting; the focus was on using 20th century political methods along with 21st century technology. Web 2.0 offers capabilities such as conflict resolution and other group decision-making tools and technologies that can be used to radically transform and expand democracy through technology. Perhaps most of the technology required to support the features included in the participation tools is already available.
It is not only a wide range of government institutions that are placing ICT at the forefront of their strategies for change: other organizations and groups are increasingly using the Internet for campaigning and debate. E-democracy can bring about change for the better and is not always managed or controlled by the government.
One way to increase the impact of e-democracy on the democratic process is to identify the contexts in which many of its goals are achieved and where missing details can be obtained. These missing details are more likely to become links than the sites themselves: the network provided by the Internet is the most important engine of e-democracy. When it is recognized that various people and organizations also promote, create and control democracy, more Internet sites that support e-participation (even if the term is not mentioned there) will be recognized. The challenge will be how best to support them with quality information, as well as to convey to politicians their experience and the results of their activities.
E-democracy does not lead to a different type of democracy than the type that exists where it is implemented. From a fundamental point of view, e-democracy is not intended to change democracy or the type of democracy that exists in the place where it is implemented. The methods of e-democracy and e-participation can be classified in different ways. In most cases, a three-tier classification is used, for example, according to the degree of interaction and the binding force of the result (information - communication - transmission), or the degree of participation (information - communication - participation). Some suggest a four-tier classification (eg information - consultation - cooperation - joint determination/decision making, or more related to e-government: information - one-way response - two-way response - full electronic case processing). E-democracy does not promote any particular type of democracy. E-democracy, for example, is not intended to promote direct democracy. The purpose of e-democracy is to facilitate democratic processes, not to promote any particular type of democracy.
The main purpose of e-democracy is not to force people to use technology: it is to use technology to improve democratic governance and participation. E-democracy must be driven by the demands of democracy, not technology. Neither ICTs themselves nor enhanced or improved technologies in and of themselves automatically contribute to the support or strengthening of democracy, democratic institutions and processes. Agreed democratic and human values and ethical considerations are inseparable parts of the technological aspects of e-democracy. The choice of instruments reflects not only the course of policy, but also the implementation of values and ethical considerations. In addition to their function of sharing and disseminating information, ICTs also have the ability and vocation to improve the process of realizing human rights.
There are several reasons for the introduction of technology into the democratic process: for example, a decrease in the turnout in elections, a lack of interest in politics among young people, a decrease in the level of legitimacy, and a gap between politicians/state authorities and citizens. However, technology should never be the reason for implementing e-democracy. Technology can be used to address these current challenges facing democracy. in number electronic solutions These challenges include e-participation, e-parliament, e-petitions and e-consultation.
The Internet of the future will not be what it is today. Web 2.0 is widely used at the moment, but Web 3.0 is already being developed. The term "Web 2.0" is used to describe Internet applications designed to enhance creativity, information sharing and collaboration. New technologies and tools include user-generated content, social media, social electronic commerce, Semantic Internet Opportunities, Online Employee Engagement, Personal Publishing, and Community Journalism. Some of the Web 2.0 applications are very successful (Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube). Wikipedia demonstrates how citizens can collaborate in content creation and knowledge sharing through grassroots collaboration and employee engagement. An important issue related to Web 2.0 is what e-government and e-democracy can learn from social media and how public authorities can embrace this new way of collaborating and sharing information.
E-democracy: world experience
The creation of new forms of interaction between the state and citizens using information and communication technologies (ICT) is not a new idea, known since the 1970s, when the possibilities of cable networks began to be used to increase the activity of citizens in elections. The 1980s saw a number of experiments with e-voting and online discussions, but it was not until the early 2000s, with the development of the Internet, that there was significant interest in using ICTs to promote democracy.
One of the pioneers in the field of e-democracy is Estonia, which in 2005 was the first in the world to hold local elections using Internet voting. In 2007, electronic voting was already used in the elections to the Estonian Parliament. And if in 2005 only about 2% of Estonian voters voted on the Internet, in the 2011 parliamentary elections this figure reached 24%.
Another example from Estonia is the “Today I Decide” (“Täna Otsustan Mina” (TOM), or “Today I Decide” (TID) project, initiated in 2001 (there is also a TID+ project that accumulates the experience of the TID project). is to create a portal that provides citizens with the opportunity to openly express their proposals for improving public administration and the legislative system and discuss new initiatives affecting various areas of society.According to the creators of the project, the main task of the project should be more active participation of voters in the formation of state policy and the removal of barriers between society and the state.
The same ideas formed the basis of the Estonian E-Citizen project, which created two electronic resource: Information Portal and Citizen Portal. Portals operated by the Estonian State Information System Department open the door to the e-state, informing citizens about their rights and obligations and providing access to electronic services, databases, a virtual office, and so on.If in 2005 about 2% of Estonian voters voted online, in the 2011 parliamentary elections this figure reached 24%.
In Iceland, information and communication technologies are also being used for a wide discussion of socially important issues. According to the latest estimates, 97.8% of Icelanders use the Internet. One of the most enlightening examples from the experience of this country is the brainstorming of the draft Constitution in in social networks: The website of the Constitutional Council received 3,600 comments and more than 300 official proposals. Taking them into account, the draft basic law of the state was presented to the parliament and the public.
Many ordinary citizens, seemingly far from state administration and lawmaking, showed activity in the discussion of the draft Constitution. At the same time, some experts and representatives of higher educational institutions turned out to be very passive. According to one of the representatives of the Constitutional Council of Iceland, the main lesson of the experiment is that truly positive results can only be expected when the authorities listen to the opinion of citizens.
Another interesting example of the implementation of e-democracy mechanisms can be seen in New Zealand with the revision of the police law, which has been in force since 1958. In 2007, a wiki version of the bill was brought to public attention. As a result of the experiment, 234 proposals were received and taken into account, which formed the basis of the new document. According to experts, the participation of citizens has become one of the key aspects in the process of drafting the law.
The functioning of e-democracy mechanisms is directly related to the issues of "e-participation" (e-participation), which Professor Ann McIntosh defined as "the use of ICTs to increase the degree of political participation by enabling citizens to interact with each other, as well as with elected representatives." South Korea is one of the leaders in the field of e-participation, according to the recent UN report "E-Government 2012: E-Government for the People". Since 1995, the Ministry of Information and Communications of this country has committed significant resources to the development of the Internet. In 2000, most South Korean citizens had access to the World Wide Web, and a number of politicians had their own web pages. New websites quickly appeared, instantly filled with political discussions. The result was a sharp increase in political activity on the Internet. key point in the development of e-democracy in South Korea The presidential elections of 2002 began: according to analysts, Ro Moo-hyun's victory was largely due to the support of the Internet community organized by the candidate's supporters on the website www.nosamo.org and numbering about 47,000 participants.
A revolution in the virtual world often has a serious impact on the real world: suffice it to recall the revolution in Tunisia, which led to the overthrow of President Ben Ali, who created a police state and suppressed any protests. Despite certain achievements of his regime in the economic sphere, a significant number of Tunisian citizens opposed the authoritarian course, and social networks became the main platform for protest. It was they who allowed opposition-minded citizens to convey to the world information about the events that were carefully hidden by the authorities. Facebook and Twitter have become platforms for the free exchange of opinions and the coordination of the protest movement.
The Internet is often targeted by authoritarian regimes. For example, the Iranian authorities have repeatedly blocked access to Gmail e-mail (the last time this measure was presented as a "response" to the screening of the movie "Innocence of Muslims"). According to official explanations, e-mail services do not comply with the laws of the Islamic Republic. Currently, Iranian government agencies are actively developing their own analogue of the Internet.
Internet freedom is significantly limited in China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Vietnam. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a mixed picture: on the one hand, this country is considered one of the leaders in the development of e-government and has a high score in e-decision making (100% in the UN ranking). The government website www.government.ae allows citizens to ask questions, participate in discussions and express their opinions on a range of issues of public interest. On the other hand, the mechanisms of e-democracy in the UAE coexist well with authoritarian tendencies: it is strange to hear, for example, about achievements in the field of e-democracy and at the same time about state intervention in all spheres of public life, the closure of offices of foreign organizations, persecution and arrests of dissenters.
It sets out recommendations, principles and guidelines on e-democracy, which are intended to apply in the context of e-democracy the principles of democracy and human rights, as established, inter alia, in documents of the Council of Europe and other international instruments. The recommendation is complemented by a series of indicative guidelines offered as additional suggestions for possible action.
Recommendation CM/REC(2009)1 uses the terms "democracy", "democratic institutions" and "democratic processes". The concept of democracy reflects two principles of democracy. The first is that all participants enjoy generally recognized freedoms. Democratic institutions, including NGOs, are essential because democracy is not limited to periodic elections; and therefore institutions are needed to support and defend democracy. Democratic processes consist in the ways in which decisions are made within these institutions and the protection of democratic rights.
E-democracy includes everything that is democracy and is not only about technology. Therefore, the evolution of e-democracy through improved technologies should be taken as a basis and used in accordance with the principles of democratic governance and practice. E-democracy and its tools are presented in the Recommendation as additional opportunities for democracy; at the same time, there are neither elements of their promotion, nor obstacles to their application
The CM/REC(2009)1 recommendation on e-democracy is the first serious international document describing e-democracy in its entirety. Thus, this is only the first step taken by an international (intergovernmental) organization in presenting and describing e-democracy and setting appropriate standards. It is proposed to carry out further work in specific areas of e-democracy. The Council of Europe will, among other things, continue to work on legislative issues, consultations and bottom-up e-democracy, as these are areas in which the Council of Europe has particular expertise and interest.
Principles of e-democracy
The appendix to recommendation CM/Rec(2009)1 states that when introducing e-democracy or taking steps to improve it, stakeholders should take into account the following principles of e-democracy:
P.1. As a support and reinforcement of democratic institutions and processes through ICTs, e-democracy is first and foremost about democracy. Its main goal is to support democracy electronically.
P.2. E-democracy is one of several strategies to support democracy, democratic institutions and democratic processes, and to spread democratic values. It complements the traditional processes of democracy and is interconnected with them. Each process has its own merits, and none of them is universally applicable.
P.3. E-democracy is based on the democratic, human, social, ethical and cultural values of the society in which it is implemented.
P.4. E-democracy is closely linked to good governance, which is an efficient, effective, collaborative, transparent and accountable way of exercising power in electronic form and includes informal politics and non-governmental actors.
P.5. E-democracy must respect and realize fundamental freedoms, human and minority rights, including freedom of information and access to it.
P.6. E-democracy is an opportunity to facilitate the provision of information and discussion by increasing the activity of citizens to expand political debate and ensure an increase in the quality and legitimacy of political decisions.
P.7. E-democracy affects all sectors of democracy, all democratic institutions, all levels of government, as well as a wide range of other parties.
P.8. The stakeholders of e-democracy are all individuals and institutions involved in and benefiting from democracy.
P.9. E-democracy, like democracy, involves many and different stakeholders and requires their participation. Participating States, public authorities and their representatives are just a few of the parties that have a stake in e-democracy. Citizens, civil society and its institutions, the media and the business community are all equally necessary to develop and implement e-democracy.
P.11. Any type of participation can be achieved through e-democracy:
providing information;
communication, consultation, discussion;
interaction, empowered participation, joint development and decision making.
P.12. E-democracy can be implemented with varying degrees of sophistication, in different types of democracy and at different stages of democracy development. It is not associated with or leads to any particular type of democracy.
P.13. In particular, democracy can, through the use of new technologies, attract young people to democracy, democratic institutions and democratic processes.
P.14. NGOs can both benefit from the introduction of e-democracy and provide a testing ground for e-democracy for citizens.
P.15. E-democracy can be especially useful for regions that cross state borders and cover territorial units from different countries. Their institutions and citizens residing in different countries and having a common linguistic and cultural identity. It can facilitate participation and decision-making processes in international institutions.
P.16. Public authorities can benefit from discussions and initiatives regarding e-democracy activities carried out by civil society, as well as cooperation in this area with civil society.
P.17. The goals of e-democracy, which are similar to those of good governance, are transparency, accountability, accountability, inclusion, discussion, inclusiveness, accessibility, participation, subsidiarity, trust in democracy, democratic institutions and democratic processes, and social cohesion.
P.18. Trust is extremely important for any type of e-democracy at all stages and phases. It is closely related to accessibility, transparency and accountability.
P.19. E-democracy helps to increase the level of participation of individuals and groups, allows those whose voices are heard less often or in a quieter voice to express their views, and promotes equal participation. It can lead to more collective forms of decision-making and democracy.
P.20. E-democracy is about supporting and strengthening democratic participation; it covers sectors of e-democracy where civil society and businesses are involved in formal and informal programming, and decision-making.
P.21. E-democracy by itself does not cover the constitutional and other duties and responsibilities of decision makers; it can provide them with additional benefits.
P.22. E-democracy requires information, dialogue, communication, discussion and the continuous creation of open public spaces where citizens can gather to advance their civic interests.
P.23. The media play a key role in e-democracy; among other things, they offer a platform where citizens can take part in public debate and defend their interests in the public sphere.
P.24. New Media and Suppliers electronic services improve the quality of access to information, thereby providing people with a better basis for participating in democracy.
P.25. E-democracy is an integral part of the information society, bringing with it a number of traditional and innovative tools that can be successfully applied in democratic processes and institutions.
P.26. Access to a new information and communication environment can facilitate the process of realizing democratic rights and freedoms, in particular, to participate in public life and democratic processes.
P.27. If e-democracy is to be designed properly, it must be based on the following concepts:
actively providing comprehensive, balanced and objective information to help the public understand problems, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions to democratic problems; this concept is closely related to freedom of information and freedom of speech;
a broad understanding of citizenship, embracing individuals and groups of individuals who permanently reside and are integrated into political reality, regardless of nationality;
civic participation - that is, the involvement of citizens and groups of citizens, such as interest groups, corporations, associations and non-profit organizations (NPOs) in public affairs so that they can influence and improve the quality and acceptability of the results of democratic processes;
empowerment – in particular, strategies and measures to support civil rights and provide resources for participation;
inclusion - that is, the political and technological arming of citizens, regardless of age, gender, education, socio-economic status, language, special needs and place of residence; such inclusion requires the ability to use electronic tools (knowledge, e-skills, e-readiness), available and accessible tools, and a combination of electronic and non-electronic approaches;
discussion - in particular, rational debate on an equal footing, where people publicly discuss, approve and criticize each other's points of view in the course of meaningful, polite discussion of the issue and the action required in relation to it.
P.28. E-democracy can lead to a form of democracy that all stakeholders can view, observe, access and interact with from anywhere.
P.29. E-democracy has the potential to bring decision makers and citizens together in new forms of engagement and policy development. On the one hand, this can lead to a better understanding of public opinion and the needs of the people by decision makers, on the other hand, to a better understanding by the public of the tasks and difficulties faced by decision makers. This will provide citizens with a better definition of the democratic system and a higher level of respect and trust in democracy.
P.30. Since e-democracy opens up new channels for information, communication, discussion and participation and increases transparency and accountability, it has the potential to address shortcomings in democratic institutions and processes.
P.31. E-democracy has great potential for community building, including community building among and with minorities.
P.32. By offering a means of limiting the degree of exclusion, e-democracy can enhance social inclusion and social cohesion, thereby contributing to social stability.
P.33. E-democracy has the potential to further enhance the European, international and global nature of politics and to facilitate the cross-border cooperation that it entails.
P.34. E-democracy requires interdisciplinary and cross-border research.
E-democracy in Russia: official version
In Russia, the development of the information society and e-democracy, at first glance, is going very well: in terms of the number of Internet users, the country has taken first place in Europe and sixth in the world. The Internet audience in Russia continues to grow and, according to the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation at the beginning of 2012, amounted to 70 million people. According to the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), 60% of Russians use the Internet today, and 40% go online every day.
In April 2012, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications published the draft " Concepts for the development of e-democracy mechanisms in the Russian Federation until 2020”, and already in May, at the first federal congress on e-democracy, the ministry presented a new tool for Internet interaction between citizens and the state: the Unified Portal of E-Democracy of the Russian Federation. As conceived by the creators, the Single Portal will provide not only the government, but also individual citizens and organizations with the opportunity to “create, discuss, support and publicly place their appeals with their subsequent sending to departments and authorities, inform authorities about emerging problems, make suggestions and initiatives ".
At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, represented by Deputy Minister Oleg Fomichev, proposed the creation of the Russian Public Initiative portal. According to representatives of the department, the idea of the project arose thanks to the very pre-election article of Putin. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the portal will become "a unique specialized Internet resource for public promotion and discussion of civil legislative initiatives" and will serve to introduce the mechanisms of e-democracy.
At the end of June 2012, the Office for the Application of Information Technologies and the Development of Electronic Democracy was created in the structure of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, headed by the former Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev. His former deputy, Ilya Massukh, became the founder of the Information Democracy Foundation, whose main task is to translate the virtual communication of citizens with the authorities into a real one. “The Foundation was created to promote all the good things that are on the Internet, to support regional projects,” Massukh said at the first meeting of the Information Democracy Foundation's expert club. “We have to show the citizens how the clique generates this or that action of the authorities.” One of the Fund's key projects is the Russian Public Initiative, which is an alternative version of the project of the same name by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
The abundance of official initiatives creates the impression that, despite some difficulties, Russian e-democracy, under the strict guidance of the authorities, will soon lead the country to the democratization of political life (Ilya Massukh himself wrote about this, for example). However, upon closer examination, the "purity of intentions" of the Russian authorities is called into question.
So, while still in his former position as Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications, Shchegolev spoke about his vision of the “electronic democracy” project as follows: “This is a rather promising project, because it works according to the outsourcing model. When we can use analytical mechanisms to see which areas of work cause the largest number claims, then it will be possible to evaluate the work of individual departments, and individual bodies, and individual leaders. According to him, it turns out that the main goal of e-democracy is not to expand the participation of citizens in the exercise of power, but their participation in the optimization of the state machine. The interests of citizens are a secondary matter.
UDC 321.7:004.77
ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY: CONCEPT, PROBLEMS
O. V. Omelichkin
E-DEMOCRACY: CONCEPT AND PROBLEMS
O. V. Omelichkin
The article examines theoretical issues related to the use of new information technologies and the formation of e-democracy. The main problems and contradictions are analyzed. The prospects for the formation of e-democracy in Russia are considered.
The paper studies some theoretical issues related to the application of new information technologies and the formation of e-democracy. It explores the major challenges and contradictions of the process. The perspectives on the e-democracy development in Russia are subject to a detailed analysis.
Key words: information technologies, political communication, democracy, e-democracy, political participation.
Keywords: information technology, political communication, democracy, e-democracy, political participation.
In modern conditions, new information and communication technologies (ICT) have a great influence on political life. The Internet, which forms a unified global virtual space, is of great importance. At the same time, new forms of public administration are being formed in the form of “electronic government” activities. Systems of websites of state institutions, parties and public organizations are being created. In many countries, various methods of "electronic voting" are beginning to be used. As a result, politics is becoming more and more penetrating, public and spectacular. New forms of political communication cannot but have a significant impact on the processes of democratization. They led to the emergence of a new phenomenon called "electronic democracy", "network democracy", etc. It opens up new opportunities for citizens to participate in politics. In modern science, these processes have received a certain theoretical understanding.
J.-A. de Condorcet and other thinkers of the past. In the second half of the 20th century, new communication theories emerged. M. McLuhan saw the most important factor in the historical process in new information technologies and argued that the dominant type of communication also determines the type of society. After the pre-literate stage of the development of civilization and the stage of written culture, an “electronic society” (or “global village”) arises, which, with the help of electronic means of communication (infocommunications), forms a new multidimensional picture of the world.
Ideas that anticipated the advent of e-democracy were expressed at different times by C. Cooley, R. Park, J. Gallup, G. Lasswell, and others. O. Toffler was one of the first to record a new political phenomenon. In his book Future Shock (1970), he wrote about the emergence of "anticipatory democracy". Its essence was that the power, taking political decisions should listen to people's opinions about the possible consequences of the proposed changes. At the same time, citizens themselves, through interested groups, on their own initiative can apply with proposals
nyami and projects for the development of the country or any institution in government bodies. Initially, this form of democracy relied on traditional media, but with the advent of new technologies, its capabilities have grown significantly.
M. Castells states the crisis of the existing liberal model of democracy. He notes the need to move from a hierarchical system of government to a decentralized and networked one based on the development of local self-government and established horizontal links between citizens and authorities, as well as the widespread use of electronic communications.
Already in the 70s. in the United States, the first experiments began to create interactive telematics systems (in the form of "electronic city meetings"). In 1993, the first official state website of the White House appeared. Since 1998, all federal authorities began to use email. The first elections over the Internet were held in 2000 in Oregon. In Estonia, local elections were held using the Internet in 2005. Another voting option involves the use of "electronic ballot boxes" that can work without being connected to the electricity grid and communication infrastructure. In Brazil, such a system has been used in municipal elections since 2000.
A portal has been created in Estonia that allows citizens to submit proposals for improving public administration and legislation, and come up with new initiatives. In Iceland and New Zealand, major bills are discussed this way. Similar examples you can continue. It is no coincidence that in 2006 the Council of Europe created a special committee on e-democracy (SAIBE) - an intergovernmental body consisting of representatives of 47 states that are members of the Council of Europe, as well as other international organizations.
As a result of such innovations, direct and feedback links are established between the authorities and citizens, working online and allowing them to conduct a continuous dialogue. This contributes to the prompt discussion of public
problems and allows you to achieve support from the population for decisions made. Thus, the nature of political governance is changing, taking on an increasingly democratic form.
The idea that the information society creates new forms and mechanisms of democratic participation is being actively developed in the scientific literature. R. Dahl wrote that interactive telecommunications systems help reduce the gap between the elite and the people, allow any citizen to ask questions and get easily accessible information about public problems in a form suitable for him. They "allow citizens to engage in discussions with experts, with political decision-makers and with ordinary compatriots" . Such democracy provides new channels of interaction between political subjects, expands the political audience and opens up new opportunities for informing and self-organizing people.
We consider e-democracy as a form of interaction between people and authorities, in which the processes of informing and involving citizens in politics, voting, joint discussion and decision-making, control over their implementation, etc. are carried out on the basis of the latest information and communication technologies.
The concept of e-democracy is being actively developed in modern science. Experts distinguish two directions in it - direct democracy (democracy of participation) and communitarian democracy. The first direction is represented by I. Masuda and B. Barber, who note the increased importance of direct participation of citizens in politics and the management of public affairs through new information channels. As a result, the political representation of professionals, officials and experts will gradually be overcome. Supporters of the communitarian approach (A. Etzioni, H. Reingold) note that various groups, associations, citizens interact in the electronic space, discuss and make decisions on a wide range of issues without the participation of professional intermediaries.
At the same time, some scholars speak of a qualitatively new stage in the development of democracy, indicating a kind of return to direct democracy with its absence of intermediaries represented by elected representatives, political parties and other structures. The introduction of new information technologies leads to the onset of the third (previously ancient and representative) era of democracy (L. Grossman).
It should be emphasized that a huge imprint on the democratic configuration of information networks is being imposed by the growing globalization modern world. It weakens the control of nation-states over communication sources and promotes the wide and unhindered dissemination of political ideas and democratic experience.
However, many scientists believe that these changes affect only the technical possibilities of acceleration. information processes and the provision of services, leaving the old social ties and relationships. The nature of power and political control does not change. The low level of political
civic culture and activity of citizens can devalue the full potential of the latest information technologies.
In this regard, experts note that new technologies have significant opportunities for manipulating public consciousness. Disinformation and lies penetrate any electronic networks.
They express the interests of very different political forces that control these channels. Newest technical means can also be used for anti-state terrorist activities.
This circumstance makes us doubt the democratic nature of the emerging information society. The Italian specialist D. Zolo speaks about the utopian nature of the very idea of e-democracy. The availability of new interactive communication technologies (teleconferencing, public opinion polling systems, automated feedback programs, two-way cable television, etc.) that allow for constant public consultation and instant referendums has not led to the creation of a true democracy. The fact is that professional agencies involved in the field of communication, for the most part, work for profit and are guided by the interests of the ruling circles represented by large companies and the state bureaucracy. Therefore, they consistently hush up (or “talk out”) the most controversial social problems and stifle political innovation. This is also hampered by the growing specialization of political functions and the extreme lack of time and attention inherent in modern society. The continuous increase in the volume (redundancy) of transmitted information and the uncontrollability of processes lead to disorientation and apathy in relation to traditional collective forms of political participation and, accordingly, to the withdrawal of individuals into the sphere of private life. The author calls this effect "an intoxicating dysfunction" that replaces personal responsibility and participation.
Political practice shows that in a democratic society, political associations, organizations and other structures that usually act as intermediaries still enjoy great influence and actively use electronic means for your purposes. In addition, themselves technological systems are the same social structures as political institutions, and their activities are controlled and regulated by the state. The leading role in democracy continues to be played by the various social groups and individuals.
Therefore, state and public control over the mass media and the activities of the "invisible" political power is necessary. Only then the Internet and other information technologies can play an important role in the formation of democratic mechanisms of political participation.
At the same time, in modern conditions there is a noticeable reduction in direct forms of political participation. The number of political associations is decreasing. Periodically, the activity of people in the elections falls. At the same time, there is an expansion of symbolic forms of participation through the media. People become interested
observers of political events, connecting the need for knowledge and orientation in public politics with entertainment and organizing their own leisure. Such participation can result both in new forms of information exchange and self-organization of citizens, and in the imitation of democratic forums.
At the same time, it becomes obvious that, in general, ICT contribute to an increase in the level of political activity of the masses, involvement in politics of new social strata and groups (especially young people or the population remote areas), their accelerated mobilization during political campaigns, equal participation of citizens in the discussion and adoption of responsible decisions, collective control over state bodies. They expand the political space by virtualizing and doubling it.
At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of "electronic democracy" and "electronic government". Following other specialists, we believe that the latter ensures efficiency and convenience in providing services to citizens. government agencies informing them about the most important events. The democratic quality of the system is linked to additional features in holding elections and personal participation of citizens in the discussion and adoption of political decisions. As a result, people get the opportunity not only to communicate their proposals and demands, but to control and partly direct the activities of public authorities.
The basic principles of e-democracy are enshrined in such an important international instrument as the Recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe CM/JEC(2009)1 on e-democracy. The Appendix to them defines the main directions and standards in its development.
Briefly, they look like this:
the main objective e-democracy is about supporting democracy and strengthening democratic institutions and processes.
It complements and interacts with traditional processes.
It is based on the democratic, human and cultural values of society.
It is the realization of power in electronic form and includes informal politics and non-governmental actors.
E-democracy implements fundamental freedoms, including freedom of information and access to it, human and minority rights.
It ensures the expansion of political debate and the improvement of the quality of decisions made at all levels of government.
It can be used in different types of democracy and at different stages of democratic development.
The goals and principles of e-democracy are transparency, accountability, responsibility, involvement, discussion, inclusiveness, accessibility, participation, subsidiarity, trust, social cohesion.
The media and other open sources play a key role in it. electronic platforms for public debate.
E-democracy is an integral part of the information society.
It is based on the following concepts: awareness, broad citizenship, participation, empowerment, inclusion, discussion.
It brings decision makers and citizens together in policy making, promoting social inclusion and community stability.
E-democracy enhances the international and global nature of politics and facilitates cross-border cooperation.
In general, e-democracy ensures that the opinions and proposals of the population and organizations are taken into account in the process of political decision-making and administrative management. It promotes the involvement of citizens in the political process in new, simpler and more accessible forms. Authorities directly interact with the people, their activities become open and effective on the basis of accelerating all procedures for discussing and making managerial decisions and providing public services. The goal of such a democracy is to optimize the activities of political institutions by eliminating unnecessary intermediary structures and information barriers, as well as direct and active political participation of the people in public affairs.
As part of this process, social networks of free political communication and cooperation and the wide dissemination of any information and projects are being created. On this basis, new social network political movements are formed, which gradually replace traditional parties and public organizations in the eyes of the audience. For "implicit" communities and interest groups, such movements can become a convenient form of political organization and education, coordination of collective actions that provide situational mobilization of citizens and the development of political goals that unite them. They are characterized by the presence of many opinion leaders and the existing levels of information interaction. At the same time, all members of the network community remain independent and independent of any structures, voluntarily enter into political unions and assume any responsibility, guided by their own ideas and beliefs. Thus, the political configuration of society takes the form of a set of autonomous agencies and associations.
In Russia, there are all the prerequisites for the development of an electronic political space. Even now, the country ranks first in Europe and sixth in the world in terms of the number of Internet users. Total population users is about 70 million people. The Internet is becoming the second most important source of news about events in the country and in the world after television. According to VTsIOM data (March 2013), the share of Internet users is 67% of the population, and 41% of them do it daily. Among those surveyed, 53% expressed confidence that the development of the Internet is beneficial to our society. It provides quick access to information and expands the possibilities for communication. However, 24% see more harm in this, because, in their opinion, this space is filled with “empty”, harmful information and negatively affects young people (“zombie”, stupidity) .
At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Russians agree that there are indeed many dangerous sites and materials on the Internet, and therefore it is necessary to introduce censorship and limit access to it for teenagers.
In July 2013, the fund " Public opinion” conducted a study, the purpose of which was to find out how widespread civic initiatives are on the Internet. It turned out that among those who visit the Internet at least once a month, 15% of the respondents showed civic activity. At the same time, over the past six months - a year they had to do the following on the Internet: speak out on social and political problems on blogs, social networks, news sites - 6%, visit the websites of parties, public (non-profit) organizations, political leaders - 5%, donate money to charitable foundations, strangers in need -4%, participate in Internet voting on political issues - 2%, post information about local problems on centralized services (for example, a garbage dump, a broken playground, etc.) -2% , join groups of parties / political leaders in social networks - 1%, disseminate information about social and political problems and events - 1%, join groups of public (non-profit) organizations, initiatives to solve public problems and help those in need of social
networks - 1%, sign petitions, bills, appeals on the Internet - 1%, participate in public examination of bills - 1%. Among active users, these figures are significantly higher. At the same time, 81% of respondents did not do any of the above.
It's obvious that political activity characteristic of a small part of Internet users. However, the study showed that people who show high civic activity on the Internet are more ready than others to unite for joint actions, tend to trust people from their environment. They are more likely to express their willingness to organize and participate in social events, as well as to donate money to various social projects.
E-democracy provides the population with various public services and information about the activities of relevant institutions, allows citizens to participate in the discussion of socially significant problems and the adoption of important decisions, in monitoring their implementation. Its main mechanisms are electronic voting, polls, online network communication, appeals and proposals of citizens, the formation of communicative communities and the organization of their activities. All this should contribute to the development of self-governing principles in public life and the realization in new forms of basic civil rights and freedoms.
ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY BELOW VIEW
The phrase "electronic democracy" arose long before the widespread use of the Internet. When interactive cable television appeared in the American state of Ohio in the 70s, citizens got the opportunity to follow the meetings of the local administration, as well as express their opinion through instant push-button voting (later Professor M. Castells writes: “The Internet can be used by citizens to watch their governments - rather than by governments to watch their citizens").
Such an electronic citywide meeting showed that there was a technical means for organizing remote social interactions, and even then gave rise to expectations that new communication technologies could ensure the implementation of the principles of freedom of speech. Teledemocracy technologies were widely used by Ross Perot during the 1991 election campaign, which forced his rival B. Clinton to follow this example. We will return to electoral technologies below.
The emergence of Internet technologies has greatly increased the influence of society on political power. The mechanisms of e-democracy have long been used in the West. An example is the Pirate Party. The fighters for freedom of information and copyright have become a serious social and political movement, spread their activity to 40 countries and won two seats in the European Parliament. Another example is the Active Democracy party, which has been active in Sweden since 2002. Canada, Singapore, Holland, Finland, Norway, Australia, and Estonia have made notable progress in this area.
According to Wikipedia, e-democracy (e-democracy) is a form of direct democracy characterized by the use of information and communication technologies as the main means for collective thinking and administrative processes (informing, making joint decisions, monitoring the implementation of decisions, etc.) at all levels, starting from the level local government and ending with international. In a broad sense, this means taking into account the opinions and involvement of citizens and organizations in political decisions and processes. The aim of e-democracy is to make citizens' participation in public decision making easier and simpler. E-democracy can help citizens become more involved in policy making, make decision-making more transparent, bring government closer to the people, and increase its political legitimacy.
Unlike e-government, which is created “from above” to serve the interests of the state, e-democracy is designed primarily to reflect the interests of citizens and, accordingly, be created “from below”.
In the previous material, it was shown that if the authorities communicate their intention to benefit the population, then the true motives for such initiatives are usually related to the implementation of laws, the use of funds, the implementation of plans, career considerations, etc. Only in rare cases do citizens get what really works and what they really need.
As a result, the influence of the virtual environment on real life countries. The activity of people is increasingly manifesting itself in a new, informal quality. The Internet is becoming not only an additional space for self-organization of citizens, but also a platform for asserting their rights and freedoms. The most notable public initiatives of recent times - both protest activity and mutual assistance - were carried out with the help of Internet communications. Social media in general and the blogosphere in particular are alternative media, in which the majority of Internet users have much higher trust than in the authorities and traditional media (according to the Levada Center, only 16% of citizens trust local authorities, and this the level of trust decreases every year).
The ideas of Government2.0 are gaining more and more supporters. The number of projects that make the Internet a tool for solving society's problems is growing, and their scope is expanding. Below we will consider some new public initiatives from various regions of the country, developing on the principles of e-democracy.
Let's start a brief review of initiative projects of public monitoring of power with the famous RosPil A. Navalny. This is a government procurement control system, which, according to the president, "steals a trillion a year." The site is dedicated to the fight against officials who use the public procurement system for personal enrichment. This is not just a collection of information about theft and collective indignation, but specific work for each competition with the involvement of experts. The wide popularity of the project made it possible to unite the Internet wallets of ordinary people to fight corruption: when the fundraising for the operation of the project was announced, 3 million rubles were received in the first week. The total amount of orders for which violations were stopped exceeded 7.5 billion rubles.
Under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary Development, there is a project by I.Begtin RosGosZatraty, created to analyze and monitor government spending in the Russian Federation and is based on open and publicly available data. Information on state grants and state contracts is tracked (at the expense of federal budget, regional budgets and municipal level).
The public procurement information service is offered by Innovative Search Technologies LLC. The IST-Budget website aggregates public and private tender data collected from five major e-commerce platforms. The task is to create a single free information space for searching and primary processing of information on public procurement conducted in the country.
A group of projects is dedicated to public monitoring of politicians' promises. L. Volkov from Yekaterinburg maintains the site DalSlovo.ru. All content that appears in the project is entered there by the users themselves. The logical unit that the project operates on is an objectively verifiable promise, a statement by a public person that contains specific deadlines. In the current reality, politicians make such statements completely irresponsibly and as often as they like. On the site, such promises are recorded and tracked using a calendar of deadlines, while it is easy to get information about government officials who have been “lit up” on the project site.
(The described service uses the collection and verification of information by an unlimited circle of people, this is a special case of the so-called crowdsourcing (from crowd - “crowd” and sourcing - “selection of resources”, the term was introduced by D. Howey in 2006). However, about the joint actions of many people for the sake of a single goal without material motivation, it has been known much longer - back in 1714, the British government offered everyone to develop a simple method for accurately determining the coordinates of a ship. Recently, many wonderful projects have been implemented using crowdsourcing technology, the most famous of them is Wikipedia).
The experience of DalSlovo.Ru is also used in other regions. As part of the Ulyanovsk City portal, the Word of Power project was implemented, designed to bring the government closer to the residents of Ulyanovsk and the region, to make government more open. As in Yekaterinburg, information about the socially significant promises of officials and the progress of their implementation can be added by all users of the portal (with the obligatory indication of the source of information).
Another indicator of the veracity of the statements of famous personalities: politicians, economists, lawyers, artists and other public figures is the Pravdometer project. Based on the results of checking dozens of applications, verdicts are issued, a “rating of truth-tellers” and a “rating of deceptions” are compiled.
In 2011, the Roskombribery project appeared for the public fight against corruption. The amount of recorded bribes exceeded 100 million rubles. Described over 750 episodes in 20 cities. There is a classification of bribes into categories, the ability to sort messages.
The author of the following project is a 20-year-old student from Kazakhstan, who has experienced various aspects of higher education. Based on his own and other people's experience, he created the Briber.info website, where you can complain about extortionate teachers. The user can leave a complaint about the teacher who demanded a bribe. All 40 universities of Kazakhstan are represented in this kind of black list. All complaints are subject to mandatory pre-moderation, their text is hidden from site visitors in order to prevent slander against honest teachers. After verification, the names of the "heroes" become public domain.
The latest action was started on the initiative of E. Chirikova, widely known as the leader of the movement "Ecological Defense of the Moscow Region" and "Movement in Defense of the Khimki Forest". Through the joint efforts of web users, a “black list” of government officials and business structures is being compiled that act to the detriment of Russian citizens, lobby for anti-people amendments to legislation, master Natural resources for personal enrichment. The organizers write: “We want corruption to find its face. The meaning of our activity is to make unknown corrupt officials see that they are weighed and recalculated, that their deeds are publicly known. Over 60 Russian cities expressed their desire to join this action. The "People's list of traitors to the public interest" is constantly growing.
The Internet provides convenient means for implementing mutual aid and charity projects, where both those who need help and those who are able to provide it can apply. Here are some examples.
The well-known charitable foundation "Fair Help" of Dr. Liza (E. Glinka) accumulates cash and donated items to provide specific targeted assistance, conducts charitable programs, including "Station on Wednesdays", "Kyiv Hospice", "Hospital for the Poor", etc. The Helping Hand Charitable Foundation works in a similar direction.
The Gift of Life Foundation was created by actresses Ch. Khamatova and D. Korzun to help children with oncological, hematological and other serious diseases. For incomplete 2011, children received over 450 million rubles.
Charitable Internet Foundation Help.Org (founder A. Nosik) unites the forces of Internet users in different countries to collect targeted donations for urgent social and medical needs (surgeries, expensive treatment, assistance to children's and medical institutions). The fund's motto is: "Out of every donated ruble, 100 kopecks reach the needy." The site contains a long list of those who received real help for treatment (most of them are children); in 2010 the amount of this assistance amounted to 55,897,364 rubles.
The website "Together" is, by its own definition, "a community of people who like to do good and right things." Among these cases is the purchase of a special chair for a boy Timofey with cerebral palsy from the city of Vyksa, repairs in the Kaluga nursing home and the purchase of operating equipment for the Kirov Central district hospital, equipping the Selizharovsky rehabilitation center for minors with computers and much more.
Every day, Runet users throw away up to 10 tons of things they don't need, from old magazines to refrigerators and pianos. But these things may be very necessary for other users. Residents of 13 cities participate in the work of the portal Odam Darom. The creators say: "We want every thing to find its owner, so that some do not pay a lot of money to movers to throw away old things, and others to hucksters in thrift stores." The portal allows not only to donate unnecessary things and find the right things, but also to get advice from an experienced person, to take part in the development of charitable projects.
The non-profit organization CAF-Russia, the Russian representative office of the British Charities Aid Foundation, has launched an online project - an electronic magazine about charity "Philanthropist" . The goal is to bring together a community of professionals and simply caring people on one platform to discuss and promote the ideas of philanthropy, to disseminate the ideas and practices of charity. For this, in particular, it is planned to use the possibilities of social networks.
The principle of crowdfunding - collective donations, co-financing of new projects by Internet users - is implemented on the site "From the world on a string", the first open platform for public financing in Russia creative projects. Each project publishes an application for the required amount and the period for which it is supposed to be collected. If it is not possible to find the entire amount within the specified time, then the collected money is returned to those who supported the project. Another attempt at crowdfunding in the form of raising money for the implementation of an art and music project through the social platforms of the Naparapet service.
The next group of projects appeared thanks to G. Asmolov and his associates. The memorable summer of 2010 saw the launch of the first project, the Fire Relief Map. This site has become a database, on the one hand, allowing everyone to provide information, and on the other hand, systematize it according to relevance, time, place and type of message. On the “Help Maps” website, you can track fires, deforestation and environmental pollution, find out where and to whom of the fire victims need help, and also find volunteers who are ready to independently restore the damage caused to nature and people, without waiting for instructions “from above”. The project received the Runet Prize in the nomination "State and Society". Later, to provide assistance to those affected during frosts, the Cold Info service appeared, a map of operational monitoring of cold weather throughout Russia. Over time, these sites began to receive messages that were not related to the topics of fires, cold weather and man-made disasters. It became obvious that we need a single base where a person can turn for help and advice. This is how the idea of the “Virtual Rynda” was born to coordinate mutual assistance. The objective of the project is to realize the potential of the online community, to establish cooperation between Internet users and non-profit organizations, government agencies and business. The authors warn: “We are not a charitable foundation or organization. We do not provide any assistance personally and do not collect any funds. We act as a systematized database of requests and offers for help. Our task is to give people an effective means for coordinating mutual assistance, which, in fact, by its very existence stimulates it and raises the level of social responsibility Runet users.
After the tragedy in Japan, the same team created the Radiation Map. Its purpose is to provide a platform for collecting all reports on the level of radiation, in particular on Far East.
The Lisa Alert search and rescue team unites volunteers who are ready to go in search of lost and missing people at any time. "Liza Alert" does not accept financial assistance, but assistance in providing the detachment with the necessary equipment for searches is welcome.
So far, the KartaBed project (a map of criminal activity and a help service from neighbors) has not gained wide popularity. The existing service allows users to independently map information about criminal incidents using a website and an Android application.
Another group of projects aims to create public associations to solve local problems. Where the authorities, for one reason or another, do not fulfill their direct duties, the citizens themselves take up the matter.
In Perm, an open Internet platform "My Territory" has been created, a tool for interaction between city residents and representatives of authorities, organizations and services responsible for maintaining order in a certain territory, in a city, in a district. The service allows any resident to report various socially significant problems (an open manhole, a garbage dump, a broken traffic light, a hole in the road, a beer stall near a school, etc.), track their condition and evaluate the work of relevant services. Residents mark problem areas directly on the map of their city. Openness and publicity also force the relevant organizations to act quickly and more responsibly.
The project cooperates with regional authorities, in particular, an agreement has been concluded with the administration of Perm. Problem reports from residents Perm Territory, registered on the site, are accumulated and sent to the document management system of executive authorities. Samara has become one of the most active cities in My Territory (perhaps because the mayor of the city began to actively use this project). The service is available in the web version and on the Android mobile platform. By July 2011, the site listed 4746 issues, of which 1013 have already been resolved and closed.
Similar problems are solved by the site "Fix your street" is an interactive Information system to receive and process applications for urban issues. The system makes it possible to timely respond to problems arising in the city and analyze the quality of work of service organizations. The somewhat awkward name, apparently, is due to the presence of foreign analogues: English fixmystreet.com, Canadian fixmystreet.ca (as well as German gov20.de, Dutch verbeterdebuurt.nl, American SeeClickFix.com).
On the Just Russians website, a community of active citizens is being formed who want to change the country for the better, create a system of mutual assistance of citizens to solve social and political problems related to the action (or inaction) of state authorities. The site recalls that, according to the Constitution, “the only source of power in the Russian Federation is its multinational people,” and offers tools for coordinating the actions of activists from different parts of the country. The number of participants in the movement reached 3 thousand. A selection of headings gives an idea of the range of issues raised:
Lipetsk officials left a 97-year-old veteran homeless
Let's stop the pollution of the Yauza and Moskva rivers
Police brutality in Altai
Victims of the raiders of the Krasnodar Territory
Corruption in the Chelyabinsk region
etc.
The site "IMHOnn Complaint Book in Nizhny Novgorod" is addressed to those who care about the fate of Nizhny Novgorod and who want to change the situation in the city in better side. Headings: Organizations, Work, Transport, Persons, Shops, etc.
In various regions, thanks to the Internet, citizens are uniting to fight pedophiles using the “bait fishing” method. On dating sites, they place profiles on behalf of 10-13-year-old children, enter into a dialogue with adults and arrange a meeting. The videos are then posted online. In St. Petersburg, there is a community "Rodcontrol" - a group of proactive parents who patrol the Internet space to protect their children. Let's also mention the associations "Duri.net" (Voronezh), "APF Group" (Yaroslavl), "Stop, bastards" (Tambov), "Hunters for pedophiles" (Novomoskovsk).
"Killed roads of Pskov" public movement of Pskov motorists problems of bad roads, high prices for gasoline, traffic safety and areas for safety and order on the roads, which are united by driving cultures. Information, facts, useful advice. It is worth noting that this Internet movement has gained a strong reputation, its leaders are invited to meetings with the governor of the region.
Portal "Traffic from the window" carries out "people's video monitoring" traffic webcams of Internet users. The result is clear and reliable information about traffic jams, parking situations, snow removal, accidents, etc. The project offers network users to install webcams in the windows of their apartments facing the road, so that car owners can assess the workload of a particular area at a given moment. The developed technology allows you to give information without overloading the user's Internet channel. If a person does not have a webcam, he can get one from the project team or its partner store. The project operates in Moscow and the Moscow suburbs, with almost two hundred cameras in service. The Moscow traffic jam center, supported by the city government, is also trying to improve the transport situation in the capital. The essence of the proposed measures is the optimization of the use of the existing infrastructure. There are many places in the city where even small changes can significantly improve the traffic situation. The site contains proposals from motorists to eliminate traffic congestion (changing the mode of operation of traffic lights, rearranging signs, eliminating unauthorized parking lots) on the principle of "minimum costs - maximum results".
Recently, the community of motorists, outraged by the ugly state of roads and boorish driving style (especially the “servants of the people”), has noticeably intensified. Another project of A. Navalny RosYam is designed to unite citizens who are faced with the incompetence of road services. The user takes a photo of the damage to the road surface (pit on the road, protruding rails, sewer well, etc.) and uploads the photo to the site with reference to the map of the area. After that, the text of the letter to the traffic police is automatically generated with the requirement to identify the perpetrators, bring them to justice under Art. 12.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation and oblige to repair the damage. This letter must be printed and sent by mail or via the Internet using the services offered on the site. At the time of writing this text, out of 5816 defects noted, 581 have been fixed - not a bad result at all.
The site "Avtochmo" (board of shame for drivers) is an interactive gallery that contains the most outright violators of traffic rules. Photos are added by the users themselves (the license plate must be visible in the picture).
In the same row is the "Society of Blue Buckets" - a social movement whose members oppose the misuse of "flashing lights" (flashing beacons) by officials. For more than a year, various actions have been held, organized according to the principles of a flash mob; The site contains photographs with descriptions of situations.
Project "Where is the casino?" is a map of illegally operating casinos. The information is collected on the principle of people's monitoring. The project was highly appreciated by the country's leadership.
The information system "Democrator", created at the expense of the entrepreneur A. Pavlov, offers, according to the project manager A. Bogdanov, a mechanism for the implementation of e-democracy in Russia. This is a website that allows citizens to unite around common socially significant problems, jointly edit the texts of collective official appeals to state authorities and local self-government (a decision is made on the problem if it is supported by at least 50 people), track the status of work on appeals. "Democrator" can offer useful services to the authorities, providing monitoring of problems and feedback (control and evaluation of the quality of work of officials) and generally stimulates constructive work to solve problems, rather than protest calls. The program "Information Society (2011-2020)" sets the tasks of developing services to simplify the procedures for interaction between society and the state using information technologies; increasing the openness of the activities of public authorities; creation of services to ensure public discussion and control of the activities of public authorities. "Democrator" claims to implement these tasks, identify socially significant problems and solve them in a timely manner with the participation of citizens without bringing the situation to critical tension. However, there is another point of view: this project is beneficial precisely to the authorities, which, allowing citizens to unite around allegedly “socially significant problems”, uses it as a valve to “let off steam”. Approximately the same role is assigned public associations Minister I. Shchegolev, arguing that "Electronic democracy ... this means that ... without leaving home, citizens will be able to mark some kind of unrest at small enterprises, on the roads." As you can see from the other examples given, social networks allow much more.
Internet solutions to improve the quality of life. Interested citizens are well aware of what services they personally need (which means that they can become useful for others). Therefore, often these projects become extremely successful and even commercially profitable. An example is the GLONASS/GPS-based urban transport monitoring system developed in Ryazan. After its installation, local buses, trolleybuses and trams began to follow with almost one hundred percent regularity, because the movement of each transport unit is immediately displayed on the city map. The technology used in the project for monitoring the movement of public transport, equipped with GLONASS sensors, interested big company, which plans to promote such systems.
Postgraduate students of the University of Nizhny Novgorod created the DorogaTV project, which in 5 years turned into a useful service for 150,000 users and reached the interregional level. Agreements have been signed with the largest suppliers data for building a traffic jam map, created its own infrastructure of video cameras. Passengers receive information about public transport through the Internet and mobile phone. Among the useful functions is route planning (using the points of departure and destination marked on the map, the service will tell you bus routes, as well as travel time, taking into account traffic jams); sms-forecast of the arrival of minibuses at the bus stops in Nizhny Novgorod; "public transport on-line" ( software transmits the coordinates and speed of movement directly to the screens of the phones of passengers waiting for transport in real time).
Skillper's international site is a community of users, a collection of helpful household tips, and a great encyclopedia of experience. By matching user profiles, life experiences are exchanged between people who are similar in content. One of the most important sections is the practical experience of citizens in interacting with government agencies.
The quid pro quo community was created to bring together people who are ready to exchange free services. We sometimes lack familiar car mechanics, dentists, lawyers, tailors, massage therapists, nannies, translators, etc. On the site you can get useful contacts and acquaintances, offer your services, just make friends. But the participants in the PIF movement (from the title of the book by K. Hyde “Pay It Forward”) do good deeds disinterestedly, without expecting a reciprocal service. This movement (a kind of "chain reaction of kindness") has gained momentum in the last decade. the main idea: You can change the world with just three good deeds. If each person helps three others, and they do the same, then the baton of good deeds will be passed on, increasing their number exponentially. The author of the idea is B. Franklin, who in 1784 suggested that the debtor, instead of returning the money, “pay off” like this: “When you meet another decent person in a similar difficulty, you must repay me by lending this amount to him, insisting that he repay your duty in the same way." And in Russia, many bloggers associate themselves with the PIF movement; perhaps their actions will soon become visible.
The Surdoserver (assistant in learning sign language) is designed to help deaf and hard of hearing people, as well as anyone who wants to access online resources of Russian sign language and sign languages of the world. The project is being created at the Institute for Control Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Internet project "Listen to the news" is a unique opportunity to listen to fresh (updated every hour) information from news feeds. A separate Internet portal for visually impaired people is being formed.
The social operator of the OP, according to a given schedule, makes calls to the number of your elderly relatives - landline or mobile. When connected, the subscriber can listen to an interesting message, but if the phone is not picked up, the system will send an emergency call to the number specified by the customer (paid service).
The Alter Russia Virtual Republic project was created as a democratic Internet platform for discussing and developing citizens' initiatives. Each registered user of the portal can propose his own legislative initiative or his own amendment to the existing laws of the Russian Federation (“if I were president…”). All proposals adopted by a majority vote of the user community are brought to the attention of officials, ministers, deputies and leaders of political parties of the Russian Federation.
Effectively.rf (Kazan) - a comprehensive automated assessment system managerial competencies employees of state and commercial structures for the purpose of planning personal and group development according to the "360 degrees" method. Each participant evaluates himself, his leader and subordinates. The system randomly selects people for cross-evaluation. At a presentation in May 2011 with the participation of the leadership of Tatarstan and Sberbank of the Russian Federation, it was noted that it is not inferior to the decisions of the largest Western companies in the field of personnel assessment, after which an agreement was reached on the application of the system in the country's largest bank. Service Effectively.rf is able to conduct a comprehensive assessment of state and municipal employees with minimal time. Competence assessment allows you to create a personal development program for each employee, a group development program and form a personnel reserve.
The project of the Komi Expert Society (KomiExpO) is aimed at creating a communication Internet platform for interaction between government, business, science and society. Information flows are accumulated in three directions:
. news reports that provide information content to corporate, personal and state "decision-making systems";
. messages of the most active bloggers of the Komi Republic;
. scientific and methodical publications.
The project “Public Construction of the Image of a Russian School Graduate 2020” is being implemented by WikiVote! with the participation and support of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the Forum analytical center and the Public Opinion Foundation. As a result of the project, it will be possible to find out what personality traits and practical skills a school graduate should have in 10 years, according to representatives of various strata of modern society.
Vyborov.net information resource about elections in Russia. On the site you can get acquainted with the programs of parties, pre-election videos and TV debates, regions where elections are held with the latest news.
There are many Internet platforms for collective discussion of various issues. Public examination of current draft laws is implemented on the website of the Public Opinion Foundation, here again we are dealing with crowdsourcing. A number of Internet resources organize large communities of citizens united by close views on the processes in society. Among them is the Hydepark information and discussion portal. Its materials are formed by users by posting news and journalistic materials. In fact, Hydepark is the first social network for middle-aged people created to discuss and solve various issues of life, receive exclusive information and communicate directly with famous people. The site has 2.5 million members, more than 280,000 daily visits, about 1,200 blog entries and more than 20,000 comments per day. Approximately half the corresponding figures for the Newsland news discussion portal.
Let's name a few resources of information and reference character. Legal reference system Pravo.Ru. Rusturn service for scheduling appointments at Russian consular offices in Rome, Milan, Barcelona. On the map of the district policemen of Moscow, you can find out the name and hours of reception of your district policeman (although the information seems to be outdated).
The above list of projects does not claim to be complete, but it makes it possible to trace the diversity of their topics and the breadth of geography.
The discussion of e-democracy issues would be incomplete without an analysis of electoral technologies. There are a huge number of polls and polls on the Internet all the time for a variety of reasons: who will win the football match, will President Obama interrupt his vacation due to a hurricane, how many cars do you have in your family, and so on. This allowed the optimists to see a direct connection between e-elections and e-democracy, to talk about a new stage in the ancient Greek agora or the Novgorod veche. Indeed, each vote can be taken into account directly, without intermediaries in the form of deputies and delegates. On this occasion, there is a suitable quote “from the President” (as before, “from the classics of Marxism”): “I am absolutely sure that the era of the return from representative democracy to direct, direct, with the help of the Internet” is coming. However, let's not forget that the requirements for serious voting and Internet polls are markedly different. First of all, there are questions about the authentication of the voter and the exclusion of falsifications. The mechanism exists is an electronic signature, but it is not clear how this corresponds to the principle of secret voting. Some offer to receive special one-time cards at polling stations, but if you still have to go to the polling station, the main convenience disappears (in Kazakhstan, there were attempts to send pin codes by mail, but this system did not work). According to the Estonians, they have solved these technical problems; there, in October 2005, the world's first official voting via the Internet took place in local government elections. Electronic voting was carried out in parallel with the usual one, about 10 thousand people, or about 1% of the total number of voters, voted via the Internet. Moreover, a law has appeared in Estonia that, starting from 2011, allows elections of the supreme power not only via the Internet, but also from a personal mobile phone (it is no coincidence that there are proposals to rename the country to E-stonia :). There have been limited experiments in conducting online voting in elections in the United States, but there the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a document from which it follows that the technologies used today are not capable of ensuring the proper security and integrity of elections over the Internet and telephone networks.
In Russian practice, attempts to automate certain aspects of the electoral process have so far not been crowned with noticeable success. The odious "GAS Vybory" is rightly called the All-Russian scam. In March 2009, an experiment was conducted on an electronic poll of voters. At 13 polling stations in five regions, they were offered, in addition to the usual paper voting, to express their will using the Internet and mobile communications. In the city of Raduzhny, Vladimir Region, for this purpose they used Cell phones(they required downloading the necessary software). Voters in the city of Vologda, the Petrovsky farm in the Volgograd region and the village of Kargasok near Tomsk received a disk at their polling stations. In Nizhnevartovsk, the survey was conducted using an electronic social card. During the single voting day, there were 270,000 attempts to hack the system. The technical aspects of such experiments were discussed during the meeting of the chairman of the election commission with representatives of the Internet community (see transcript). However, even a successful solution of technical problems will not be able to remove legal barriers to electoral technical progress: Russian legislation does not yet provide for the possibility of virtual elections.
In the summer of 2011, the deputy of the Yekaterinburg Regional Duma L. Volkov and the president of the Institute for the Development and Modernization of Public Relations F. Krasheninnikov presented their book (more precisely, a 64-page brochure) Cloud Democracy. In our opinion, the main value of this text lies in the withering criticism of the costly and inefficient modern representative democracy (ch. 2-6). That alone is enough to recommend reading the book. But in its 3rd part, the authors propose a model of the democracy of the future. There are three main technical ideas. Firstly, it is proposed to measure the will of voters more than once every 4 years, but more often - the Internet allows you to do this as needed. The second idea is the ability to delegate one's vote to one or another representative, and not necessarily one - it is possible for different representatives on different issues in which they are experts (with the right to withdraw it at any time). The third idea, called “enforced honesty,” is that the level of openness of information about applicants for some positions in the political system increases more and more as the importance of the position for which they apply increases.
The second sentence raises the most questions. The delegation of votes is likely to result in their purchase. Rural old people, the homeless and some other categories of the population who do not have computers and are not going to use the right to vote will gladly sell this right, as in the days of voucher privatization. Doctors, teachers, policemen, soldiers, officials will voluntarily-compulsorily give the right to vote for themselves to their superiors. Factory workers will be forced to entrust their votes to their bosses. There is a danger of the final transformation of politics into business, and the parliament - into a political joint-stock company.
There are other controversial places in the book, but the authors themselves are aware that in modern Russia it is impossible to quickly provide all citizens with means of authentication, to solve the problem of digital inequality and the lack of access to the network for so many voters. Thus, the introduction of "cloud democracy" is not a task for the next decade in our country. You should not be upset about this, it is much more productive to develop and promote achievements in this area, while simultaneously tightening the infrastructure and raising the level of literacy of the population. It is already possible to try to make the elements of e-democracy available to those who are ready and would like to participate in it. And in the fall, the authors of the book presented the Democracy-2 website. This is a kind of electronic parliament - a system of distributed decision-making by a large group of people, combining the best features of direct and representative democracy and assuming an absolutely transparent approach to the development and adoption of decisions on all topical problems of the political and public life of Russia. As B. Nemtsov points out, this is “a platform unique for Russia, where you can openly and without censorship discuss any issues from paid fishing to ethnic crime. At the same time, a voting mechanism is proposed to determine which of the points of view enjoys the maximum support. In the absence of a parliament and wide public discussions, this is obviously a breath of fresh air. Then everything will depend on the level of people's involvement in the project. If it turns out that there are hundreds of thousands in the electronic parliament, then even the most insolent government will not be able to ignore them.
The Internet provides a unique opportunity for citizens to come together to work together to realize their rights. Social networks allow you to conduct discussions and organize any community. New technologies of electronic communications provide individuals and groups with such wide access to information and opportunities for discussion that it makes the existence of authoritarian political regimes even more difficult. At the same time, authoritarian regimes are trying to control the Internet, restricting citizens' access to it and creating their own versions of "electronic government". The ruling circles are not interested in the introduction of real e-democracy, as this limits its power. The authorities understand that technical means already allow society, regardless of the ruling elite, to create elements of e-democracy, i.e. alternative sources of power in society. Under these conditions, the only way to restrain the activity of society is to seize the initiative and put the processes in the Internet space under the control of the authorities. The self-organization of young people also poses a threat to the authorities (and this is an important resource for the opposition). Therefore, pro-government youth projects are directed against politicized youth, or to include them in the system of political governance.
Here one could recall Manezhnaya Square and the "Arab Spring", but we will not delve into the socio-political aspects of electronic democratization and blame the Internet for the shortcomings of the authorities. After all, often people unite, desperate to get an adequate response from the state to their natural rights and demands. Symptomatic in this regard is the magazine headline “To hell with him, with the state!” in the material about the activities of the activists of the Tugeza website.
The Internet creates a technological opportunity to take democracy to a higher level. Whether this historic chance will be realized, we all will soon find out.
* * *
The author dedicates this series of two articles to the memory of Oleg Valerianovich Kedrovsky, a wise and principled person, an outstanding professional in the field of scientific and technical information, who created the journal Information Resources of Russia 20 years ago and headed it until 2011.
Literature:
1. Polyak Yu.E. Electronic democracy, top view // Information resources of Russia. -2011. - No. 5. - S. 5-10.
2. Polyak Yu.E. Regions on the way to e-democracy. Report at the VII International Scientific and Practical Conference "Regions of Russia: Strategies and Mechanisms for Modernization, Innovative and technological development". - M., INION RAN, May 27, 2011
The transition to the information society leads to the transformation of the political institutions of democracy. As a result of the rapid development of modern information technology, the debate about the theory of democracy has intensified. At the center of discussions are questions about the nature of the influence of the Internet on democratic institutions and processes. Undoubtedly, the development of the Internet is already influencing modern power relations. BUT is it possible to say without a shadow of a doubt that "electronic democracy" will become the democracy of the future, and what are the main problems it will face on the way of its formation? It is difficult to disagree with the statement of M.S. Vershinin, that the Internet generates both unique opportunities and threats to traditional democratic institutions and actions.
E-democracy is a form of democracy characterized by the use of information and communication technologies as the main means for collective cognitive and administrative processes (informing, making joint decisions - electronic voting, monitoring the implementation of decisions, etc.) at all levels - starting from the level of local government and ending with international.
A distinction should be made between e-democracy and e-government. Stephen Clift emphasizes: "Electronic democracy" (e-democracy) and "electronic government" (e-government) are completely different concepts. If the latter means increasing the speed and convenience of access to public services from anywhere and at any time, then the former refers to the use of information technology to empower every citizen.
Electronic or Internet democracy is not just another stage in the global development of democratic institutions and, at the same time, not just a technical innovation that allows citizens to conveniently communicate with their government, and the latter to quickly receive information about their citizens. Internet democracy is a way to raise the issue of democracy anew, to identify the key problems of any democratic structure, to understand what dangers the mass digitalization of communications is preparing and what prospects are possible for a real democratization of mass politics.
Since the mid-90s of the last century, E-democracy (Internet democracy) has embarked on the path of its development, although this path is still very far from the end. The development began precisely with the organization of electronic governments of various kinds. Canada, Singapore, Holland, Finland, Norway, Australia and Estonia have made great strides in this area.
Gradually, with the awareness of scientists of the possibilities global network various theories of electronic or cloud democracy began to appear. There is a book of the same name by L. Volkov and F. Krasheninnikov, released in 2011 in Yekaterinburg. The authors propose to create an innovative Internet system in which every citizen can take part in political processes countries. Every politically active citizen, thanks to individual electronic signature, will have the opportunity not only to vote for bills, but also to propose them himself. Also, this citizen will have the right to delegate his vote on a particular issue to a more competent person - an expert. Thus, the creator and holder of power and law, in a certain sense, will be the people.
E-democracy is an increase in the participation of citizens in the life of society through the use of the resources of the Web. That is, its important characteristic is the focus on the initiative "from below". In order for such an initiative to exist, many obstacles will have to be overcome. First of all technical character. This is the speed, and coverage and cost of the Internet. Although the Internet in Russia is developing rapidly, in many parts of our large country there is still no access to it. However, according to a report by the Federal Agency for Press and mass communications Internet in Russia. State, Trends and Prospects”, while maintaining current trends in the development and spread of the Internet, by the end of 2014 the number of users will increase by approximately 30 million people. At the same time, more than half of Russians can be attributed to the most active part (daily audience) - 56%, or approximately 63 million people. Therefore, there is a technical possibility of establishing 100% availability of the Internet in Russia, it remains only to wait.
However, in addition to the technical difficulties of establishing e-democracy, there are others.
The Internet-enabled increase in political participation has been accompanied by a decline in political accountability. Information technology removes social barriers that prevent previously unrepresented groups from participating in political life. Such participation against the backdrop of a low political Internet culture can lead to serious consequences. How often do we see swearing online, one iota that does not bring us closer to solving specific issues? For the transition to e-democracy, it is necessary that the society be not only technically, but also psychologically ready for this step.
Electronic voting, in a certain sense, can exacerbate crisis tendencies in a democratic society. The desire to take into account the general will of the people on any political issue, that is, to transfer politics to the regime of a continuous referendum, threatens with total manipulation of voters. In addition, all theories of building e-democracy are based on “compulsory honesty”, which leads to the destruction of the “secret ballot” procedure (and this is one of the basic principles of democratic elections). This fact can further weaken basic democratic institutions, reducing voting to a polling procedure or tracking consumer tastes. It is also important that if people know that their choice, at least potentially, can be known to others and to society as a whole (and the Internet just provides such opportunities), they will most likely vote differently or not vote at all.
It is worth fearing the littering of political resources. In fact, the Internet is a worldwide fence. Pluralism of opinions is one thing, and quite another is the flow of uncontrolled criticism and unsubstantiated proposals. In this context, the system is clearly not yet worked out. Separate concerns are caused by the process of delegation of authority. Based on Volkov's and Krasheninnikov's proposals, each user will be able to delegate his or her vote on any issue (or several issues) to one or many competent people, be they economists or environmentalists. But the electorate in our country for the most part is not active and, therefore, the question arises whether this will lead to a widespread practice of buying votes? Or even to the emergence of an expertocracy? Not professionals in their field, but representatives of the marginal (and even deviant) Internet "elite" - radicals, nationalists - can enter the leading ranks through a detailed Internet voting.
These are the risks that need to be taken into account. On the this moment the political contingent is already represented on the net, politicians are blogging, parties are creating websites. There are actors, organizations and movements that exist only on the Web. There are public service portals. Despite all this, I can hardly imagine that e-democracy will be formed in Russia in the coming years. The transition to it on the one hand is really inevitable. Society has long crossed the line of information in business and education. But, on the other hand, for the transition specifically to e-democracy, simple technical readiness, as it turns out, is not enough. Firstly, it is difficult for many people to develop trust in the Internet, but it is more a matter of time. Secondly, e-democracy must be based on a certain political and Internet culture. This is not yet the case in our country. The Internet gives a feeling of anonymity and freedom, and people are used to it and behave accordingly. But such behavior calls into question the possibility of developing e-democracy. Until certain foundations of a culture of political activity on the Web are formed, it seems unlikely that an effective system of network democracy will emerge. Thirdly, the factor of psychological readiness of not only members of society, but also representatives of the authorities cannot be ignored. At the moment, this readiness is not. Network democracy involves open, unlimited communication between the government and society. How can such communication be established when a specially hired person writes for politics in social networks and blogs, or moreover, some company or office.
But all this does not mean that attempts should not be made to organize certain elements of e-democracy. There are several Internet portals that provide an opportunity to govern the country in a certain sense - these are "Democracy2", "Democrat". These projects are at varying degrees of efficiency, it can be said with certainty that they are popular with a certain circle of politically active users. So "Democrator" works more precisely with citizens' appeals on some specific, everyday problems, it has existed since February 2010 and, based on the internal data of the site, has about 400 thousand users. The Democracy 2 website is positioned precisely as a pilot project of a large-scale e-democracy institute, created in 2011 and so far has about 7 thousand users.
In the last two years, we have often witnessed the release of representatives of the netocracy (political Internet activists) into the light. Quite often they organize rallies and pickets, participate in regional elections. Relatively recently, elections were held for the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition. All this is an example of modern “going to the people”. After all, the very idea of e-democracy has another, very significant problem. This problem is elitism. A certain circle of people knows that the Internet can become the main platform for political activity. About some "famous" bloggers, a simple person who works around the clock and goes online just to talk with friends can only learn from the news. And then, only after this blogger was detained for participating in an unsanctioned rally.
E-democracy is an initiative from the bottom. And in order for it to be established and function, it is necessary for the entire population to be aware of the opportunities that the Internet provides for politically active people. Now, alas, this is not the case. And I doubt that I will be mistaken if I say that the main problem of e-democracy in our country is the lack of awareness and interest. And all the ideologists of this innovation process will have to fight against this.
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