This presentation talks about ICTs & Democracy, more specifically their relationship.

1. HUL 291: Electronic Governance
P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan
MS 624 | vignesh@hss.iitd.ac.in
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2. Agenda
• Context
• E‐government
• ICTs & Democratization process
• E‐democracy
• Areas of convergence
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3. Context
• Insights from ‘democracy’ studies to
egovernance
• Overlapping
• Beyond mere use of ICTs
• More on a theoretical level
• Fountain’s work as example for egovernment
studies
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4. egovernment
• Egov assumptions – transparency, efficiency,
and productivity
• e‐democracy as an integral part of egov, but
inadequately discussed and forgotten
• Democratization
– make govt. services more like private ‐ convenient,
access, & timeliness
– brining closer to people
• radical arguments ‐ to make it more citizen
inclusive
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5. ICTs & Democractization
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• evolution of ICTs important for democratization process
– Integration of multiple devices
– Interoperability
• usage of ICTs in govt. reflected in the govt. and citizen's
attitudes
– welfare states ; modern / efficient state; & post fordist
• ubiquitous networking ‐ challenges the status quo
– from inward looking mainframe computers outward
facing networks

6. ICTs & Demo. Cont.
• Govt as learning organization ‐ work with ICT
enabled constant feedback mechanism from the
citizens –
– 'build and learn’
• Challenges
– resistance to sharing of private data across agencies
– disagreements on what kind of data can be shared and with
whom
– possible conflicts between executives and legislatures
– difficult to demonstrate the pay‐off
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7. E-democracy
• political participation by interconnected
citizens & representatives via new ICTs
– Consultation & deliberations
• Interaction as constitutive of democracy
• Continuum of consultation
– information gathering quasi deliberations
– vertical flow of state‐citizen communication
• Deliberations
– more complex, horizontal, & multi directionality
interactivity
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8. E-dem. Cont…
• knowledge is discursive, contingent, and
changeable and emerges through interaction
• positive & organic deliberative mechanisms
– p2p, chat rooms, blogs, bulletin boards etc
• quality & density of public sphere is more
important than speed
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9. E-dem… cont..
• increasing role of civil society
• building new cyber society
• accelerated pluralism
• e democracy is not utopian (bribe)
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10. Convergence with egovt.
1. Intergration of e‐democractic activities in
civil society with policy making processes
– at local and national levels
– govt. agencies / dept. interact with the citizens ‐‐>
– need of parliament to embrace the change, else
decreasing value of parliament
– More power to executives?
• Ex: Common Wealth Games
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11. 2. Internal democratization of public sector
• reflecting the way govt. interacts with the
citizens
• Egov. not reinforcing inequalities & power
hierarchies?
– Ex: Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to
Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010
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12. 3. Politics of convenience
• want of easiness to interact with the govt. =
consumerism?
• refelct the post‐industrial politics
– centralized, controlled, massive decentralized,
independent units & networked
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13. 4. Use of neutral technologies in egov
• technologies should reflect democratic values
• open source?
• rise of open standards..
• Ex:
– Govt. websites
– STQC
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14. NIC home..
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15. I paid a bribe..
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16. References
• Chadwick, A. (2003). Bringing e‐democracy back in: Why it
matters for future research on e‐governance. Social Science
Computer Review, 21 (4), 443‐455.
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17. • Thank you!
Clarifications
Questions
Comments
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18. Central Vigilance Commission <<
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19. GoI Schemes <<
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20. National Informatics Center <
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