Luiza Teixeira
the goals and the means of democracy, if opinion formation or decision making; and the second, if the goals should be reached by the ways of representative or direct democracy. So, he describes how the use of ICT is designed and used in each of the models. The models are: Legalist democracy, Competitive democracy, Plebiscitary democracy, Pluralist democracy, Participatory democracy and Libertarian democracy.
According to Van Dijk( 2000) following the Legalist model ICT is used and designed to maintain the political system using more effective and efficient manners to process and organize information. The applications of ICT involves computerized information campaigns, civic centers and information centers, mass public information systems registration systems for the government and computer‐assisted citizen enquires. In the Competitive model, ICT is used in election and information campaigns aiming at targeting a selective audience of potential voters. In this model ICT is always used focusing in maintaining voters. In Plebiscitary democracy ICt is used to amplify the voice of the citizen. The application of ICT involves registration systems of the votes and opinions of citizens. In Pluralist model the applications are used to reinforce information and communication in civil society organizations, or between them. So, it makes use of e‐mail, discussion list, teleconferencing and decision support systems. In Participatory democracy the ICTs applications should inform and activate the citizenry. In this model the applications are developed to facilitate opinion formation, learning and active participation. According to Van Dijk( 2000) Libertarian democracy“ appeared as a dominant model among the pioneers of the Internet community”( Van Dijk 2000: 14). In this model citizens have to be well informed by“ advanced, free and unprejudiced information systems”( Van Dijk 2000: 14), they must be able to discuss in teleconversation systems, and they must be able to expose their opinion and vote.
It is important to reflect about the different models of democracy when conceptualizing virtual democracy. To Rothberg( 2008) the term distinction and definition is related to democracy concept, and how the conception adopted will address to citizen participation. The author also presents an opposition between democracy models. In models of deliberative and participatory democracy, it is believed that citizens should have access to comprehensive information about the policies developed to different society sectors. It is expected that citizens can form reflected opinions. This belief is opposed to procedural models and competitive democracy. In these models, first, with regard to the procedural model, democracy is reduced to a minimum set of procedures, such as free elections, the right to vote, and freedom of expression, without requiring the citizen to seek for more information. While the competitive model focuses on the centrality of democratic procedures and its notion of the democratic nature of a political system is based on the voting and the change processes in elected positions.
The distinction we want to establish here refers to the fact that, in competitive and procedural democracy models, it is not necessary engagement with public life, or citizen political engagement, since the performance of democracy depends on the rulers and not the behavior of citizens. In the other hand, in participatory democracy, citizens need information to understand the demands and evaluate the legitimacy of their expectations comparing to the needs of others. As well, in the deliberative democracy model, citizens should seek for the information needed to understand a subject in particular, to influence in the decision making( Rothberg 2008). Therefore, the ideological approach of this paper is closer to the deliberative and participatory democracy models. Consequently, the framework used enables the analysis of the quality of citizen participation and the quality of decision taken.
4. The democracy cube
In this section we present the analysis model developed by Fung( 2006), the Democracy Cube, which describes a range of institutional possibilities for political participation from three dimensions: 1. Who participates, 2. How participants communicate and make decisions, and 3. What is the connection of the findings and opinions with the public policy or public action.
For the author, the complexity of modern states, regarding participation, is explained by three factors: firstly, there are no forms of direct participation in the democratic governance of modern societies. Secondly, public participation has advanced in multiple purposes and values in contemporary governance. Finally, the mechanisms of direct participation would not be an alternative to the representation system, but rather a way to complement them. Public participation should be strengthened by working in synergy with the representation and public administration, in order to produce more desirable practices, and collective
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