Cyber Democracy

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Cyber Democracy

Introduction

Cyber democracy in a basic sense denotes interaction of existing computer technology and democracy. This essentially means the contribution of computer technology to enhancing democracy. In a simple sense, computer technology has greatly improved information circulation and communication thus enhancing democracy. From the perspective of the convectional Athenian democracy, computer technology makes it almost perfectly possible to attain it by creating deepened wider interactions over a bigger society than traditionally possible. Computer technology thus can be used for two purposes in democracy; perpetuating or enhancing existing democratic line of thought and secondly overhauling the convectional democratic line of thought by easily introducing a new one.

Discussion

One way in which cyber democracy has prevailed over conventional forms is in giving opportunity to time constraint citizens to engage in the process through view sharing and even poll taking. Additionally, the current society is emphatic on technological innovations and a new lease of enthusiasm is kicked into politics as it becomes technologically compliant thus exiting to the modern society. A good example is participation of cyber communities in perspective and policy sharing as well as evaluation in regards to politics. Perpetuators of cyber democracy envision the possibility of increased participation especially in voting keeping in mind a society is not primarily related by means of locality but by the civic and political ideals shared. They argue that the electoral budget would greatly reduce and extra quality and confidence would be attributed to the process since the effect of the media and advertising would be reduced on the civic education existent in the population.

Cyber democracy also alleviates one-sided political progressiveness in that citizens have the ability to discuss among themselves and consequently instigate a campaign in a bottom-up manner. Traditionally, political idealisms are introduced from up to be debated progressively downwards but computer technology has enabled the ordinary citizen to access information from specialists, the leaders as well as other citizens. This access to lowly biased civic education breeds more independent thought and ideal from the bottom level of administration. Birth of new democratic ideals and ways is thus enabled via cyber democracy. Apart from the advantages accruing to the citizen, the leaders and representatives have a cheaper and more efficient way of amassing information as well as conducting research on the subject population. This will reduce reliance on convectional modes like libraries and institutes.

However, several issues remain an impediment to the full realization of cyber democracy in citizen interaction and online voting. First is integrity assurance of the voting process if it were to go online. This is attributed to the fact that there needs to be separation of citizen participating and the vote cast to maintain discreteness. Secondly, securing the system against intruders, hackers and any other form of manipulation is of paramount importance to impart trust unto the participants. On the other side of public interaction, guarding the system against crushes and slumps resulting from overhaul and mass participation remains a challenge for the system.

Conclusions

Up to date, only the electronic town meeting has been effectively setup where civic education, political ideals and information is exchanged online. However, several changes need to be instituted to enable the implementation of the recommended electronic voting. Nevertheless, it is undeniable the internet and existing technology has increased the interaction between the citizens and governing institutions like senates or parliament. Additionally, vast electronic information regarding political and civic ideals circulates horizontally as well as vertically making the modern citizen very informed. This can increase the difficulty of autocratic governing but enhance democratic leadership.