Electronic Democracy (EDemocracy) describes the (technical and organisational) modernisation and support of political and democratic processes with innovative information and communication technology. Concepts and solutions focus on proper methods and access channels to communicate and to take active part in participative processes (eParticipation) and voting (eVoting) using ICT.

Electronic Democracy

Currently there are two different definitions on democratic approaches with the Use of ICT: Internet.

Electronic Democracy describes a technical modernization of political and democratic processes of the political system in particular. Therefore it is necessary to develop new methods for communication and participation.

Main aspects in this term are:

• a broader net publicity
• citizen orientated politics
• “from above opened” case wise possibilities to participate in democratic processes (e.g. Online Discussions in policy making)

What it does not mean: Electronic Democracy is not just a technical redesign of democratic procedures. Concepts are focused on additional methods to communicate and to participate.

Possible negative effects that have been also raised:

Fragmentation of population into partial publics that concentrate on their own agenda but not on a broader information accumulation. - This can result in less responsible and less informed citizens - If politics concentrate on those partial publics, Electronic Democracy does not improve contact to a broader public but cuts it off. Politicians may potentially not stand as representative for the whole public anymore but rather for specific stakeholders.

(Source: Alexander Siedschlag - Digitale Demokratie 2002)

Digital Democracy

While Electronic Democracy is more a technical modernization of democratic processes, digital democracy describes more the way politics is being used over the internet.

With a more technical understanding digital democracy means sending and receiving of political signals and information on new channels. In this approach many different sectors of political communication are covered:

• Description of political actions and decisions from politicians to citizens (G2C)
• Feedback from citizens concerning all kinds of issues to politicians (C2G)
• a better networking and community building of citizens (C2C)

In this understanding it is possible, that new ways and forms of citizens’ participation are emerging. Participation in democratic and political processes will become easier to access.

a continuative approach, availability of internet based information- and communication possibilities alone are empowering the political awareness. This is automatically leading to a more heightened participation in political processes of citizens (Lawrence K. Grossman: The Electronic Republic)

Possible negative effects of this approach are:

• surfeited democratic can lead to an erosion of traditional democratic institutions - Institutional places will become less important for political discussions which could lead to the question if legitimacy of these institutions are still applying.
• The internet as self organized marketplace could lead to an irresponsible protest behavior as like as to some kind of political hacktivism.