ABSTRACT
As far as urban politics are concerned, the transformation of cities into electronic hubs for telecommunications and telematics networks has been coupled with attempts at the grassroots and local or regional authority levels, to introduce versions of ‘electronic democracy’. ‘Electronic democracy’ is a concept with a relatively long history. It has been a central feature of the technological Utopias proposed by scholars, politicians and activists since the 1960s. Today, over a 1,000 towns and cities in the US have homepages on the World Wide Web. More than 200 already have civic networking projects,1 using networked computers to provide new channels for access to local political information and participation in decision-making. The trend is spreading in Europe now, as public funding is made available for the exploration of the potential of the utilisation of new technologies in civic networking and municipal administration in local government and at the European Union level. In the Netherlands alone, sixty towns have embraced computer-mediated communication (CMC) and have civic networks of some kind. At the European level, the Telecities project has been funded by the EU to enable European local governments to pool resources and experience in the application of information and communications technologies, and every month new projects are launched. Interest in electronic democracy is also growing at the supranational level. Many involved in the European movement view new communications technologies as a way of bypassing sceptical
national media and providing EU-related information directly to citizens in the hope of overcoming the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU.2 Civic networking initiatives are not, however, merely government-led; they also have a growing base of grassroots support, particularly in the US. Political parties of all sizes and ideological hues, voluntary organisations, pressure groups and other organisations in civil society are exploring computer-mediated communication as a means not only to reach potential supporters and bypass the traditional media filters, but to network with one another, sharing information and resources. For many, CMC holds the key to the enhancement of the democratic aspects of the political process and to the creation of new opportunities for citizen participation in the local and national political spheres.
