ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents a tour d'horizon of various forms of deliberative polling and teledemocracy. He suggests that, while there has been a growth in and proliferation of various forms of citizen involvement through these forms of citizen empowerment, they are unlikely to challenge the current system of representative democracy. Despite the denunciations of cynics, deliberative teledemocracy and various face-to-face forms of deliberative democracy have played a small but important role in modern polyarchies. Participatory budgeting (PB) is clearly a promising form of twenty-first-century direct, deliberative democracy; and with the new information and communication technologies, it is the essence of what the author long ago defined as teledemocracy. PB's proponents point to its usage beyond neighborhoods and in cities, to school districts, provincial or national medical networks, and even to much larger political entities including trans-megacity or transnational PB experiences.
