The field of e-Democracy has suffered from fuzzy conceptualizations about the actual role of ICT in the field. That is, the contribution of “e” in e-Democracy has been difficult to justify. To address the role of ICT in e-Democracy projects we contribute theoretically by combining knowledge on IT artefacts, genres and E-Democracy models to be able to explore ICT in its embedded surroundings. IT...

12 Synaptic democracy is believed to be an important effect that enables distal 13 synapses to contribute information to the soma. Synaptic democracy is found in 14 hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons, which is an important area of the brain 15 for learning and memory. Previous computational work by Sterratt et al [1] 16 show that synaptic democracy arises in a model of a CA1 pyramidal neuron 17 ...

The Internet revolution of democracy, which will transform earthly representative democracies by employing the communication and collaboration capabilities of the Internet, has yet to come. Here, we enlist the wisdom of our forefathers to lead the way. By consulting the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, we distill core values of democracy and derive from them requirement...

Neighborhood-representing organizations (NROs) are generally viewed as the most authentic form of citizen participation and local democracy. In this article, I question how democratic NROs actually are, both on the local level (participatory democracy) and in the external arena (representative democracy). I present a new conceptual model of the components of democracy in neighborhood organizati...

For some time the notion ‘technocracy’ has been, for better or for worse, associated with the functioning of the European Union (EU). But what role do technocratic assumptions play in the EU’s new ‘symbolic’ policy agenda of democracy promotion, if any? Some authors have suggested that ‘depoliticising’ technocratic biases exist in the EU democracy promotion framework, despite its ‘normative’ rh...

Screen and song celebrate social justice movements that protested in the streets when they were convinced that existing institutions and their normal procedures only reinforced the status quo. Many rights have been won in democratic societies by means of courageous activism — the eight hour day, votes for women, the right to sit at any lunch counter. Yet contemporary democratic theory rarely re...

Political theory from its very onset has determined that democracy is inconceivable without a crisis. This applies to the ancient writings of Plato, Aristotle, Polybios to the modern era with writings of Tocqueville, Marx and Max Weber or since the 1970s the leftists Jürgen Habermas (1973) and Claus Offe (1972), the conservative Crozier, Huntington, Watanuki (1975), the leftist NeoSchmittian Ch...

Democracy is rule by the demos, but by what criteria is the demos constituted? Theorists of democracy have tended to assume that the demos is properly defined by national boundaries or by the territorial boundaries of the modern state. In a recent turn, many democratic theorists have advanced the principles of affected interests and coercion as the basis for defining the boundaries of democracy...

The nascent democracy in Nigeria is plagued with myriad of intrigues, discordant opinions of the political class. The reason is not farfetched. Every political party sees its manifesto and plans of action as the best for the citizenry. They elbow each other in the process of garnering political recognition and vibrancy. Their unhealthy rivalry only heat up the polity. How be it some Nigerians s...

Should democracts value the freedom to choose? Do people value facing distinct choices when they make collective decisions? ‘Autonomy’ – the ability to participate in the making of collective decisions – is a paltry notion of freedom. True, democrats must be prepared that their preferences may not be realized as the outcome of the collective choice. Yet democracy is impoverished when many peopl...