Cyberpolitics2009w4

CyberpoliticsWeek 4: Democracy and public sphere

Democracy - of the people, by the people, for the people

Robert Dahl (1998) On democracy:

1. Effective participation and ability for citizens to make their views known;2. Equal opportunities to participate in voting;3. a reasonable amount of time to learn about alternative policies and their implications;4. ability to control the agenda;5. the inclusion of all adults.

Three approaches to democracy:

Liberal individualism Communitarianism Deliberative democracy

Liberal individualism

Internet as information pool and voting tool

Communitarianism

Internet as a virtual community and networks

Deliberative democracy

Internet as e-agora

Jugen Habermas

Public sphere and agora

Public sphere: e.g Cafe, early newspapers

Private sphere

State power

Mark Poster: Internet as public sphere?

Class discussion:

1.do you think the Internet can enhance deliberative democracy and Habermas’ idea of new public sphere?

2. And / or do you think that Habermas’ idea of public sphere has been transformed by the internet? If so how?

3. How do such changes contribute to the development of democracy? Can you give an example for elaborating your points?

MarkerStage 1500-420 BCE

Stage 21700-2000 CE

Stage 3 2000 - ? CE

Scale

Economy

Technical mediation

Citizen consciousness

Political form

City-state (250,000)Nation-state (300M)Global Union (6B)

Market Capitalism Global capitalism

Face to face speech, Hand written

Mass broadcastDigitalized

and interactive

Dialogic, rhetoric,External gods

Rationality,Religion

Postmodern ethics

Direct RepresentativeModern, global

direct democracy

Evolutionary Clusters for Democracy

Douglas C. Walton (2007) Is modern information technology enabling the evolution of a more direct democracy? in World Futures, 63: 365-385, 2007, Routledge, p.371.

Next Class: Quiz and class reading