For us in Russia, democracy in and of itself is a miracle: the simplest and most understandable democracy, based on the most average European templates, where no one pressures anyone else, there is no irreplaceable leader, and there is an independent court. One would think that if one were to dream, then it would be only of this: when the time comes, for this desired end to come!
Meanwhile, all the rest of progressive humanity continues to move forward, and while we are admiring the facades of classical democracy, an incredible transformation is being readied behind them, and in some places is already happening.
Technical development is putting increasing pressure on our accustomed reality. Today no one is amazed by electronic government. Even in our country the topic is under active discussion and, what is especially important, here and there it is even being done. On the backdrop of the successes of neighboring Estonia, where each citizen has an electronic signature and so not only electronic government services have become usual but so has electronic voting in elections at all levels, Russian successes have been modest. Nonetheless, 64% of legal persons submit accounts to all state organs without duplication on paper, with an ETsP — an electronic digital signature — over the Internet. Technologies have changed the system of relations in the business world.
However, the topic of electronic government and electronic business is by no means the final triumph of progress and the end of history. Strictly speaking, any electronic government is simply a new quality of state services, but the principles of power formation remain the old ones.
Meanwhile, modern technologies put into question the very principles and approaches to democracy that only recently seemed leading-edge. In question above all, for example, is the now ubiquitous principle of representative democracy.
Why, in fact, should one person represent another somewhere over there, and for several years in a row, too? Before, all this was logical and understandable: assemble everyone in a bunch each time and ask what we did and did not want. Therefore, after a long and thorny path, humanity in the person of the most advanced nations reached this compromise: once every few years, by means of special procedures employing a huge amount of paper, people choose themselves representatives who will assemble and govern the state in the name of the entire nation.
Full Article: Individual.com.