All-Russian scientific conference
"e-Government in the Information Society: Theory and Practice"

COMMUNITY NETWORKS AND DEMOCRACY IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

S.W. Bondarenko

Center of Applied Research into Intellectual Property
Rostov-on-Don

In this article we will discuss the policy of local governments toward on-line democracy. According to a prominent discourse the Internet has an important role to play through its capacity to provide deliberative virtual political public spheres. Deliberative democracy also implies that citizens and others are allowed to form opinions rather than just to express them.

[Russian version]