Project Summary
The development of the network society is a challenge to democracy both on local and national levels in Europe today. In essence, national and local representative political decision-making bodies have lost power and are less able to steer the development of society in a specific direction. There are many reasons for the loss of influence, among them increasing globalization and interdependency between countries, reinforcement of transnational levels of government and a dissolution of the clear division of labour between the public and private sector.
Fragmentation of the public sphere, division and reconstruction of collective identities and the growth of a number of new media, are portrayed as new cultural media expressions. The development coincides with an increasing dissatisfaction and distrust in the traditional representative system of government, especially among youth. The legitimacy of the system of representative government is challenged, and demands rejuvination both of practise and established concepts of democracy.
This ICT and local democracy project deals with these challenges. They are obviously political and not technical in nature, but our pragmatic approach is that in developing the local democracy one must also take into account that an increasing number of people use ICT actively, and this is true especially among young people. We therefore direct our focus towards the possibilities and challenges that lie in the use of ICT to strengthen the functioning and the legitimacy of the local democracy, without resorting to technological determinism.
The project was sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council through the program ”Communication, ICT and Media”. It ended in 2007. See result report and publications.