DEMOCRACY ONLINE
Armando Vieira
Universidade Lusófona and Instituto Tecnol÷gico e Nuclear,
Estrada Nacional 10, 2685 Sacavém, Portugal. Email: vieira@itn1.itn.pt.
Abstract
In this letter I propose a new political system that will become possible in a society where all its citizens will be connected to the Internet. Its main philosophy is inspired in the free market mechanism, and I will call it semi-direct democracy. The main points of this model are: i) the substitution of political parties by a set of non-profit political organisations specialised to deal with most aspects of the executive and the legislative power; and ii) the introduction of a constant electronic scrutiny by the citizens of the activities of these organisations. The emergence of this system will be enhanced by the increasing need for more democracy and transparency in public affairs, on one hand, and the increasing incapacity of the actual political system to deal with an increasingly complex society, on the other.
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