What Does E- add to Democracy? Designing an Agenda for Democracy Theory In the Information Age

Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. This paper sets the problem: ‘What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?’ into the broad context of practical philosophy and in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories (foremost proceduralist), by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems as well as concrete examples relating to ‘e-democracy’ (foremost EU related). My claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fails or succeeds. This paper offers a theoretical setting so as to further empirical work.