политология
POLITICS
DOI: 10.12731/wsd-2015-9.1-15 УДК 321.7
PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY DEVELOPMENT IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Kapina S.E., LavrikN.V.
The article is devoted to the study of formation practice and development prospects of e-democracy in the Russian Federation. The most important problems of e-democracy formation and development in Russia are considered as well as the ways of their solution on the basis of the analysis of annual federal congress devoted to e-democracy, which took place in Moscow. A brief description of the meaning of e-democracy is given. The authors have analyzed the impact of information and communication technologies on the processes of e-democracy. It is proved that the active introduction of information technologies into everyday social life brings with it not only positive social trends, but also those that have negative social consequences. New problems have appeared (e.g., «digital inequality», appearance of netocracy, «electronic attacks», problems with unique identification and authentication of citizens, protection of personal data security when using new information technologies, etc.) that threaten the existence of democracy in the future. For example, there has appeared a problem of computer literacy as a result of active introduction of information and communication technologies into public life. To solve it one needs to train an ordinary citizen of the country (mainly it concerns people of retirement age) to use new information technologies. Every citizen should have an access to technology that realizes the possibilities of e-democracy. This may
be, for example, a personal computer, a public access terminal or something else. The content of the article proves that the potential of new information technologies can be used for the benefit of democracy and against it. Today in Russia the construction of e-state is provided at full speed along with the existence of legal state.
Keywords: information technologies; e-state; democracy; information and communication technologies; e-democracy; information society; online community; e-government.
ПРОБЛЕМЫ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ ЭЛЕКТРОННОЙ ДЕМОКРАТИИ В РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ
Каплина С.Е., Лаврик Н.В.
Статья посвящена исследованию практики формирования и перспектив развития электронной демократии на территории Российской Федерации. Рассмотрены наиболее значимые проблемы становления и развития электронной демократии в России и способы их решения, исходя из проведенного анализа ежегодных Федеральных конгрессов по электронной демократии, проходивших в г. Москва. Приводится краткая характеристика смысла электронной демократии. Автор проанализировал влияние информационно-коммуникационных технологий на процессы электронной демократизации. Доказывается, что активное введение в повседневную общественную жизнь информационных технологий несет с собой не только положительные общественные тенденции, но и помимо этого имеет отрицательные социальные последствия. Появились новые проблемы (например, такие как «цифровое неравенство», появление нетократии, «электронные атаки», проблемы с единой идентификацией и аутентификацией граждан, защита безопасности персональных данных при использовании новых информационных технологий и другие), ставящие под угрозу существование демократии в дальнейшем. Так, например, в резуль-
тате активного введения информационно-коммуникационных технологий в общественную жизнь в целях формирования электронной демократии параллельно появилась проблема компьютерной неграмотности, для решения которой необходимо рядового гражданина страны (в основном это касается людей пенсионного возраста) обучить навыкам пользования новыми информационными технологиями. Каждый гражданин должен обладать доступом к технологии, реализующей возможности электронной демократии. Это может быть, например, персональный компьютер, терминал общественного доступа или что-то иное. Содержание статьи доказывает, что потенциал новых информационных технологий может быть использован как во благо демократии, так и против нее.Сегодня в России наряду с существованием правового государства, полным ходом идет построение электронного государства.
Ключевые слова: информационные технологии; электронное государство; демократия; информационно-коммуникационные технологии; электронная демократия; информационное общество; сетевое сообщество; электронное правительство.
Nowadays the information technologies continue penetrating into our ordinary life, job and communication changing them by the way. In turn, it leads to steady construction of electronic state. New technologies create new opportunities for realization of civil rights and duties, personal fulfillment, leisure activity, acquiring knowledge of civic affairs and social practices and education of the next generation. Besides, they allow effective interacting with the authorities, being guided not only by their needs, but also by the reasonable points of view.
The possibilities of new information technologies allow dosing, hiding, changing and destroying the political information at lower cost, but do it much more effectively. For this reason citizens not only gather the information desired by the authorities, but also make the "correct" conclusions and take the "correct" actions. As a result it is easy to destroy any democratic principles and establish a dictatorship. [1]
Purpose
In order to analyze the problems and prospects of electronic democracy development in the Russian Federation it was decided to study the previous experience in this sphere. As it has turned out, the researchers have been discussing the essence of democracy for the last two and a half thousand years. However, in spite of such a long period there no uniform understanding of the studied phenomena was developed. In addition, the democracy was born and died in different historical periods, and its content is repeatedly changed, depending on the environment conditions. R. Dahl had once noted: "It appears that the democracy has been invented more than once and not in one place as well as fire, painting, and writing" [2].
Research results and their interpretation
Numerous contents of democracy depending on historical features, and a variety of treatments for its understanding lead to the growth of a number of ideas concerning the democracy. Meanwhile, it is a good practice to allocate some general criteria of democratic process. Surely, the control system matching these criteria should be ideal, but having little in common with practice at the same time. However it will allow us to find effective solutions of existing problems and to see the points of reference for our further actions.
So, at that time R. Dahl had identified five criteria of democratic management [3]: effective participation; awareness; equal vote; control of agenda and participation of adults who should take full advantage of civil rights provided by the first four criteria.
Speaking about the future of democratic systems, R. Dahl said that "the developed democratic society will be actively trying to reduce a perceptible inequality of the citizens' ability to participate effectively in the political life, heavily due to the distribution of economic resources, positions and opportunities, as well as the distribution of knowledge, awareness and cognitive skills"[3].
Distribution of information technologies in the XX century, primarily the Internet, marked the emergence of a special new form of information space,
which advantage (for example, speed of information stream, lack of temporary and geographical boundaries, mobility) had led to the fact that the politicians and the active part of society began to consider the Network as a way of the second birth of democratic policy. The new information and communication technologies (ICT) not only affected all spheres of life in modern society, but also represented some kind of potential of democracy improvement.
The following terms have appeared in the political lexicon: "electronic democracy", "information society", and "electronic state". It should be noted that some researchers use the term "virtual democracy", "Internet democracy, "network democracy" (for example, the Russian sociologist Igor Vilenovitch Eydman and others), or "cloud democracy" (the Russian researchers Leonid Volkov, Fedor Krasheninnikov and others) instead of the term "electronic democracy".
It is supposed that the appearance of these terms is connected with the optimistic researchers' idea of about how to replace the direct democracy by means of new information technologies in reality.
Nowadays there is a well-known definition of the concept of electronic democracy. It is a form of democracy which is characterized by the use of information and communication technologies (in abbreviated form - ICT) as the primary means for collective thinking (crowd sourcing) and administrative processes at all levels, from the local government level to international one.
The main sense of electronic democracy is the following: expansion of public access to legislative activity and information on the current situation in the state; improvement of effectiveness of feedback from society to authorities; appearance of real opportunity for the citizens to lobby their own interests without intermediaries at the local, regional and state levels; increase in motivation of passive citizens in participation in political process by reducing material expenses.
Many researchers note that electronic democracy is more perfect than its classical form. Internet and the related information and communication technologies (ICT) provide time- and territory unlimited platform where everybody can express his democratic views [4].
However, today there are new problems threatening the further existence of e-democracy.
In modern society any citizen has to be trained the basic skills of using the ICT and have an opportunity to access them to take an adva
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