Technologies for Democracy

Abstract

This book chapter provides a brief overview of the most influential vision of democratic discourse among current electronic democracy theorists, namely, the work of Jurgen Habermas. After reviewing the requirements of Habermas's "practical discourse", Froomkin shows the plausibility of deploying existing technologies to improve democratic conversation along the lines Habermas would recommend. Froomkin's survey discusses new forms of software and practice, as well as the hardware needed to support them. His review encompasses weblogging or "blogging", collaborative document creation, community-based (and community-creating) discussion forums with collaborative filtering, and open government and community filtering initiatives.

Keywords: democracy online, Internet law, cyberlaw, blog, blogging, community filtering, Habermas, Froomkin