Abstract

PITSCHAS, Rainer. E-government and democratic legitimacy in the partnership-based European constitutional state. Sociologia, Problemas e Práticas [online]. 2004, n.45, pp.11-22. ISSN 0873-6529.

This paper addresses recent debates in the European Union (EU) about electronic government in order to facilitate a realist view to needs of citizens in the coming age of an electronic democracy which will be some inter-linked with the civil society. It is argued that their development is founded on the base of an "information society". That leads to a special information responsibility of the modern state with a structural change of forms of administration. One of them will be in future the connection of electronic service provision and governmental supplies of information with participating elements of electronic democracy and citizen involvement. As a consequence the level of expectation of the individual in respect of state and administration changes, what includes the political communication. Corresponding demands and activities in their course should be balanced as far as access, supply of information and usability are concerned. There also exist distributional constraints in the EU, especially for the access to information and the Net, for the demand and supply of information and the availability of media competence. In order to avoid resulting problems of democratic legitimacy the EU and their member states have to overcome them by adequate strategies.

Keywords : Europe; information; communication; citizens’ expectations.

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