TY - GEN

T1 - E-democracy in Russia: Political awareness and participation among young citizens

AU - Golubeva, Anastasia

AU - Ishmatova, Diana

PY - 2013/1/1

Y1 - 2013/1/1

N2 - It was suggested that the most important opportunity provided by the Internet is the ability to practice democracy. There are two main trends in the Russian political landscape, as far as e-participation is concerned. First is the growth of political awareness and concern especially among the young population which promoted the bottom-up selforganizing e-participation. In the absence of censorship, the Internet is increasingly used as a platform for bottom-up political organizing in the face of centralized control of other media and lack of «official» e-participation mechanisms capable to consider citizens' input or to enable dialectical discussion on political issues. The second trend - is the increasing attention paid at the official government level to e-democracy development. Nevertheless the lack of institutional involvement and support alongside other negative factors of government-society relations might become a serious obstacle for successful enactment of e-participation. The goal of this paper is to explore the potential of e-participation in Russia for increasing public involvement of young citizens in decision-making, taking into account current conditions and historical legacy. We approach the problem by examining the ability of top-down and bottom-up e-participation mechanisms to overcome the current obstacles preventing young citizens from engaging in conventional participation mechanisms.

AB - It was suggested that the most important opportunity provided by the Internet is the ability to practice democracy. There are two main trends in the Russian political landscape, as far as e-participation is concerned. First is the growth of political awareness and concern especially among the young population which promoted the bottom-up selforganizing e-participation. In the absence of censorship, the Internet is increasingly used as a platform for bottom-up political organizing in the face of centralized control of other media and lack of «official» e-participation mechanisms capable to consider citizens' input or to enable dialectical discussion on political issues. The second trend - is the increasing attention paid at the official government level to e-democracy development. Nevertheless the lack of institutional involvement and support alongside other negative factors of government-society relations might become a serious obstacle for successful enactment of e-participation. The goal of this paper is to explore the potential of e-participation in Russia for increasing public involvement of young citizens in decision-making, taking into account current conditions and historical legacy. We approach the problem by examining the ability of top-down and bottom-up e-participation mechanisms to overcome the current obstacles preventing young citizens from engaging in conventional participation mechanisms.

KW - E-democracy

KW - E-participation

KW - Russia

KW - Young citizens

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924067493&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:84924067493

T3 - Proceedings of the European Conference on e-Government, ECEG

SP - 205

EP - 212

BT - 13th European Conference on eGovernment, ECEG 2013

ER -