E-democracy and its features: the experience of European countries

The development of digital democracy in European countries involves the active introduction of modern technologies and the promotion of digitalization in order to strengthen the political system and protect human rights and freedoms. Digital democracy helps to bridge the existing gap between civil society and the state, to eliminate unnecessary links in the relationship between them and to rationalize political participation. In the course of digitalization, new mechanisms are opening up for identifying the opinions of the population and involving them in the solving of the most significant issues of social and political life. Social networks play a significant role by providing up-to-date information in real time and helping to eliminate traditional barriers to civic participation, such as distance or social pressure. Digital democracy promotes the introduction of the institute of “electronic government”, which makes the services provided by public authorities accessible to the population almost around the clock. There is increasing differentiation in the provision of services, which are, as it were, “tailored” for each specific individual, perceived, first of all, as a client of the public administration. Automation of services, provided to citizens, helps to reduce possible human errors when entering data and guarantees a certain impartiality on the part of public authorities. Thanks to digital democracy, the crisis of legitimacy characteristic of representative democracy, caused by a loss of trust in existing political institutions, is largely overcome. In the context of digitalization, citizens gain much greater access to objective information and become less dependent on traditional sources of information, which largely determined their political views. Digital democracy also contributes to the development of participatory democracy, helping to overcome civic apathy and increase citizen participation in public politics. The use of digital technologies in everyday life, however, not only provides additional opportunities for growth and development, but also creates new risks. The development of digital democracy is hampered by the possibility of manipulating the consciousness of the population and the dissemination of information that does not correspond to reality. Citizens are often bombarded with a large stream of unfiltered news, so it can be difficult for them to distinguish what is true from fake information, which can be quite skillfully constructed using modern technologies. The so-called digital divide, defined as the inability of part of the population to properly use modern means of communication, remains a significant problem.