Traditional representative politics in times of e-democracy. Between newness and legal challenges

Abstract

During the years of economic crisis, public disaffection with politics and especially politicians has been growing. Citizens distrust politicians who are the product of political parties, they feel that the exercise of sovereignty is increasingly remote from those democratic principles which should represent any rule of law. Although citizens continue to express their preferences through voting, the participation of citizens in political affairs practically does not exist. In this context new scenarios seem to be open. E-democracy (digital democracy, cyber democracy) is an example. This paper examines this opportunity, the parallelism between traditional representational politics and new methods of participation that work with new technologies. To do this we consider the Spanish case, which seems to be open to these types of practices. It seems appropriate to consider the question of whether representative democracy is destined to end or otherwise can be reviewed in the expectation that it will accompany new participation systems prevalently using the new technologies. Undoubtedly, this potential relationship faces different legal obstacles. Today the organizational structure of the constitution seems to prevent this reciprocity. However, the investigation will attempt to demonstrate that there is a possibility of coexistence and a possible change in the view of citizen participation vis-à-vis classical representation.

Keywords: political representation, e-democracy, cyber participation, citizenship, democratic proposals.