The LATINNO Project at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, which investigates democratic innovations that have evolved in eighteen countries across Latin America since 1990, has just completed a study of new digital institutional designs that promote e-participation aimed at improving democracy. This post gives a first insight into the results.
The advancement of tools of information and communications technology (ICT) has the potential to impact democracy nearly as much as any other area, such as science or education. The effects of the digital world on politics and society are still difficult to measure, and the speed with which these new technological tools evolve is often faster than a scholarâs ability to assess them, or a policymakerâs capacity to make them fit into existing institutional designs.
All eyes are now turned to Brazil, the “country of football”, which happens to host this yearâs World Cup. Weeks before the start of the tournament, international newspapers were already filling their pages with articles about Brazilâs purported many problems: inequality, poverty, criminality, corruption, and massive protests all over. Television programs also featured infrastructure deficiencies everywhere, making the audience wonder whether international football stars would get stuck on unfinished roads and airports, besides facing the poor living conditions supposedly faced by Brazilian people every day. The sunny beaches and the beautiful tropical landscape have surely also been broadcasted, contrasted with sad images from the countryâs many favelas and slums. In almost all means of communications, journalists spent weeks doing political analysis just as well as they did football predictions. Weiterlesen