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Could the Internet be a safety-net for democracy in crisis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2019

Luigi Ceccarini Open the ORCID record for Luigi Ceccarini [Opens in a new window]
Luigi Ceccarini*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Society, Politics, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy
*
Corresponding author. Email: luigi.ceccarini@uniurb.it
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Abstract

Democratic politics does not meet the expectations of citizens who have gradually become more critical towards representative politics and the political elite that represent them. From these well-known considerations and social evaluation spread among the citizenry, this paper focuses on political representation and the concept of citizenship in the age of the Internet. After discussing the positive and negative aspects of digital disintermediation (and hence neo-intermediation), this study concentrates on the potentialities of the role of the Internet, with its ambiguities, and monitoring of citizens' engagement as a possible safety-net for representative democracies in crisis worldwide.

Keywords

counter-democracymonitorial citizenmonitoring democracypost-representative politicsrepresentationrepresentative democracy crisis
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 125 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2019

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