The Theory and Practice of E-Democracy: Agency, Trusteeship and Participation on the Web

The paper argues that tensions in democratic theory, especially concerning representative and direct democracy, can be seen in the practice of e-democracy. It examines two sites, the e-democracy program of the UK Hansard Society and an Australian e-democracy experiment, Mark Latham’s Direct Democracy in Werriwa, to explore the way in which the democratic dynamic is likely to play itself out in an era of technological innovation.