THE CRISIS OF THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM IN THE DIGITAL AGE

THE CONSOLIDATION OF PARTICIPATIVE DEMOCRACY

Abstract

How can the new information and communication technologies contribute to the consolidation of participative democracy? This is the question that Maurício Gentil Monteiro, in his new book, presented in this critical review, proposes to answer. Observing the crisis that affects the representative political system, the author describes how new social movements of political militancy and the social mobilizations carried out through the world wide web characterize counter-democracy and show signs of distrust in the institutions of liberal democracy. Monteiro argues that it is no longer possible to evaluate democratic institutes - periodic elections, political parties, freedom of expression, right to information, freedom of assembly and association - without examining their interfaces with new information and communication technologies, gaining prominence therefore, a “cyberdemocracy” that brings as a central element greater autonomy from the “public sphere” in the face of economic and political power.