数字民主审思:实质、问题与出路

Reflection on Digital Democracy:Essence,Problem and Way Out

大数据技术的发展不仅给商业、教育、医疗等领域带来变革,而且对人们的民主政治生活产生了较大影响。数字技术赋能民主选举、民主管理和民主决策,催生了数字民主。数字民主在推进民主发展过程中确实起到了一定作用,然而数字民主既没有从实质上改变传统民主的本质,也没有真正克服传统代议制民主的弊端。因此,数字民主并非一种新型民主,而只是实现代议制民主的一种新方式。不仅如此,数字民主还会因数字垄断催生新的数字政治精英,从而使民主走向自己的对立面。同样,数字偏见以及数字滥用也会削弱民众参政议政的热情,从而带来沉默政治。因此,在数字时代,我们必须用数字技术赋能民主全过程,强化政府对数字技术的监管,提升公民的数字素养,推进真实性民主的实现。

The development of big data technology not only brings changes to social fields such as business,education,and health care,but also greatly influences people's democratic political life.Digital technologies enable democratic elections,democratic governance,and democratic decision-making,and they give birth to digital democracy.Digital democracy has indeed played a certain role in the process of promoting democratic development,but it has not substantially changed the nature of traditional democracy,nor has it really overcome the drawbacks of traditional representative democracy.Therefore,digital democracy is not a new kind of democracy,but a new way to achieve representative democracy.Moreover,digital democracy will turn against itself by creating new digital political elites as the result of digital monopolies.In the same way,digital bias and abuse can reduce people's enthusiasm for political participation,leading to the politics of silence.Therefore,in the digital age,we must go beyond representative democracy by empowering the whole process of democracy with digital technology,strengthening the government's supervision of digital technology and improving citizens'digital literacy,so as to promote the realization of genuine democracy.