The promotion of democratic rule through digital technology. Also referred to as internet democracy, digital democracy is the adoption of technology in the governance process. It is the application of digital tools to entrenching political interaction and active participation in politics.
Published in Chapter:
The Challenge of Democratization in Africa: From Digital Democracy to Digital Authoritarianism
Tope Shola Akinyetun (Lagos State University of Education, Lagos, Nigeria) and Victor Chukwugekwu Ebonine (University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4620-1.ch015
Abstract
The spread of democracy in Africa in the 1990s, often dubbed the third wave of democracy, was a period of democratic optimism on the continent. This revolution, which led to an increase in democratic activities, was given impetus by the fourth industrial revolution, occasioned by the internet to engender a digital democratic space characterized by increased political communication and easy access to information. Despite the optimism of liberation that digital democracy promises, it has been reversed by African leaders to promote authoritarianism: digital authoritarianism. Digital tools are increasingly being used to promote mass surveillance of citizens, internet shutdown, electoral manipulation, corporate espionage, censorship, etc. The chapter further posits that the incidence of digital authoritarianism pervades Africa and has been further entrenched by the incidence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which provided autocratic leaders with the opportunity to restrict expression and free speech with the pretext of combating disinformation and cybercrime.