The Use of Social Networks in Achieving e-Democracy in the Arab Spring Countries

Theoretical Background

E-democracy is a mean of providing a system that empowers citizens to say their opinions regarding government issues using ICT (Mahrer & Krimmer, 2005). Several benefits could be achieved from e-democracy. It enhances participation and inclusion of citizens in the political life (Riley and Law, 2003; Thomas and Streib, 2005). Citizens can have their input into the decisions made by their government which shifts the communications methods from one way of communications to become two ways (Stahl, 2005).

There are different classifications of e-democracy (Paivarinta & Saebo, 2006). Partisan e-democracy is one of the e-democracy classifications that focuses on the implicit and embedded citizen participation and contribution in the decision-making process. Another type is the direct e-democracy which focuses on how the network-based groups takes over or replaces traditional institutions which could lead to losing their power against the network-based groups. Liberal e-democracy occurs when citizens participate in the decision-making processes with agendas that have been set by the government itself. Finally, deliberative e-democracy which considers that both citizens and government are connected in the decision-making processes. Accordingly, politicians and citizens share their ideas in a dialogue to form a shared political opinion. Deliberative e-democracy represents a perfect model for e-democracy as the co-operation between citizens and politicians represents and explains the display of power for both sides.