Digital Democracy encompasses the technological systems, platforms, and practices that expand participatory governance and civic agency in the networked age. Moving beyond traditional representative democracy's periodic voting, digital democracy enables continuous citizen engagement through online deliberation, collaborative policy-making, participatory budgeting, and transparent accountability mechanisms. These tools create new possibilities for direct, distributed, and responsive forms of public power that can scale democratic participation while maintaining deliberative quality.
The field emerged from early experiments in e-government and online voting, but has evolved far beyond digitizing existing democratic processes. Pioneering platforms like Estonia's e-governance system, Taiwan's vTaiwan and Join platform, Barcelona's Decidim, and Iceland's crowdsourced constitution process have demonstrated that technology can fundamentally enhance — not just automate — democratic participation. Key innovations include liquid democracy (delegative voting), quadratic voting, deliberative polling, citizen assemblies supported by digital tools, and AI-assisted policy analysis. Taiwan's Digital Minister Audrey Tang has become a global exemplar, using "radical transparency" and collective intelligence tools to bridge societal divides.
The contemporary digital democracy landscape includes sophisticated platforms for participatory budgeting (Consul, Citizen Lab), deliberation (Pol.is, All Our Ideas), petition and initiative systems, and comprehensive civic engagement suites. Organizations like the Participatory Budgeting Project, mySociety, and Code for America have helped spread these innovations globally. Critical challenges remain around digital divides, manipulation and disinformation, algorithmic governance risks, and ensuring that digital tools genuinely empower citizens rather than creating new forms of technocratic control. The field increasingly emphasizes "civic tech" that is co-designed with communities and accountable to democratic values.