Emerging technologies in public policy innovation. Information Technologies and Participatory Democracy at the Era of COVID-19.

In Greece, democracy was direct. Citizens who qualified as having the right to participate did it, daily, at the Agora. With the complexity of the largest social groups, direct democracy became impractical. This gave place to representative democracy, in which a representative is appointed by a vote. This principle of representation has become obsolete in the current social situation. In fact, decentralized political organizations (Lévy, 2001) better represent citizens in an interconnected global reality where everyone has a voice and a vote in the public space. Democracy is no longer the means to conciliate diversity, it has become the main actor and the digital platform has replaced reality. Thus, as a democratic process in which elected officials must make decisions that consider the interests and concerns of all. The fundamental conditions of legitimacy are met in the collective possibility of being heard and the opportunity of participating in the decision-making process itself beyond the limits of the State. This participation in the process of making legitimate and enforceable government decisions in cyberspace constitutes what has been defined as digital democracy, which refers to the exclusive use of digital media in the processes of participation or representation of citizens in their government. It is according to the notion of cyberdemocracy that this document takes place. Its relevance to its mediating role (of cyberdemocracy) in the organization of the State in the era of COVID-19. In an international context, digital democracy has come up strongly alongside a polarization caused by the tensions between China and the United States under the Trump administration, which disrupted the deployment of 5G technology. The tightening of restrictions imposed on Huawei to limit its access to U.S. semiconductors and the technology for which it needs a license has cooled trade relations between the two empires, China and the United States.