With the large-scale adoption of e-democracy by both government and citizens we start seeing real effects in political processes and democratic systems. This will lead research into two directions: a better practical understanding of what happens and what is needed in reality, and a better abstract re-conceptualization of democracy, participation and the process of policy-making. Current conceptualizations fall short in outlining the possibilities and pitfalls of information technology for democratic processes and civil society. Some examples: Applied e-democracy: what will happen with the large-scale structural adoption of digital tools into democratic processes. In real life the quality in democratic environments (states, cities) is maintained by only a limited number of democratic issues. Participation of more people will not increase the number of issues, but does change the dynamics of the process. The participation inequality: better understand the dynamics of the Internet and how these translate to democratic or political environments. What situations are characterized by the participation inequality and how does it hold up in politics? What are reasonable expectations for participatory systems in policy making? New conceptualization of democracy: with deep changes in the information infrastructure we need a conceptualization of democracy, taking into account the dynamics of knowledge and information flows, and their effect on positions and roles of stakeholders. To unlock the possibilities of crowd sourcing requires a balance between participants: how is such a balance created knowledge, information, tools, methods and infrastructures. From information to meaning and experience: e-government and e-democracy thinking have been characterized by a technical and structural paradigm. This needs to be better developed and at the same time developed towards a new paradigm with a central role for concepts such as meaning and experience. The article gives a rationale for these developments and describes possible directions for future research.
