ABSTRACT

The observation of the everyday practice of the formulation of public policies and legal norms demonstrates a low popular participation, with negative consequences on the effectiveness as well as on the lawfulness of such state activities. The social, economic and historical circumstances of this process are the themes of discussion in this very dissertation, in order to analyze the democracy in the information and knowledge societies, and the role that the new technologies can have in such context. With this objective, it starts out by describing the transition of modernity to the post-modernity and the consequent appearance of new societies which are characterized by the individualization of biographies, by the social fragmentation, and by the coming out of new identities, based on structures that follow the web patterns. Besides these factors, it has been highlighted the role of the Nation-state, questioning about its eventual loss of power and the challenges to its sovereignty, which are carried out by the flux of global web. By verifying modifications in the societies and in the States, the necessity that there is for the democratic institutions to accompany the process, otherwise, they cannot deal with the complexity of post-modern societies or enable the rupture between the options of political representatives and the will of those who are represented, has been debated. Flowing up, it is tackled the appearance of a new virtual culture and political relations which take place in the cyberspace, and the way that the electronic governance takes hold aiming at enabling an ideal of digital democracy. Before such perspective, it is verified if the creation of virtual public spaces has the potential of reinforcing and deepening the traditionally democratic systems by integrating new channels of communication to the cycles of production of public policies and legal norms, bringing out practical experiences that may be used as parameters to the establishment of future perspectives. It has been aimed at, in synthesis, the possibility of amplifying such debate and the liberation of policies in the cyberspace and if the interaction between public administrators, political representatives and the common citizens may enable social cohesion and contrapose the general trend of social fragmentation and the loss of capability of collective action.

Key-words: Democracy; Post-Modernity; TICs; Information and Knowledge Societies; e-Participation; Virtual Public Sphere.