E-government and e-politician as a new image of local governance - the impact of the ICT on the local democracy

Abstract

In the age of common lnternet usage, we cannot imagine administration and local governance development without modern view into serving the citizens, which are looking forward for ensuring basic services and constant improvement of their quality. This some citizens' demands concerns governmental information systems. Citizens are demanding not only presentation of important for them and the city data and events, but also enabling quick and efficient way of dealing with their cases. Moreover except the administration cases they are also looking for public debate being followed at the lnternet. They are more willing to raise their critical opinion on the chat room or discussion forum. In this case modern politician must be aware of this virtual public sphere power if he or she wants to come up to contemporary citizen expectations. In Poland path of e-government development was not so smooth. As findings from the previous research confirm thesis about low e-services development at the beginning and even lack of them in some regions of Poland. Now we can observe the rapid growth of ICT in Poland and its visual impact on the local democracy shaping process. We can of course discuss both sides of this impact - positive and negative. According to cases mentioned in the paper I will try to present some important digital initiatives being introduced in Poland on the level of local democracy. It is worth to present some actions which are being introduced to improve administration and information system as for example: e-commune system (being implemented in different cities in Poland - the e-commune is not only presentation of information, but it is mainly "virtual office"); regional information portals (eg. Doba etc.). It is also important to describe the improvement of communication between local politicians and their voters - e-communication, econsultation (eg. blogs; discussion forums).