Citizen-Oriented Decision Making

The potential of information communication technology (ICT) opens up whole new sets of concepts and practical solutions to be developed when working with research and development (R&D) on new democratic praxis in the knowledge era (OECD, 2001; Keskinen, 2001). It is not sufficient to try to use ICT as a voting tool without first ensuring universal access to data, information, and knowledge for citizens in order for them to build their knowledge base and, second, to empower citizens to become independent decision-making collaborators. This interactive decision-making approach calls for new models that will complement, evolve, and reform the current representative democracy to better suit the modern needs of rapidly moving and changing societies (Becker, 1995; Keskinen, 1997; Becker & Slaton, 1997).