It all began with a bloody murder. At least the Athenians of the 5th century BC saw the assassi­nation of the tyrant Hipparchus in 514 BC as the decisive turning point towards democracy in their city. They celebrated his killers as liberators and put up a monument in their honor in the center of Athens. What actual effect the killing had on the develop­ment of Athenian democracy is impossible to say from the perspective of today. In reality, democracy was the product of a long period of development.

Popular sovereignty in Athens was based on the active partici­pation of all male citizens, rich and poor. Women, slaves and foreigners were all excluded. Athenian democracy was to last for almost 200 years. The city finally fell to the Macedonians, who took away the citizen­ship rights of the city’s inhab­itants. And that was almost the end of democracy, if it weren’t for...

The great breakthrough in England

One great step on the way to democracy was taken in 1689 by the people of England, who managed to wrest a "Bill of Rights" from their King in that year. In the document they forced him to agree were set out the rights of parliament in relation to the king, also listing out for the very first time a set of inalienable rights for citizens. This spark was to spread into other countries, including France and Germany, for example, and was to find expression in the revolu­tions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Develop­ments in England were also influential on the emer­gence of democracy in the United States. About 100 years after the conclusion of the “Bill of Rights,” the first represen­tative democracy under the principle of separation of powers was born with the foundation of the United States of America.

Universal male suffrage was introduced in such countries as the USA, France and Switzerland towards the middle of the 19th century. The suffrage for women was to take much longer. Democracy was only to see its definitive victory after the Second World War – 2,500 years after its original invention and birth in Athens.

Digital democracy – the network changes everything

In modern democracies we elect repre­sen­tatives who govern on our behalf, and who discuss and agree the laws of our countries (under a system we call repre­sen­tative democracy). With the coming of the concept of digital democracy in the information age, it may well be that the circle comes round again to a direct model of democracy. Because the internet provides us with new opportunities for further developing and shaping democracy.

The concept of “liquid democracy,” for example, proposes that each voter may choose between agreeing new laws directly online and lending their vote to the representative of their choice – to a politician they trust or simply to a friend. Under such a system you are always free to choose when you want to vote yourself and when you’re happy to pass the right on to your chosen representative. Whether such a concept is practicable must be called into question. But such considera­tions show that the network could allow more participation and bring us closer to direct democracy: how the Athenians gathered on the hills before Athens to decide on laws, we gather in the network - only virtually. But digital democracy means much more than this. More on this in “Democracy reloaded.”

Campaigning to stop massive bee death, introducing a speed limit of 130 km/h on German freeways, blocking plans for a European upload filter – an ever increasing number of people choose to advocate their causes via the internet. Helping shape politics effectively - on the sofa at home, standing at the bus stop or lying sick in bed - the internet makes it pos­si­ble. Digital democracy facilitates new ways of par­tic­i­pating and new ways of exerting influence.

At the same time, though, there are forces at work on the internet that threaten to damage democracy. Populists seek to manipulate us using fake news and hate speech. Data behe­moths can now x-ray our behavior and use the knowledge to influence our future conduct. Filter bubbles put blinkers on us and – whether we’re aware of it or not – narrow down the range of influences that help form our political opin ­ions. So how can we maxi­mize the benefits of digital democracy and at the same time minimize the risks?

Imagine there’s an election on, and everyone’s on their way to vote

My vote counts! That at least seems to have been the attitude of most Germans in 1972 – when more than 91 percent exercised their vote in the elections to the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. Since then, however, interest in democracy has been steadily waning. In the last federal elections in 2017 the participation rate was down to around 76.2 percent. And the situ­a­tion is even worse for European elec­tions. While 63 percent exercised their right to vote in 1979, in 2014 just 43.1 percent of Europeans bothered to cast their vote for their represen­tative in the European Parliament.

But what’s making us so unwilling to take part in elections? Some argue that “the guys at the top are going to do what they want anyway,” while others just shrug and say that they “don't know who to vote for,” and simply abdicate their voting power.

But digital democracy has the potential to turn this trend on its head. The concept of a "grassroots move­ment" has recently become a new buzzword: Increasing numbers of peo­ple are putting their feel­ing into action that they can have an effective say in politics and their own lives by using clicks to express their views: using online petitions, for example.

According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation, 40 percent of Germans are either already participating in e-petitioning or are interested in doing so. “Our oceans are not an enormous trashcan,” is how internet user Tobias Kremkau explains his support for an online petition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to prohibit non-recyclable packaging. In his lobbying efforts he uses the change.org political platform, which is a non-government organization, along with other tools, such as openpetition and Avaaz. He also sends questions directly to the relevant parliamentarians in his federal state’s par­lia­ment via a platform called Abge­ordne­ten­watch (“parliamentarian watch”).

Estonia goes a step further, allowing its voters to elect their parliament online. That makes the Baltic state the first and so far only coun­try in the world to have introduced e‑voting. Since its intro­duction in 2003, parti­ci­pation rates in elections have risen from 58.2 to 63.1 percent in 2019 – and one in every four voters now chooses to vote online. The new digital platforms now available for parti­ci­pation in democracy seem to have captured the zeit­geist. Digital democracy seems to have the potential to improve parti­ci­pation rates, thus helping secure the survival of our democracy.

From childhood on, we struggle to decide for ourselves on how we are to live our lives. So we really shouldn’t be willing to give up on that struggle when we reach adulthood. Democracy and liberty are not something we can take for granted. A quick look back into history and at the world around us makes crystal clear the risks we run if we leave it to the few to decide how we live our lives. It’s clear that “the sovereignty of the people” can only triumph as long as the people are willing to take part in it. What many forget is that not bothering to vote is also effectively making a decision: the decision to allow other people to decide who makes the decisions over your life in the future. If the political center decides to take the back seat, the effect is to give extra weight to the votes of the radicals, putting our democracy in peril. The jolt towards the right happening all over Europe should be a warning to us.