The modern, mainstream democratic ideal has been republican or representative democracy, but the original Greek ideal was direct democratic participation in all major decisions by all citizens. To some extent even administrative actions were directly democratic, insofar as various executive and judicial functions were determined by lot. Along with direct democracy, two general terms around which efforts to theoretically and practically promote such broad contemporary involvement of citizens in their own governance are those of participatory and anticipatory democracy. In as much as both are argued to be especially facilitated by advanced telecommunications technologies such as television and the Internet, terms of choice range from digital and e-democracy to teledemocracy.

Background

The modern roots of contemporary direct democracy ideals are nineteenth-century anarchist experiments in Europe and populous and progressive movements in the United States. Populism, which reflected agrarian interests, and progressivism, more urban based, sought to...