The fifth episode of our podcast “Constitutions for Democracy” discusses the experiments aimed at introducing ICTs in collective law and constitution making as well as their consequences.

Revolutionizing democracy to include citizens in decision-making processes was an expectation of the 1990s. The digitalization of politics and the incorporation of institutions of citizen participation were two lines of action promoted to increase transparency, legitimacy and citizen engagement in times of growing distrust and electoral apathy. Extremist views attributed either unfounded over-optimism – a direct and interconnected global democracy, as the maximum expression – or on the opposite extreme pessimism, a cybernetic nightmare – big brother, the society of control. What happened and what balance can we make in 2022 is the focus on this episode.