IMPACTO SOICAL DE LAS TICS EN LA GOBERNABILIDAD DEMOCRÁTICA

DE ORTÚZAR, M. G

Pinamar

Encuentro; ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL DYSES; 2009

DYSES

Social impact of the ICTs on democratic governance: adaptative preference or equal informational capabilities? M. Graciela de Ortúzar, UNLP-UNPA graceortuzar@hotmail.com The information and communication technologies - ICTs- would allow the generation of new public spaces (Habermas) and new public policy networks to improve governance by applying new practices and knowledges. It is supposed that these new practices encourage deliberative and participative processes, that is processes where citizens have the opportunity to get involved with the decisions of the government that determine their lives. In that way governability and governance would be consolidated in order to promote human development. Now, in our Latin American context- caracterized by huge social and economic inequalities, producted by a history of dictatorships and formal democracies- the realization of access to political equality, towards a model of real democracy by the use of ICTs, would be a condition - in my opinion, and here it is my hypothesis- to the appliction of an ethical and normative framework that determine non -adaptitive preferences but equal opportunities to the access of knowledge and information as public goods. In other words, nondiscrimination of informational capabilities, and equal and social impact of the use of ICTs. These new criteria would allow us to consider one of the key problems and disadvantages of the model, the digital gap. We suggest integral policies to the development of basic capabilities and specific strategies for equality acess to capabilities and digital literacy. The new normative framework would generate institutional changes in rules, principles, values, towards transparence (public information, electronic vote, etc); efficiency ( eadministration, State reform); confidentiality of the information and new services ( e- services, etc)- Moreover, it would allow the creation of a new space for a social active participation (e- society) encouraging networks and new ways of communication, and allowing new access to information and knowledge in public policies. In particular, it would generate equal opportunities and the development of a critical autonomous citizen, who would be free to make a critical revision of the rules and principles of the normative framework towards the development of the society.