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IT &Politics

by Dr. Aurel Piturca, University of Craiova, Romania

The problem of knowing, governing and changing the social environment we live in was and continues to be a permanent concerning of the human being, as we can see in the numberless studies, papers, surveys, notes, debates, which date from antiquity. Depending on its place and role in the society, and on the complexity and variety of the relations that it generates, the politics can be distinguished and established among the social component parts.

Any social system, disregarding its level of development, its organization degree or its nature, has a political dimension and function. The political science and activity have always been major coordinates of the human existence and activity. 'Today more than ever' -according to the political analyst G. Burdeau-'our society witnesses a universal politicizing. Everything has become political, because everything is influenced by politics or is reflected in it.¹

One of the major characteristics of our contemporary society is the ample development of science and technique. The technical and scientific revolution can influence and determine the politics itself, the whole evolution of our contemporary society.

The idea of using the technique in politics isn't new; it is at least as old as the political phenomenon. As early as the antiquity, thinkers as Aristotle or Plato hoped that the society would be governed by wise men and philosophers, known for their knowledge and virtue.

In their turn, the utopian socialists were the first thinkers to conceive systems of organization and leadership of the society based on the usage of science and technique. Tomaso Campanella and Thomas Morus, in their papers concerning different aspects of society, thought that a society of the future couldn't be but an industrial one in which social antagonism would be repressed, the anarchy in economics and politics would be eliminated and people would be organized consciously and stimulate science and industry.²

The usage of science and technique in the guidance of social and political life can be found in Th. Habbes and Fr. Bacon's systems of thought. The last says in his paper 'The New Atlantis' that 'the golden century' will be able to be achieved only through training and technical inventions, and the society leadership will be accomplished with the help of science.

The problem of introducing the science and the technique in the social management, in politics, will become a reality and a necessity starting with the inter-war period. The classical political doctrines failure, the liberalism and the conservatism, the emergence of some extremist political movements and paradigms, as the fascism and the communism, the development of science and technique, some unfulfillments of politics have hastened the constitution process of technocracy as a doctrine, an efficient way of social organization and management. In 1921 the American William H. Smith creates the notion of technocracy which he defines as 'a theory of social organization and a national organization system of industry'. In 1933, Howard Scott publishes in the U.S.A. "Introduction to Technocracy" in which he foresees the usage of the technical progress in solving social and economical problems, without affecting the already existing political institutions and structures. James Burham will introduce technocracy in politics, by publishing "The Managerial Revolution" in 1941. From the very beginning we must say that we are not partisans of technocracy, of subordination, of replacing the politics by science and technique. Till now the socio-historical practice hasn't denied the supremacy of the politics over the technique, and the evolution hasn't registered anywhere a government made of technocrats who wouldn't know about the political phenomenon. According to Gastran Bauthol, a supporter of technocracy, "at least so far politics has never been reduced to a technique, however advanced it might be, no matter what one may say".³

The main issue here is not at all the elimination of political aspects and politics from the social management department, or of science and technique, but finding not only those forms of collaboration and cooperation among themselves, but also a way of introducing and utilizing science and technique in the social management department.

There are many ways in which informatics can interfere in the political environment. So far, there are well-known the attempts of introducing different IT applications in management and government and, of course, the report or the gathering of certain information. Such applications refer to online government (E-Government), the introduction of electronic vote (Electronic Voting System), the people's opinion concerning a political decision by signing some online applications, as well as the publicity made through Internet, electronic mail, IT technologies, in general, a publicity used in the political campaigns.

The most frequent ways of spreading the political information are on-line magazines, email services to which interested citizens can subscribe, free of charge or in exchange for some money, depending on the periodical's settlements. Such an example of public electronic service is E-Government Bulletin⁴ , "the first and the best email service that stands for public services-teledemocracy", as the E-Government Bulletin site self-defines. This periodical, like many others, offers an independent service, free of charge, by communicating the latest news and information about all the aspects concerning the political aspects and politics. In the gathering process of information through Internet there is only one problem: that of choosing a credible, trustworthy source. Choosing the source is a very difficult process, either by consulting a site web, or by subscribing to an electronic magazine.

E-Government

"The introduction of an application E-Government is important because it facilitates an interactive and law-priced government."⁵ -said George W. Bush, the president of the U.S.A., at the launching of the E-Gov site in the U.S.A. Electronic government (e-government) based on using the Internet technology, has been conceived as a connecting instrument between the natural and legal persons and the government, as well as a rapid and direct way of communication between the citizen and the government. Its role is that of eliminating repetitive systems and, at the same time, improving the government quality as well as the access of the citizens to certain services.

Although it involves initial expenses, the system proves to be very efficient during the functioning, so, according to the data given by the Pew Foundation, over 40 millions of Americans have accessed the E-Gov web sites looking for information concerning the federal or local laws, and over 20 millions have utilized the Internet to send the government their own impressions about the political decisions that had been made.

E-Government does not mean only forms given online or pages that contain information about the government, the electronic government system is also used to tender services (to pay rates and taxes) and give information to the population.

Within the E-Government Conference 2003 of the EU countries a number of settlements⁶ that must be applied in these countries till the end of the year 2004 have been established, all the constituent countries having to tender interactive public services, public places for accessing the Internet, broadband connection, a safe communication in rendering the public services.

Electronic vote

The elections give the population the right to elect its spokesmen in the superior Houses, the right to choose the way in which they will be governed. Normally, the integrity of the voting process leads to the obtaining of democracy integrity, so the voting system must be chosen so that it can reflect people's free will within the elections, it must be, on the one hand, robust enough so that it can deal with different attempts of embezzlement, and on the other hand it must be clear enough so that it can be accepted by electors and candidates.

History reminds us of many cases of manipulated elections for obtaining the anticipated results. Thus, within some elections that took place in the U.S.A, in 1998, after the classical hand counting of votes, two candidates were separated by only three-four votes. After recounting, it has been discovered that in the over 80000 packs that had been counted more than 100 errors in counting the votes had been found. Another element that had an essential contribution to the elaboration of electronic voting system was the human element. The voting system must take into account all the categories of population, disregarding their medical problems, age or handicaps, people who, in most of the cases, couldn't vote.

Starting with the evolution of technology, more systems of electronic voting have been developed. The counting systems using the computer have been used for the first time in 1960, these systems contributing to the speed increase as well as to the counting safety. However, they couldn't eliminate the possibility of embezzlement. The first electronic voting system is introduced in the 70s. The touch screens are utilized at this moment in the U.S.A., the usage of these equipments is expected to substantially raise taking into account the fact that, in 2002, a resolution has been made that stipulates that, starting with 2006, all the voting sections should be equipped with at least a piece of equipment, entirely meant to the persons with a handicap.

While in the U.S.A. the disputes and, especially the objections to the electronic voting system seem to be growing, in Australia it has been created an electronic system that seems to attain its goal. Although it has been developed by a private firm, the source code of the system has been made public, and the product has been tested starting with the elections from 2001. From more than 15 offers of software products, the motif for choosing the current voting system named EVACS, or Electronic Voting and Counting System, was that of clarity. The system is functioning on a Linux platform and, in its turn, it offers total transparence by satisfying everybody: the political parties involved in elections, electors or simple observers.

These electronic voting systems will certainly be established, eliminating in this way the suspicions concerning the hand counting of votes, but also the hard work that the counting process imply, facilitating everybody's access to voting.

The publicity given through web pages or through electronic messages is another example of the interference of politics in the communication technology.

By using the Internet in the electoral campaign from 1998, the tendency of the political parties to use both the publicity services simultaneously has been noticed statistically, even if the number of those who had appealed to this way of publicity wasn't overwhelming. Thus:

Table No. 1: Usage of the Internet services by the candidates of different parties
in local and national electoral campaigns, the U.S.A., 1998.

The number of the candidates that appeal to online publicity services is bigger and bigger, the Internet rendering relatively cheap services and an audience who is bigger and bigger every year.

As we can notice, politics and informatics have found more ways of completing each other, of rendering common services for the citizen. Undoubtedly, we can see the way in which informatics and IT technologies operate on the political behavior of the citizens, on the process of making decisions in a democratic way, on improving the communication.

Biography:

1. G. Burdeau, "A Handbook of the Political Science", volume IV, 1952, p. 52
2. Liviu Petru Zapârtan, "Political Doctrines", The Foundation Publishing House Chemarea, Iasi, 1994, p. 236
3. Apud. M. Voiculescu, "Contemporary Political Systems and Doctrines", Hyprion Publishing House, Bucharest, 1992, p. 47
4. E-government Bulletin: the inside track on electronic public services - http://www.headstar.com/egb/
5. EGov -- The Official Web Site of the President's E-Government Initiatives, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/
6. http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/egovconf/text_en.htm