New forms of political participation in a society based on knowledge

Abstract

The article is devoted to an analysis of the changes in the structure and content of the political process under conditions of the formation of a knowledge society. The author identifies the key distinguishing features of this new type of society and examines key political changes associated with the effect of networking in the political process, such as: ultra-fast growth of socio-political network structures, qualitative changes in their role in the development and implementation of political decisions, enhancing the impact of network structures on the functioning of state institutions, the formation of alternative civil strategies. In this new environment, traditional institutions of representation and feedback between government and civil society lose their effectiveness. Instead new tools of civic and political participation appear and get wider dissemination: crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, crowdmapping, benchmarking, etc. The final part of the article is devoted to the analysis and assessment of their comparative eff ectiveness. Refs 20.