The state and the Internet: challenges and risks of representative democracy
The Internet is a multidimensional phenomenon in the life of a contemporary individual. In the system of state-legal relations the Internet is regarded in 3 main aspects: institutional, instrumental and organizational-functional. The Internet has a significant impact on the system of state-legal relations by enabling citizens to engage in self-organization and to participate in governing the state. Therefore, the state loses a kind of «public monopoly» in the field of public administration and legislative activity. The Internet for the first time after the era of direct democracy lets the citizens independently carry out an increasing amount of state powers. It intensely minimizes the role and importance of public authorities. The implantation of the Internet into the system of state-legal relations produces a set of problems such as the problem of the effectiveness of a state based on the principles of popular representation, the problem of the regulatory control over the Internet and the problem of active sociopolitical minorities. The problem of minorities becomes particularly relevant as it denies the fundamental principle of national representation: the formation of public authorities based on the will of the majority of voters. Using the Internet active minorities act considerably on the legal and legitimate authority. They seek for the power shift outside the constitutional processes. The congruence of power, which is the ability of legal public authorities with a help of administrative and legal means to maintain the balance between actively opposing minority and passive electoral majority, is necessary for social and political stability in the Internet era.