Digital democracy is a hot topic nowadays its relevance growing along with the impact of
computational platforms on our(political) life. Communication is the basal fabric on which
society is defined and it appears obvious that the civic organisation and politics itself
should take the opportunities the digital revolution offers. Institutional inertia
nevertheless causes large delays in updating and adapting. Therefore the balance between
participation and delegated representation is now facing a crisis. A thorough understanding of
the factors involved in participation is a first step towards providing solutions. Using the
Internet to fill the gap and build a digital democracy provides an opportunity along with
several risks that need to be carefully analysed. It needs to be implemented using a fully
inter- and trans-disciplinary perspective. The six contributions included in this State-of-the
Art Survey present research in the field of social sciences as well as mathematics and computer
science and aim at contributing to a better understanding of the potential and dangers of
digital democracy helping readers go beyond the misunderstandings the misconceptions and the
conceptual and practical abuses that the very notion of democracy is undergoing during this age
of technological revolution and social turmoils.
