DEVELOPMENT OF E-DEMOCRACY IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

E-democracy (a neologism and contraction of electronic democracy) is the utilization of electronic communications technologies, such as the Internet, in enhancing democratic processes within a democratic republic or representative democracy. It is a political development still in its infancy, as well as the subject of much debate and activity within government, civic-oriented groups and societies around the world. In the Czech Republic, this concept has been used for the first time by a relatively new political party called Veci verejne (Public Affairs). Public Affairs is a party which was founded as early as 2001, but it was not until the year 2010 that it was elected into the Czech Parliament for the first time. The party puts stress on direct democracy and on close cooperation with citizens. It was the first party in the Czech Republic that started using the concept of e-democracy in the form of so-called "internal referendums". This contribution aims to analyse the level of success and effectiveness of this new tool of direct democracy, including its positive and negative impacts. On the Czech political scene, the concept of e-democracy is an utterly new and exceptional phenomenon. If it proves to be successful, it will be copied and used by other political parties. At the moment, however, experience with this concept in the conditions of the Czech political scene seem to be rather ambiguous (which, nevertheless, does not diminish the importance of internal referendums of the Public Affairs party, with the use of which, for, example, voters and supporters of this political party were approving the inclusion of the party in a government coalition with the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the conservative TOP 09). For the first time in the history of the Czech Republic, edemocracy was the deciding factor deciding the fate of government and the political development of the country in the next four years.