Will e-Governance and e-Democracy Lead to e-Empowerment? Gendering the Cyber State

Abstract

The onslaught of information and communications technologies (ICTs), the burgeoning popularity of the Internet, and the ideology behind the new information economy has coalesced into a force that is fundamentally reshaping the contours of the Canadian political landscape. This reorganization of the state will profoundly impact women’s opportunities to participate in and alter conventional notions of citizenship. The establishment of electronic or e-government and the implications behind the development of the cyberstate promise to revolutionize Canadian governance and our traditional understandings of democracy. While there is the political possibility of shaping the emerging cyberstate as a vehicle of empowerment for women and marginalized others, there is also the prospect that Internet-facilitated government will exacerbate inequalities and impair women’s citizenship status. (author's abstract)