Information and communication technologies (ICT) are increasingly used to engage civil society in intergovernmental negotiations on sustainable development. They have emerged as a potential remedy to the democratic legitimacy deficit that pervades traditional mechanisms for civil society representation and, ultimately, intergovernmental policymaking. However, many observers have contested the benefits of ICT for democratization on both theoretical and empirical grounds. This article contributes to this debate by evaluating the democratic legitimacy of ICT in civil society consultations in intergovernmental policy, taking the numerous online dialogues of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 conference) as a case study. The article argues that, despite its promise, ICT reinforce rather than reverse embedded participatory inequalities in a global context, and fail to substantially increase transparency and accountability. This prevents, in turn, a meaningful participation of civil societ...

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网络民主？民间社会可持续发展磋商中的信息和通信技术

信息和通信技术（ICT）越来越多地用于让民间社会参与关于可持续发展的政府间谈判。它们已成为一种潜在的补救措施，以弥补普遍存在于民间社会代表机制以及最终政府间决策的传统机制中的民主合法性缺陷。然而，许多观察家从理论和经验两方面对 ICT 对民主化的好处提出了质疑。本文以 2012 年联合国可持续发展大会（Rio+20 会议）的众多在线对话为例，通过评估 ICT 在政府间政策中民间社会协商中的民主合法性，为这场辩论做出贡献。文章认为，尽管它有承诺，信息通信技术在全球范围内强化而不是逆转内在的参与不平等，并且未能大幅提高透明度和问责制。这反过来又阻止了公民社会的有意义的参与......