The role of the information technologies in the construction of the direct democracy: Blockchain

Based on the problems of present-day representative democracy, this study explores the possibility of building a direct democracy system -with the support of the internet and information Technologies- close to the direct democracy of the City of Athens. In this research, the potential contribution of the infrastructure of the blokchain technology to participatory citizenship, and direct democracy has been considered. In today's democracy practices, representation has been accepted as a necessity considering the population scale. The practice of direct democracy as seen in the Athens City State in history can't find its place in modern states with some exceptions at the local level. The ossification of the concept of representation leads to chronic problems at the core of the concept of democracy. Among these problems; the hegemony of political and economic elites in the policy-making and law-making process leads to deficiencies in the protection of the rights and interests of average citizens. The local and general elections held every five years limit the participation and contribution of citizens to the government. Moreover, the populist campaigns of the candidates in the elections lead the voter to get away from common problems and to camp in different political views. In our age, where Internet and information technologies have a great impact on all areas of life, the classical methods used in democracy practices, especially in elections, still restrict democracy to a narrow area at the expense of average citizens. While there are countries like Estonia that allow citizens to vote on the internet in elections, this is not becoming widespread due to practical cyber attacks and other security concerns. Blockchain technology has been used in the infrastructure of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for over a decade to prove that it has the potential to address all concerns in terms of safety and practicality. The subject of this thesis is to discuss whether blockchain technology will become a tool to transform democracy. It has been decided that blockchain technology to be a strong candidate for a secure e-selection infrastructure thanks to its strong encryption infrastructure and decentralized distributed network structure.