E-Governance: Enabling the French Web 2.0 Revolution?

Mature democracies increasingly confront the dilemma of apathetic citizens who have become disenchanted with traditional channels of participation in democratic governance procedures. In representative democracies in particular, this apathy is exemplified by falling voter turnouts, party memberships and participation in community association. To counter apathy, e-governance techniques including e-voting which is a crucial process in democracies, have been deployed by varied governments in mature democracies, leveraging the pervasive power of the Internet, particularly during elections. In this paper, the significant success story of French Presidential Elections in early 2007 is narrated and examined through the historiographical lens. Specifically, the process of this election, seemingly orchestrated via the Internet, is appraised as a valid benchmarking anti-apathy approach of e-governance, to enable better citizen participation, in this representative democracy.