Electrified Democracy
The Internet and the United Kingdom Parliament in History

An examination, in historical context, of the approach the UK Parliament has taken towards the Internet, and its wider implications.

Andrew Blick (Author)

9781108473057, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 July 2021

320 pages
25 x 17.5 x 2.4 cm, 0.84 kg

'… lick provides a wealth of information and generally convincing analyses.' Geraldine Castel, Journal of British Studies

The story of how the UK Parliament came to use the Internet from the 1960s onwards has never been told. Electrified Democracy places the impact of technology on parliamentary workings in its longer term historical context. The author identifies repeating patterns of perception and analysis, and cultural tendencies in the perception of inventions dating back over centuries that have reasserted themselves in connection with the parliamentary response to networked computers. He uncovers evidence and makes new connections, while situating all this within the wider global debates on connections between communication and democracy in the age of the Internet, constitutional law and history, and 'law and technology'. This book will be of interest to a wide readership including policy makers, researchers, and all those interested in contemporary controversies about the role of the Internet in modern societies.

Introduction
1. The Internet Debate Since 1990
2. The Permanent Platform: Parliament Online, 1996–2020
3. Technology and Transformation: Perspectives up to 1945
4. Disillusion and Expectation, 1945–1990
5. The Political and Constitutional Context
6. Computers, Networks and Parliament up to 1996
7. Pressures, Resistance, and Possibilities in Parliament Since 1996
8. Promotion and Regulation, Parliamentary Assessments of the Internet Since 1996
Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Parliamentary & legislative practice [LNDP], Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Public international law [LBB], Political activism [JPW], Political structures: democracy [JPHV], British & Irish history [HBJD1]