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e ‐democracy and knowledge. A multicriteria framework for the new democratic era
Author(s) -
MorenoJiménez José María,
Polasek Wolfgang
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of multi‐criteria decision analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.462
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1099-1360
pISSN - 1057-9214
DOI - 10.1002/mcda.354
Subject(s) - computer science , context (archaeology) , process (computing) , management science , democracy , corporate governance , quality (philosophy) , stylized fact , sociotechnical system , knowledge management , politics , political science , economics , epistemology , law , philosophy , operating system , paleontology , macroeconomics , finance , biology
This paper presents a new procedure, e‐cognocracy , to deal with the democratic system in the emerging knowledge society. This is not a procedure to assist technically in the establishment of the representation corresponding to the parties, as in the traditional interpretation by using Internet (e‐voting). It is rather a procedure to add a new quality to the democratic system by means of the network. This new quality, related with the process that characterized the evolutionism of systems alive, consists in the creation and diffusion of the societal knowledge of the problem under investigation through the network and, specially, of the process to deal with the scientific resolution of problems. This proposed e ‐cognocracy will allow us to highlight the inclusion of those interested in the resolution of highly complex problems (participatory decision‐making), and also in the democratic governance of societal systems. For this purpose, we suggest the multicriteria framework as the way to deal with the modelling and resolution of such complex problems. Similarly, in the context of one of the most widely used multicriteria techniques, namely the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), we propose some decisional tools ( analytic and informatic tools) orientated towards searching for the relevant knowledge associated with the decision‐making process and the procedures employed within it. This knowledge, corresponding to the patterns of behaviour, trends, opportunities, decisions and stylized facts will be the starting point of the consensus building process suggested as the appropriate way to effectively solve problems of high complexity usually presented in the governance of society. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.