Politics and Modern Technologies

Abstract

The 21st century is an era of digital technologies, in which the spread of the internet played a decisive role—the development of modern technologies affected every area of human activity, including the state governance process. The implementation of digital technologies in public administration has led the world to the concept of e-government. While there are many definitions of e-government, according to the most common approach: it is the digital mean of communication between the state and society, which in turn implies many different levels and forms. Modern technologies have penetrated all fields of political science; it includes public policy, party politics, conflict analysis, the study of political culture, etc. Therefore, it is essential to introduce and develop appropriate scientific tools for research on modern technology's influence on political science. However, the speed of development of digital technologies complicates the scientific study of e-government. One of the difficulties in e-government study is the pace of development of modern technologies and related digital services. Since 1995, when the internet became widely available, the world has already seen the third version of the Internet - Web 3.0. The changes may have gone unnoticed by Internet users over time, but they have influenced the digital world significantly. Web 1.0 version from 1995 to 2003/04 allowed only one-way interaction. With the development of social networks since 2003, Internet users have been allowed to set up their own digital space, which has taken the digital world to a new stage - Web 2.0. This innovation allowed bilateral interaction, which eventually led humanity to the idea of a semantic network, or Web 3.0. Web 3.0 is an innovative network that, resulting from data processing, offers customers an individual, targeted service. With Web 3.0, the protection of personal data available on the internet and the development of appropriate mechanisms have become essential. Different countries have used different methods; in 2018, the EU developed the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which obliges relevant Internet service providers to provide complete and visible information to Internet users about processing their data. The development and implementation of this regulation are one of the first international documents aiming to bring global big data processing into the legal framework. Georgia and other European countries are also trying to introduce the GDPR and various related normative acts. In 2011, the country joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP) International Program, in which states seek to make the governance process more transparent and accountable by introducing modern technologies. Within the framework of the mentioned project, as a result of the implementation of 4 action plans, dozens of digital services have been more or less successfully introduced. With the introduction of state-owned digital government portals, the issue of protecting citizens' digital rights and security is becoming increasingly important, mainly if government agencies use artificial intelligence to process citizens' big data. The primary purpose of this conference paper is to discuss Internet development policy in the context of political science and to analyze the digital transformation of different countries. The report will present the political factors of the creation and development of the internet, examples of the protection of digital rights of consumers, international experience in the use of e-services in governance, and the current practice of studying these areas from a scientific perspective. The report will discuss various areas of influence of modern technology on political science and current trends in its study. What research methodologies do scientists use to study and evaluate the characteristics of e-government? What are the impediments to measuring the effectiveness of public digital services, and how have e-government study models changed in recent years? For these purposes, the following methods of qualitative research will be used: - Case study - based on which both Georgian and European examples will be analyzed; - Document analysis - based on which the state policy documents will be studied; - Comparative analysis - based on which the differences between the Georgian and European examples will be identified, and based on the obtained results, recommendations will be developed. Due to the lack of scientific research related to digital public services in Georgia, the research will be of unique and practical importance.     This research was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG) [YS-21-2606]