The Opportunities and Challenges in the Process of Practicing Consultative Democracy in the Internet Era

Consultative democracy theory has produced great influence and become one of the most popular democratic theory since it was advanced in the late 20th century.The use of electronic information technology offers great opportunities to practice consultative democracy theory through consultative online at the advent of the Internet age.It can broaden the scope democratic participation,raise the participants'competence and knowledge level and make the process and the results of democratic deliberation more freely and more equally.But at the same time,it also confronts the problem of inadequate democratic participation and the problem of participants'exclusion which is brought about by the digital gap and the dilemma between free and equal participation and accountability.