Parliaments, Citizens and New Technologies: promoting accountability or seeking legitimacy?

Internet technologies permit to make available documents and information about legislative processes leading parliaments to behave as democratic institutions more open and accountable and engage citizens effectively in the policy process. The Internet as a digital bridge between legislatures and citizens may reinvigorate democratic processes moving parliament to modernize and re-design internal processes by improving mechanisms of information and communication with people and encouraging citizens to participate. Parliaments managing new technologies are structuring the e-parliament as an efficient organization where stakeholders use information and communication technologies to perform their primary functions of lawmaking, representation, and oversight more effectively for enhancing their representative role in front of the electorate and people. Parliaments tend to change in order to achieve legitimacy having the responsibility of sustaining the values of representative democracy by enhancing continuity and credibility of organizational activities. Parliaments tend to promote citizenship, transparency and accountability through new technologies in order to appear as effective and responsive representative institutions. The aim of this paper is to describe how parliaments can develop new technologies seeking legitimacy as democratic representative institutions by promoting transparency and accountability for maintaining and restoring trust with citizenry. This study is based on archival and qualitative data drawn by analysis and review of literature in the fields of law and introduction of ICTs within parliamentary institutions