I don't agree with the assert.

In what sense? The statement means that technology alone cannot bring about more and better democracy, which in my view makes sense.

In my opinion the development of technologies is the main driver, not the reform of people. E.g. four years ago I was part of a civil society campaign but blogs were not widespread yet. Today, campaigning would be far easier. There is a tendency in e-democracy debate to focus on education of people rather than the advancement of technological enabling infrastructure. For instance this commenting tool is excellent. I was looking for something like this for long. Once it is there, the whole environment changes. Just think of how the availability of Youtube changes the US elections or of new tools like Slideshare.net. People use what serves their needs. You don't need to focus limited resources on edcucation of citizens on "how to use Youtube" etc. Citizens are smart and the crowds will penetrate the new technology with some early adopters. In technology it is enough to make the tools available for the "alphas" and then see them mainstreamed when they are good.

Very much agree on the fact that technology actually enables and empowers people. It is true that I have been trying to develop something like this apparently useless add-on to this blog, which put in the right context become a major tool for collaborative policy formulation (well we are not there yet, as this is just a recommendation ...) Still our work would have been much more difficult if the CoE had not asked for our contribution in the first place (we wouldn't even know about this recommendation) What these tools entail is a fundamental change in the rules of the game (for example broadening participation in the decision making processes of International Institutions) And that requires that these Institutions are open to such practices (which is true in our case) or that the pressure from bellow is so important that they cannot do otherwise. The fact is that most of the people (in Europe at least) are viewing politics as dirty and not as their tool to create a better future. In that sense we need catalysts that will bring back the added value of participation and will create the tools to make it happen in a massive scale. Then the game will change (Apologies for this very extensive post, but i like the discussion!)

There are often deliberations and consultations but the question is of course if the process means a thing. E.g. do we have a hearing in the parliament organised by a polticial group to an actual battle in parliament or do we have a "Citizen summit" as a sandbox event to experiment with deliberative democracy and the outcome will be a declaration paper. Esp. UN bodies have great experience to consults people to death and thus waste the precious time of civil society.

Here is where the new tools come in handy... You can really change the way these consultations are done Instead of individual replies to surveys, have them in public (we can all see what others think on issues), and track to what extend the views expressed that get the most support are taken into account. (that is one way of doing it) You are right that consultation is usually made to convince people there is one, and thus legitimise what ever decisions are made, as being made "after broad consultation" That can start to change ...

The question is always who owns the process and what is at stake. I think the best thing to do is to take an existing political process, e.g. a parliament report and then ensure better citizen input to the actual deliberations. But e.g. often administrations start procedures to consult citizens where nothing is at stake as part of the process, as a process of its own.