COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

Unlike the previous post, which briefly showed a couple of works on e-democracy from the perspective a political science specialty, this post is going to explore an overview of the entire discipline of computer science, contained in Brookshear’s Computer Science. An Overview (2009). The aim will be to start establishing initial connections to the topic and problems stated in the first post regarding technical issues in direct democracy.
In his overview, Brookshear claims that computer science has algorithms as their main object of study. More precisely, it is focused on the limits of what algorithms can do and what they cannot. Algorithms can perform a wide range of tasks and solve a wide range of problems, but there are other tasks and problems beyond the scope of algorithms. These boundaries are the area within which theoretical computer science operates. Theory of computation can therefore determine what can and what cannot be achieved by computers.
Among other issues, these theoretical considerations may apply directly to the potential problem of electoral fraud: computer science can seek for answers of whether or not algorithms can be created to alter or manipulate electoral results in a given electoral system. By establishing the limits of algorithms, an electoral system that falls beyond algorithmic capabilities can be devised in collaboration with other fields such as political science.
From the structure of the book, it can be implied that computer science also considers social repercussions in every aspect of the study of computers, as every chapter in the book contains a section of social issues that the use and development of computer technologies entails. Ethical implications are present in every step these technologies make, and computer scientists seem to be sensitive to them. Legal and political considerations are not alien to the scope of computer science. Therefore, finding a common ground with other fields such as political science for addressing certain issues in the use of information and communication technologies for a more direct democracy becomes quite achievable aim, as long as there exist a mutual effort to understand the ways in which these two disciplines deal with the problems they encounter, and the methods they use to try to solve them.
The next post will consist of a brief overview of political science, as it is the discipline that will be finally chosen –sociology will be ruled out– for this interdisciplinary essay.
Reference:
Brookshear, J.G. (2009) Computer Science. An Overview. (10th ed.) Boston: Pearson.