There seems to be a general consensus that an increase of overall political participation would help to improve democratic culture in general. A strong democracy has to offer different participatory processes to answer a variety of needs of both citizens and government bodies.
As no single participation tool is able to cover all forms of participation and wide variety of participation processes have to be practiced - both online and offline.

An election for example is excellent in involving almost the whole population in a decision making process but is very restrictive in its options (e.g. parties and people to vote for) and does not facilitate deliberation. A public hearing on the other hand can only be attended by a relatively small number of people but offers an open space to discuss many different options and develop compromises in collaboration. One cannot state that one form of political participation is “better” than the other but both processes answer specific needs by citizens and government and contribute to the democratic culture at large.

The electronic aspect of eParticipation enhances participation processes without losing their intention. eDeliberation processes for example can involve a larger number of participants and lower the barrier to entrance in comparison with their offline counterpart but the key factor still is deliberation. By enhancing the underlying participation processes through the use of information and communication technologies eParticipation is able cover participatory needs which were uncovered before. eParticipation can therefore be an important instrument in the orchestra of participation.

The whole article stating the above argumentation in detail can be found here on the PEP-NET blog:
http://pep-net.eu/blog/2009/12/03/eparticipation-its-cousins-and-democracy/