global digital democracy

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Reimagining global democracy Joe Mitchell MA Global Governance research paper Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo

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How digital communication creates the conditions for global democracy

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Page 1: Global digital democracy

Reimagining global democracy

Joe Mitchell MA Global Governance research paper

Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo

Page 2: Global digital democracy

a quick summary in three slides...

Page 3: Global digital democracy

Globalisation poses problems for democracy.

Page 4: Global digital democracy

The World Parliament response to this would struggle to be effective or legitimate.

Page 5: Global digital democracy

Instead, global democracy is likely to be realised by a decentralised and networked form of governance.

Page 6: Global digital democracy

A thirty-second history of global democracy

Page 7: Global digital democracy

500BC

A democratic system of governance is first

recorded in Athens. Decisions are made by a

show of hands – a unitary or direct democracy

in which everyone takes part.

Page 8: Global digital democracy

A.D.1648

The inviolability of the ‘nation-state’ is created

by the Treaty of Westphalia. Monarchs agree

to recognise each others’ sovereignty. This locks

down the global governance structure for 365

years, and counting.

Page 9: Global digital democracy

A.D.1795

In Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant proposes what

becomes liberal orthodoxy: republican states,

federated under international law, with one world

citizenship law.

Page 10: Global digital democracy

‘Originally, no one had more right

than another to a particular part

of the earth.’

Page 11: Global digital democracy

1860s+

Political internationals unite labour activists across

borders – an early global political movement.

While they have some success, notably the eight-

hour day, nationalism proves a stronger binding

force, and the International collapses by 1914...

Page 12: Global digital democracy
Page 13: Global digital democracy
Page 14: Global digital democracy

1918.

1945.

The world wars are followed by grand

changes to the international governance

structure - always in the form of new

institutions.

Page 15: Global digital democracy

1945

‘We the peoples of the United Nations...’

[not nations]

Preamble to the United Nations Charter

Page 16: Global digital democracy

Postwar period

The objective of world peace drives

idealistic thinkers to consider world

federalism. In the US, a ‘Sense of Congress’

motion is passed for ‘strengthening the UN

and seeking its development into a world

federation’.

Page 17: Global digital democracy

The Cold War kills that idea.

McCarthy associates world

federalists with communists.

1950s

Page 18: Global digital democracy

So world federalism fails. But globalisation takes

off: neoliberal economic ideas and powerful

multinationals open up the world to market

forces, encouraged by international financial

institutions.

60s, 70s, 80s

Page 19: Global digital democracy

60s, 70s, 80s

In three decades, the world sees the

invention of satellite TV, Eurobonds, oil

crises, special economic zones, booms in jet

flights, international finance, shipping, and

growing cultural hegemony...

Page 20: Global digital democracy

1990s

Growing concern about globalisation bursts

into public consciousness at the ‘Battle of

Seattle’ in 1999.

Page 21: Global digital democracy

A global financial crisis, high unemployment,

and anger at political leaders results in

revolutions and protests around the world.

2011

Page 22: Global digital democracy

What is the problem?

Page 23: Global digital democracy

In the 21st century, policies must be sought to deal with climate change, economic shocks, pandemics, terrorism, financial risks, trade barriers, transnational crime (human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering), poverty and inequality.

The success and democratic nature of those policies can no longer be guaranteed by national institutions. Too many variables lie outside the scope of the nation state.

Page 24: Global digital democracy
Page 25: Global digital democracy

“Everything has been globalized

except our consent. Democracy

alone has been confined to the

nation state.”

George Monbiot Author, Columnist

Page 26: Global digital democracy

“Ours is a world in which no

individual, and no country, exists

in isolation. Pollution, organized crime,

and the proliferation of deadly weapons

likewise show little regard for the niceties

of borders; they are problems

without passports...

Kofi Annan (Then) UN Secretary General

Page 27: Global digital democracy

“designing effective and

legitimate institutions is [the]

crucial problem of political

design for the twenty-first

century”

Joe Nye and Bob Keohane Professors at Harvard and Princeton

Page 28: Global digital democracy

What is the answer?

Page 29: Global digital democracy

One idea is global representative democracy – a

logical next step from having a local representative,

a national representative and, in some cases, a

regional representative (as in Europe, and

proposed in South America and Africa).

Page 30: Global digital democracy

There’s already a Campaign for

a UN Parliamentary

Assembly – and the idea has

support from the European and

African Parliaments.

Page 31: Global digital democracy

But could a system of

representatives really be

democratic for 7bn people?

Page 32: Global digital democracy

1. How would such an assembly be

elected? A location-based constituency,

repeating the national system? Party lists?

Global political parties?

Page 33: Global digital democracy

2. How could such a parliament remain close

to the people? How could it deal with the

complexity of global policy? How could it

possibly represent all views?

Page 34: Global digital democracy

3. Is a hierarchical structure – in which

votes flow upwards and decisions flow

downwards - best for global democracy?

Page 35: Global digital democracy

4. Do existing representative democracy

institutions work satisfactorily? Does the

European Parliament democratise European

governance?

Page 36: Global digital democracy

Advocates of global democracy

should abandon domestic

analogies. Instead, they should

imagine a ‘non-centralised, non-

territorial, non-exclusive

system’ of governance.

Heikki Patomaki (adapted) Professor of World Politics, Helsinki

Page 37: Global digital democracy

What delivers such a ‘non-centralised, non-territorial, non-exclusive system’ of governance?

Digital democracy.

Page 38: Global digital democracy

“Global democracy can

only emerge from a

‘rupture’ in global

society.”

Richard Falk Prof. Emeritus of International Law,

Princeton

Page 39: Global digital democracy

That rupture is the information revolution:

a revolution in access to information and

in transparency. It creates new possibilities

of global participation, collaboration and

co-creation.

Page 40: Global digital democracy

Global digital democracy doesn’t need a top

down institution. Instead, it benefits from a

flexible distribution of power.

Page 41: Global digital democracy

It’s global peer-to-peer governance.

Page 42: Global digital democracy

What do we talk about when we talk about democracy?

Page 43: Global digital democracy

Three foundations:

1. Free and open discussion and deliberation

2. Free and open participation in political

processes

3. Political community – the ‘demos’

The Internet creates these at global level.

Page 44: Global digital democracy

1. Internet as open global deliberation space

Page 45: Global digital democracy

“The first basic principle to

ensure an inclusive, tolerant,

respectful and decentralised

world order is global

deliberative equality”

Anne-Marie Slaughter Professor of Politics, Princeton

Page 46: Global digital democracy

“Democracy is about communication as well as voting - about social learning as well as decision making. It is the communicative aspects that for the moment can most straightforwardly be pursued in the international system.”

John Dryzek Professor of Social Theory and Political Theory,

Australian National University

Page 47: Global digital democracy

2.3bn have Internet

access (ITU)

Page 48: Global digital democracy

3G will cover 85% of

the world’s population

by 2017 (Ericsson)

Page 49: Global digital democracy

A perfect deliberative environment would be

where everyone can access any information.

And anyone can converse with anyone else.

Where everyone has the power to produce

information that can be shared instantaneously

anywhere in the world.

Page 50: Global digital democracy

Huge population figures are a problem for

representative democracy (and hierarchical

organisations in general) – but they strengthen

global deliberative networks, creating broader

and deeper conversations.

Page 51: Global digital democracy

“Global democracy

is only as good as

global media”

Johan Galtung Founder of Peace and Conflict Studies

Page 52: Global digital democracy

Western countries produce the vast majority of

global information. English is the most popular

language for books, journals, newspapers and film.

Page 53: Global digital democracy

As the Internet opens publishing,

this is changing. Global information

production is becoming broader.

Page 54: Global digital democracy

The microblogging platform

Twitter shows examples of this.

The next slide shows shows the

location of tweets during one week

of 2012.

Page 55: Global digital democracy

USA

Brazil M

exic

o

Mal

aysi

a

Russia

UK

Italy Fr

Page 56: Global digital democracy

Jakarta

London Tokyo

Sao Paulo New York

Bandung, Indonesia Paris

Los Angeles Chicago

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Singapore Istanbui Osaka Toronto Madrid

Rio de Janeiro Seoul Miami

Atlanta Houston

Page 57: Global digital democracy

In their idealised* form, microblogs

spread information meritocratically

(with varying understandings of

merit).

Everyone has the same format to

use, the same ability to mention

others or repost others’ posts.

*problems discussed later

Page 58: Global digital democracy

2. Internet as open global participative space

Page 59: Global digital democracy

In existing democracies, deliberation happens in

the media and in institutions like parliaments.

Political representatives turn lobbying into law.

Without a world parliament, how does debate

turn into action?

Page 60: Global digital democracy

With no global government,

global democracy has to be

truly participative: people

must collaborate digitally to

deliver the projects they

want to see.

Three examples:

Page 61: Global digital democracy

ProMED-mail

Page 62: Global digital democracy

Global disease information used to be shared

between governments via the World Health

Organisation (WHO). But this meant that

governments could hide embarrassing or trade-

threatening outbreak information.

Page 63: Global digital democracy

ProMED-mail was a simple email list for

epidemiology practitioners to share worldwide

disease news, set up in 1994. It created a network

of professionals who shared the latest disease

information from across the world.

Page 64: Global digital democracy

As a result, the nation-state members had to

change WHO’s rules to allow it to share non-state

produced information. ProMED-mail ended a

monopoly on disease information. It provides more

people with access to better information, leading

to a safer world.

Page 65: Global digital democracy

Sistema de Alerta de Desmatamento

Page 66: Global digital democracy

The Sistema de Alerta de Desmatamento

(Deforestation Alert System) connects activists to

monitor satellite data on rainforests. It has the

potential to become a mass collaborative anti-

deforestation effort with global benefits.

Page 67: Global digital democracy

The project was created by Imazon, a Brazilian

NGO, now supported by Google. As Google’s lead

mapper said: “a collaborative monitoring

community, powered by the internet, [has] never

been possible before.”

Page 68: Global digital democracy

Ushahidi

Page 69: Global digital democracy

Ushahidi (testimony or witness in Swahili) is a public

monitoring platform that crowdsources its

information. It was invented in Kenya to map election-

related violence. Citizens could send SMS and email

updates to be published on the map. It’s now in use

for all kinds of projects across the world.

Page 70: Global digital democracy

This kind of conflict data used to be the preserve of

intelligence agencies, the United Nations or national

governments. Once anyone anywhere can use this

platform to contribute information, power shifts to

the information-producing public.

Page 71: Global digital democracy

All three examples are really about participative

creation of knowledge. If knowledge is power, this

matters. But what if you wanted to act on that

knowledge? How does digital democracy result in

participative solutions or service delivery?

For example, the activists monitoring

deforestation can’t actually do anything about its

increase, right? Because digital collaboration

doesn’t create enforcement mechanisms...

Page 72: Global digital democracy

Even this is changing. At one extreme there is

digital vigilantism: the enforcement of global norms

by private actors. ‘Anonymous’ hacked Israeli

websites in response to the government’s threat to

shut down Gaza’s internet access.

Page 73: Global digital democracy

Less drastically and with significantly more activity:

offline commitments are inspired by digital

networks. Digital communities are funding and

supporting direct action around the globe. A range

of new platforms is making this easier than ever.

Page 74: Global digital democracy

3. Internet as creator of global democratic community:

Page 75: Global digital democracy

The classic ‘earthrise’ image is thought to have

boosted ‘global’ movements. It helped people

visualise themselves as members of one home –

a single shared space, without borders.

Page 76: Global digital democracy

Now, with digital social networks, we can

visualise not only the shared space, but our

connections with people. There are one billion

people on Facebook. The average path between

any two of them is just 4.3 friend ‘hops’.

Page 77: Global digital democracy

That is, you are connected to almost

one billion people via your friend’s

friend’s friend’s friend. It’s a small

world.

Page 78: Global digital democracy
Page 79: Global digital democracy

Nice examples. But isn’t this far too utopian?

Page 80: Global digital democracy

Take three problems:

• existing power structures,

• tyrannies of those who

show up,

• a global digital divide.

Page 81: Global digital democracy
Page 82: Global digital democracy

Powerful nations and companies are prospering

in a non-democratic system. Global democracy

would threaten those who wield illegitimate

power at the global scale.

Page 83: Global digital democracy

The World Economic Forum helps the wealthy

set the agenda – the World Social Forum barely

gets media coverage.

Page 84: Global digital democracy

Most social media relies on private companies:

Twitter, Facebook et al aren’t here for the lulz.

Page 85: Global digital democracy

But private companies will have to be more

open too. They are increasingly subject to

consumer control.

“social production is reshaping the

market conditions under which

businesses operate.”

Yochai Benkler Professor, Harvard Law School

Author, ‘The Wealth of Networks’

Page 86: Global digital democracy
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Digital democracy might suffer from a tyranny of

those who show up. Who really has the time

and energy for this stuff? Is Wikipedia a

democratic information platform when only

0.13% write it?

Page 88: Global digital democracy

But the transparency afforded by digital media

enables a record of who did what. The nature of

digital communications makes it easy to keep

commenting, debating, editing and re-editing.

Reputations matter.

Page 89: Global digital democracy

Two global digital divides:

1. poverty 2. censorship

Page 90: Global digital democracy

It’s only a minority of the world’s

population that has Internet access.

Page 91: Global digital democracy

But smartphone ownership is growing rapidly, and

mobile internet coverage is increasing. Perhaps

within ten years this will cease to be seen as a

problem.

Page 92: Global digital democracy

Censorship, on the other hand, is practised by

a large number of governments, and isn’t likely

to go away quickly. Or at all.

Page 93: Global digital democracy

But smart users can get around censorship using

proxy servers. And ‘netizens’ will develop simple

acts of ‘everyday resistance’ – vocabularies of

dissent, codewords and underground discussions.

There have been, and always will be, ways to

escape censors.

Page 94: Global digital democracy

Ultimately, it’s the numbers. China might call in the

army to monitor microblogs, but they’ll still never

control hundreds of millions of internet users. In

the long run, the people win.

Page 95: Global digital democracy

So be optimistic. And do more research...

Page 96: Global digital democracy

Do notions of solidarity or allegiance change in

the digital space? Do digital social networks

reduce a sense of otherness and boost

cosmopolitan identity?

Page 97: Global digital democracy

Do notions of solidarity or allegiance change in

the digital space? Do digital social networks

reduce a sense of otherness and boost

cosmopolitan identity?

How are all languages and cultures engaged in a

global deliberation and participation space?

Page 98: Global digital democracy

Do notions of solidarity or allegiance change in

the digital space? Do digital social networks

reduce a sense of otherness and boost

cosmopolitan identity?

How are all languages and cultures engaged in a

global deliberation and participation space?

Can open internet access, literacy and a robust

digital infrastructure be ensured for all?

Page 99: Global digital democracy

Think about how far we’ve come.

Page 100: Global digital democracy

“This is for everyone”

Tim Berners-Lee Inventor, World Wide Web

Page 101: Global digital democracy

The Internet was developed in the 1960s. The

World Wide Web, which allows information to be

linked globally and viewable through a browser -

was only created in 1991. In the two decades since,

we’ve experienced a slow-burn revolution. Imagine

what another two decades might do.

Page 102: Global digital democracy

Where do we go next?

Page 104: Global digital democracy

Earth sunrise/Moon earthrise: NASA

Protestor: murplejane

UNPA emblem: UNPA

Starlings: Elsie Esq.

Stopwatch: wwarby

Athens/Pnyz: : qwqchris

Westphalia: Gerard Ter Borch

Kant portrait: v Wikipedia

The Crucible: drurydrama

1914-1918: yeowatzup

1939-1945: Kaptain Kobold

UN Charter: UN Photo

1999 Battle in Seattle: Steve Kaiser

Posters: Freestylee

OccupyResist: Devon Shaw

George Monbiot: v Wikipedia

Annan TV: Dark Inertia

Joe Nye: dsearls

Richard Falk: UN Geneva

Tahrir Facebook: rouelshimi

All-seeing eye: cobalt123

Notepad: melstampz

Chain link fence: Thomas Hawk

Euro Parliament: Xaf

Mathematical shape: Melisande

Napster: pasa47

A-M Slaughter: personaldemocracy

H1N1 Virus: AJCann (CDC)

Avian Flu Sign: Incessant Flux

WHO speaker: US Missn Gva

Facebook world; Facebook via dullhunk

Love(Heart)Peace: israellovesiran.com

Library: 96dpi

Crowd: Alex Kess

Lobby: SEIU International

Johan Galtung: Manipulating Light

Wall St English: futureshape

Imazon screenshot: Google

Frog silouhette: ggalice

Amazon rainforest: CIFUR

Network: sjcockell

Security Council: riacale

World Economic Forum: WEF

Yochai Benkler: arcticpenguin

LazyCat: Nicola Albertini

Internet World Map: Jeff Ogden

Internet truck: ALEMUSH

Internet switch: Mike Licht

Number on wall: Pink Sherbert

Incoming tide: Tim Donnelly

Olympic Stadium: Nick Webb

CERN NeXT: coolcaesar