New Politics

1
New Politics?

• Giovanni Navarria
• 06/03/2006
• Centre for the Study of Democracy MA
  International Relations and Political
  TheoryPolitics, Power and the Media

2
Todays Lecture

• aims at making clear to all of you
• What is Power (according to Hannah Arendt)
• What I mean by the condition of shared weakness
• How citizens can use the network to produce a
  series of cracks in the existing structure of
  domination.

3
John Perry Barlow and Cyberspace

• Barlow a retired Wyoming cattle rancher, a
  former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and
  co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Barlows A Declaration of the Independence of
  Cyberspace
• We have no elected government, nor are we likely
  to have one, so I address you with no greater
  authority than that with which liberty itself
  always speaks. I declare the global social space
  we are building to be naturally independent of
  the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have
  no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any
  methods of enforcement we have true reason to
  fear.

4
Cyberspace ten years after Davos

• Barlows words sound rather naïve.
• Nowadays, Cyberspace is not tout court - the
  reign of a new civilization of the mind, it is
  first and foremost a complex social space
  interwoven with a multiplicity of different
  interests of different actors. More than ever,
  as I highlighted last week it is a space
  subject to sovereign power. It has also become a
  tool for control and censorship.

5
What is Power? (1)

• Foucault and Weber useful understanding power,
  when we identify it with the ability of
  controlling the medium for accessing, processing
  and sharing data across the network for the
  purpose of domination, that is to say
  constraining the choices of others, coercing
  them or securing their compliance, by impeding
  them from living as their own nature and
  judgement dictate (Lukes, 2005 85). However
  confining the concept of power simply within the
  boundaries of domination would be somehow too
  narrow and limited especially when the concept of
  power it is brought within the web of a network
  society.

6
Hannah Arendt (1906 1975)
7
Hannah Arendt Power

• A. defines power as the human ability not just
  to act but to act in concert. (1969 44).
• Although power springs up whenever men act
  together, it vanishes the moment they disperse.
  (Arendt, 1958 200). It is that original action
  of getting together that legitimises it as power.
  
• For Arendt the true human condition is defined by
  the vita activa. To live a vita activa, to act
  (and to speak) is specifically human.
• To act indicates the ability to begin something
  unexpected from whatever may have happened
  before unexpectedness is inherent in all
  beginnings and in all origins. (ibidem 177-8)

8
Arendts notion of Power Flaws

• Constant and strict distinction between public
  and private realm,
• Recurring remarking of proximity as a sine qua
  non for generating power, altogether with the
  idea of the city as the perfect locus for acting
  in concert
• These are limitations they would not fit well
  with the essence of a network society namely a
  place, or society, without physical boundaries,
  where proximity is not-essential to act, a place
  where the private is continuously blurred with
  the public. Where ideally a people never disperse.

9
Shared weakness

• Any network user that is to say not only an
  individual but also a State - is only and always
  one-among-many, a part and not the totality of
  the network.
• No one can ever gain a position of absolute
  power.

10
Webers Formula

• For Weber, power is what in a social relation
  gives an actor A the strength to make an other
  actor B to do something regardless of Bs will or
  Bs resistance. A is in a condition of absolute
  strength (power) in relation to B. B becomes
  powerless (weak) because conscious of the
  strength of A.

11
Shared weakness Reverse of Weber (2)

• In a network society Webers relation is
  reversed Power springs out from the
  consciousness of the weakness of the position of
  A the understanding that A is not in a position
  of absolute power, that is to say of absolute
  control of the networks, gives B the probability
  to carry out his own will, not despite of As
  will, but because of As weakness. In other
  words, within such a context resistance becomes
  possible because A is never in a position to
  carry out his own will despite resistance,
  regardless of the basis on which this probability
  rests. (Weber, 1947 152)

12
Activism MoveOn.org (USA)

• 18th September 1998, during the sex-gate
  involving Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Joan
  Blades and Wes Boyd, decided to launch an online
  petition to "Censure President Clinton and Move
  On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation." The
  response to the petition thousands of
  Internet users, pledged more than 10
  millions (Clausing, 1999) was unexpected.
• October 1998 MoveOn.org was funded.

13
Activism MoveOn.org (2)

• A new way to coordinate political action using
  the internet.
• The idea is to link like-minded, concerned
  citizens in order to have a substantial impact on
  the outcome of congressional elections.
• MoveOn does not accept donations greater than
  5,000, and the bulk of its contributions is made
  by people who give less than 100 folks who
  don't have a lot of money but want to see a
  change. (MoveOn, N.D.)
• the new recipe for political activism is just
  someone with access to technology, a little bit
  of money and a compelling message (Seiger in
  Clausing, 1999)

14
Activism - China

• There are 11 golden rules that guide the users
  for the appropriate use of the web without
  incurring in any felony 1) violates the basic
  principles of the Chinese constitution. 2)
  endangers national security, leaks national
  secrets, seeks to overthrow the government,
  endangers the unification of the country 3)
  destroys the countrys reputation and benefits
  4) arouses national feelings of hatred, racism,
  and endangers racial unification 5) violates
  national policies on religion, promotes the
  propaganda of sects and superstition 6) diffuses
  rumours, endangers public order and creates
  social uncertainty 7) diffuses information that
  is pornographic, violent, terrorist or linked to
  gambling 8) libels or harms peoples reputation,
  violates peoples legal rights 9) includes
  illegal information bounded by law and
  administrative rules 10) It is forbidden to
  encourage illegal gatherings, strikes, etc to
  create public disorder. 11) It is forbidden to
  organise activities under illegal social
  associations or organizations. (Report Without
  Borders, 2005)

15
Activism China (2)

• Overall while geographical boundaries grow
  thinner and fade, the growing number of internet
  users, the sheer complexity of the global
  network, the intrusion of external actors and the
  development of new software and technology, they
  all pose a major threat to the future of any
  digital Big Brother.

16
Activism China (3)

• With the help of Roaming Without Borders,
  millions of emails are delivered unfiltered to
  users in censored areas.
• Since 2002, when DynaWeb started operating as a
  free web portal for Chinese users, each day more
  than 20,000 unique web-surfers have gained
  regular, unblocked access to the internet.
• Reporters Without Borders recently published a
  handbook for bloggers in countries such as China
  with heavy censorship. In it, they point out that
  bloggers are often the only real journalists in
  countries where the mainstream media is censored
  or under pressure. The idea behind the handbook
  was to give the bloggers handy tips and
  technical advice on how to remain anonymous and
  to get round censorship, by choosing the most
  suitable method for each situation (2005a)

17
Davids vs. Goliath?

• Overall, the example of MoveOn, DynaWeb,
  Reporters Without Borders and others online
  political activities, are clear evidences of how
  essentially flawed is the power relation among
  the network users.
• Taken one by one, these efforts could
  pessimistically be seen as a no-contest battle
  between the mighty force of the Chinese state and
  a microscopic, insignificant resistance. But if
  placed within the context of a growing network
  society, the perspective radically changes. One
  might finally see in the web a new battlefield
  where a giant Goliath faces a rising army of
  brave and bold Davids.

18
New Politics?

• Are these form of political activism really a new
  form of political engagement or simply? Do they
  really change much?
• Empirical data are very arguable at this moment,
  therefore the matter is open for further
  elaboration.
• Timeline may in 10/15 years the picture will be
  clearer.