Are the rise of networks and ICTs transforming the international system?

The rise of networks and ICTs has had a transformational impact on the development of international commerce and in particular the interconnected world of global finance.   However, to what extent have the development of networks, in the form of the Global Civil Society, helped political activists to expand their activities by increasing their capacity to mobilise dissent against particular states and international groups.  Equally have governments become increasingly astute in their ability to manage the information revolution to increase political control and suppress opposition.  Consequently is the Internet in both the expansion and suppression of dissent may be considered a network enabler in transforming the international system.

So what constitutes the international order of states and how might networks and ICTs impact on this order?  The transformation of the international order rests with the ability to manage, control or influence power within sovereign states and across the international system.  The Westphalian treaty of 1648 established the territorial state as the basis of the modern state system with its focus on establishing the international boundaries as legal boundaries between one country and another and defining their sovereignty (Teschke,2009, pg 51-56).  The modern state has evolved a hierarchical structure with clear borders and directed with downward authority.   Within the state system, power is considered to be a zero-sum commodity.  The more power that one actor acquires, the less relative power there is for others.  From a realist perspective, the changing power of the modern state resulting from Westphalia operates within an international system of anarchical relations in which states jockey for power and leadership against a background of the changing balance of power resulting from economic, military and cultural developments.  With this in mind, in a refinement of realism, the ‘English School’ suggests that a 'society of states' operates at the international level, despite the condition of anarchy, being able to co-ordinate some of their interactions to mutual advantage.  This approach may be seen to a large extent in the formation of the United Nations (UN), the WTO, the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWI) and NATO as a response to a purely realist perspective   Within these international organisations, the major powers control and manage relations through the ‘green door’ process in which key decisions are taken behind closed doors and they are unwilling to open up that process to a more democratic process as it will dilute their influence.

Let us now look at the theoretical basis of international transformation of realism and liberalism and then consider if networks empowered by ICT are indeed bringing about change.

The fundamental dominant process of realism is the balance of power between states.  If the state system remains in the Westphalian model and there is a plurality of powers and states continue to pursue their national interest, then there is no change of system.  However, this approach may in fact miss the subtlety of change that is resulting in the re-alignment of states and powers.  Liberal theory of international relations provides a more nuanced explanation of inter-state relations shaped by economic and societal interests as well as the political. The liberal model of international order is a bottom-up model built on three elements.  Firstly, political activity is made up of individuals and interest groups influencing the formation of state policy; secondly, state policy, both domestically and internationally, is based on the interests of a subset of society and group interests and, finally, the international outlook reflects the policy prerogatives of the most powerful states.  The bottom-up basis of the liberal model is almost tailor-made for the involvement and influence of networks.  The dominant process of international interaction of liberal theory contends that the positive-sum interdependence among individuals and private groups may be so extensive and powerful as to effectively transform the self-help nature of anarchy and the compulsions of the balance of power (Bromley & Smith, 2009, pgs 528-529). Equally, it may be for this reason that in those cases that networks empower non-state actors, they are most likely to influence government in societies that embrace and value liberal norms of the liberal model.

It is against this background of the structure of the international system that we need to consider how networks and ICTs have impacted.  Networks have always been a feature of political campaigns waged by different sections of civil society.  The campaign to end slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth century networked across like-minded members of civil society in Britain, the United States and Europe.  Equally the campaign for women’s suffrage straddled civil society on both sides of the Atlantic (Brown et al, 2009, Audio 7).  Networks in the context of modern networks of dissent are defined as a set of interconnected nodes that have no centre and are based on the binary logic of inclusion/exclusion (Castells, 2009, pgs 19-20).  Unlike states, networks are not governed by such purposive authority, but are organised around concepts of trust, shared values and interests or loyalties.  Global Civil Society (GCS) is organised like a network, “characterized by voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communications and exchange” (Keck & Sikkink, 1999, pg 9).  The major difference between campaigning networks of the past and those of today has been the impact of technology to speed up the effects.  For example, the campaign to abolish slavery in the West took over fifty years whereas the campaign to ‘Make Poverty History’ took just four years.  Indeed, according to Manuel Castells, a major driver of the growth of networks in contemporary society is the development of information and communications technology (ICT).  He views the advent of new technologies as resulting in an historical change in the international order as the contemporary era passes from the industrial age into the information age (Bullion, 2009, pg 95). In order to provide some insight into the international system, Table 1 outlines an analysis of the international system by comparison of the sovereign state and global civil society as an example of a network enabled by ICT against the four basic elements(Bromley & Smith, 2009,pg 524):-

1. The basic units that comprise the international level;
2. The structure of relations among those units;
3. The technological and organisational interaction capacity within the system;
4. The processes of interaction that take place in the system.

The key distinction between the state and the network characterised by the Global Civil Society is how power passes through and around the system.  The state and intergovernmental and transnational organisations invariably operate a Weberian hierarchy with states as actors who use power as an instrument of coercion, and even in organisations separate from the discreet structures in which those actors operate. However, networks such as GCS work on a more Foucauldian model whereby power is everywhere, diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and regimes of truth (Foucault, 1978, pg 93). The idea that ‘Power is everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ is neither an agency nor a structure, but is diffused into the network.  Interestingly Foucault also equated power with knowledge and, given that the ‘information revolution’ is a key aspect of the Internet, there is a clear parallel with how the network empowered by ICTs utilises information as knowledge and hence power.

Table 1. Analysing International Systems: Realist & Liberal States versus Global Civil Society

	Sectors of the international system
Elements of the international system	Political Sector of authoritative rule - Realism	Political Sector of authoritative rule - Liberalism	Global civil society
Principal units in the international system.	Sovereign states system operating individually and as networks configured to build/defend particular aims and objectives.	Individuals and private groups that use state system to conduct political exchange and advance their collective interests.	Networks organised around concepts of trust, shared values and interests or loyalties.
Structure of relations among units.	Hierarchical structures co-ordinating network based on realist determination of need.  Inter-governmental and transnational organisation.	Interdependence, which may be positive-, zero or negative-sum.	Horizontal voluntary networks based on a liberalist/cosmopolitan view of transformation and analogous to the non-hierarchical mesh structure of the Internet.
Interaction Capacity	Defined by flows of information and communication made possible by ICTs – Internet etc.	Defined by flows of information and communication made possible by ICTs – Internet etc.	Defined by flows of information and communication made possible by ICTs – Internet etc.
Dominant process of interaction.	Networking that serves to include some and exclude others (green room process – alignment around shared needs or objectives), balance of power.	Varies from harmony through bargaining to conflict, depending on the configuration of interdependent preferences.	Networking that serves to include some and exclude others; the network rather than individuals is the key mover.

The network characteristics of the GCS are directly comparable to the network structure of the Internet.  Consequently, as the Internet has become increasingly available, the networking power of GCS has been enhanced.   This network aspect is important as it enables the sharing of information and allows the co-ordination of collective action.  John Fisher stated that the Internet is particularly empowering as it enables individuals with few resources to have equal opportunities for political debate and involvement (Yanacopulos & Mohan, 2009, pg 422). Non-government organisations (NGOs) which lie at the core of GCS have traditionally lacked significant amounts of hard power resources that governments control.  The Internet and the associated information revolution have enabled NGOs to make more effective use of their political tools.  This has resulted in a realignment of power to make change happen (Drezner, 2010, pg 38).   There are examples of campaigns which have ‘gone viral’ and spread around the world, such as the breakdown in the negotiations of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in 1998, the campaign against Nike’s use of child labour in 2001, and the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign (MPH) in 2005.  MPH made significant claims around the mobilisation of civil society through the internet and mass media to pressurise the G8 at the Gleneagles Conference in 2005 to agree debt cancellation programmes and increase aid budgets.  One group that is particularly interesting is the web-based group called Avaaz.  It is a global civic organization launched in 2007 to promote activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict.  Its stated mission is to "close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want" (www.avaaz.org, 2012).  It has 13 million members and many more ‘friends’ in the social networking parlance. 

Not all activists utilising the power of the Internet are quite so legitimate in their approach. The idea of Global networked civil society suggests an image of civic-minded activists committed to Western liberal norms of democracy and freedom.  However, the reality is sometimes quite different. Groups such as Anonymous, an amorphous worldwide network of computer hackers, use more direct tactics such as denial-of-service attacks and other types of network disruption to call attention to a series of political causes.  Anonymous closed down the websites of the US Department of Justice, the FBI and the UK Home Office demonstrating a very different aspect of civil society in action (The Daily Telegraph, 2012).  Other extreme nationalist groups have harnessed the web to spread their own brand of racial hate. Conspiracy theorists push their own fictional interpretation of global events.  The list of users of the darker side of the web is just as extensive as legitimate pressure groups.  The web is democratic in one sense in that anyone regardless of political stance can share the same platform and often one that would not be normally acceptable in liberal society.

The extent of Internet access and associated ICT tools such as mobile phones clearly has a bearing on whether there is a truly ‘global’ civil society emerging empowered by such networking tools.  Limited access would suggest not so much a global network society, but the emergence of a form of civil society envisaged by Antonio Gramsci in which a global networked elite achieves dominance by manipulating the global society so that its worldview is imposed as the societal norm and is accepted by every social class as a universally valid ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo  as natural, inevitable, and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling global networked elite (Yanacopulos & Moran, 2009, pg 424).

So if access to the Internet is a key measure of the capability of the network society to exercise power, how widespread is access to the Web?  Today, the world’s population is now over 7 billion and there are 2.3 billion internet users, which accounts for 32.7% average penetration. With near universal access in Western nations there is clearly sufficient access to support the claim of a network society.  However, outside the OECD countries, access is far more patchy in some the most populous areas such as Africa and Asia (Internet World Statistics, 2011).  The increase from the 6.7% as a percentage of Internet users of the global population in 2000 (Thompson, 2009, pg 370) to 32.7% in 2012 is significant and some of fastest growth has been in areas such as China and India, penetration rates are still far below those of the OECD nations (Internet Usage Statistics, 2012).  The evidence suggests that a global networked society is really only emerging in the West and many of the concerns and issues promoted are by those who are ‘left leaning and interested in technology’ as suggested by Peretti in the Nike case (Yanacopulos & Mohan, 2009, pg 419).  However, if access to a computer and the internet are economic barriers to joining the GCS, then recent developments, such as web enabled mobile phones, are challenging the Internet’s picture of inequality of access.  Recent surveys indicate there are 5.9 billion mobile subscribers, which is equivalent to 87% of the world population and more importantly growth is led by China and India, which now account for over 30% of users (Global mobile statistics, 2012).  So with camera phones able to upload images straight to the web and messages sent to anywhere in the world via text or networks such as Twitter, there is clearly an argument to suggest that we are nearing equality of access to the web and therefore enabling the opportunity to participate in the GCS.

Whilst the MPH and MAI campaigns are good examples of civil society having influenced decision making of liberal sovereign states, they are not good examples of networks and technology coming together to create genuine change in the international order. 

However, one of the most interesting transformational moments of recent times has been the ‘Arab Spring’. There have been extensive claims that technology was central in creating revolutionary fervour amongst suppressed civil society across the Arab world and mobilised the wider global civil society to bring pressure to bear on their own, invariably Western, governments to bring pressure to bear on the repressive Arab regimes. 

The Arab Spring began in Tunisia, where the underlying source of the uprising lay in government corruption, inequality, censorship and joblessness. Much of the organisation of the opposition took place on the Internet.  Pictures of the demonstrations recorded on mobile phones fuelled the revolt and provided a window on events for the Western media.  Similar anti-government demonstrations spread quickly across the region.  Protests spread to Egypt within days of the successful overthrow of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali.  Egyptian opposition leaders declared a “Day of Rage” on which protesters would take to the street against President Mubarak’s 30-year rule.  These protests lasted 18 days and once again protesters used the web to disseminate videos, photographs and called on Egyptians to protest.  Protesters provided minute-by-minute ‘Tweets’ concerning where to assemble in an effort to outwit police.  More than 90,000 people signed up on a Facebook page for the first protest, positioned by the organizers as a stand against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment.  Despite the Egyptian Government’s attempts to block the Internet and mobile phone networks, the damage was done and Mubarak also fell from power.  Similar protests spread across the middle-east with protests occurring in 20 Arab countries; initial analysis suggested the empowerment of civil society networks by ICTs was a key factor.

However, whilst undoubtedly the Internet played an important role in empowering the protestors, Internet access in many of these Arab states is far lower than the average world-wide penetration of 32.7% and so any network effect clearly depended on other factors such as word of mouth at Friday prayers.  Equally the states involved used all their repressive paraphernalia to block access and even identify key ring-leaders (The Guardian, 2011).  One of the most interesting factors of the Arab Spring, identified by Keck and Sikkink in Activist Beyond Borders, was the ‘boomerang effect’ in which activists who are unable to change the conditions in their own countries leveraged power by networking with those transnational activists outside their country, who in turn publicised abuses by the reactionary governments to the outside world and also lobbied their own governments.  During the Arab Spring, pressure by transnational activists through the international media and direct lobbying in the USA and the European Union resulted in pressure, particularly by President Obama, to get Mubarak to stand down.   This perhaps identifies the key point.  The real change came about in Egypt and more particularly in Libya when the international community of states decided enough was enough.  In Egypt diplomatic pressure and threats of sanctions were enough to convince the Egyptian Army to take action to remove Mubarak.  In the case of Libya it took the direct involvement of the UN and the military action of NATO to collaborate to provide the necessary airpower to enable regime change.  Where international consensus is reached among the leading/dominant sovereign states then change happens.  Arguably Syria is the case that proves the point.  Despite widespread condemnation and citizen journalism blogging the tyranny of the Assad regime, there is no consensus among the international community of sovereign states to intervene directly.

Indeed whilst technology in the form of Twitter and Facebook clearly played a role across the Arab world and continues to do so in Syria in getting the videos out to the Western media and mobilising support and generating this ‘boomerang’ effect, Malcolm Gladwell points out, successful social movements long pre-dated social media (Gladwell, The New Yorker, 2010).  Gladwell disputes the importance of social media in the Arab uprisings and asserts that protesters could have organized in other ways, noting that East Germany overturned a government when only 13% of the population had landline phones.  Becoming a ‘friend’ or ‘liking’ an entry on Facebook is easy, as it does not constitute a decision to join the barricades!  Activism that challenges the status quo is not for the faint hearted.  It depends on a network of strong personal contacts to amplify the cause and the individual’s personal connection to the cause.  You are only going to take the risk of protesting if you know you are not alone and are connected to the cause.

However, the power of the Internet is not only at the disposal of global civil society to spread their message of dissent or support for particular campaigns.  States have also proved adept at the use of the web and applying it to their particular needs:  In the traditional cockpit of international politics, states have used the Internet in a number of novel ways: cyber-attacks allegedly by Russia on Estonia in 2007 disabling much of their state and banking infrastructure or Stuxnet, a malicious computer programme, downloaded into the Iranian Nuclear development agency’s centrifuges to delay their alleged weapons programme.   Whilst these examples of cyber-warfare are of interest, the ability of the state to adopt and apply the building blocks of the information revolution have proved as effective as any GCS campaign at controlling and regulating their own populations.

States have successfully utilised the Internet and associated technologies to exert greater control and tyranny to impose a digital version of Bentham’s concept of the panopticon and Foucault’s popularisation of the approach to enable the state to track all its citizens via the internet and encourage self-censorship by the networked society (Farinosi, 2011, pg 63).  The usual non-technological measures of the repressive state have been used to interfere with the use of the Internet, including the imprisonment of relevant individuals, active policing, high taxation of Internet access and pressure on ISPs.  Cuba outlawed the sale of personal computers to individuals and Myanmar outlawed personal ownership of modems until 2002. However, states have also used technological measures to control and regulate the Internet through the creation of firewalls, proxy servers and software filters to block access to content and applications that they consider undesirable.  Saudi Arabia routes all web access through government controlled proxy servers.   China controls access to the Internet on the grounds of national security and requires all ISPs to self-censor, removing content that is considered illegal from search results.  Such measures have been utilised by repressive states to control the use of the Internet by activists within their borders whilst allowing the economic benefits of the technology to be used unencumbered. Remarkably Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have accepted such controls in order to pursue commercial interests even allegedly co-operating with the Chinese government by providing email details of known dissidents (Drezner, 2010, pg 35-37)!

There is a cost for both the state and activists.  Economically the Internet has proved to be one of the most powerful business enablers of our time. States that block Internet access pay a heavy cost, preventing them from enjoying the many commercial benefits of e-commerce.  On the other hand, individual citizens who break these rules pay a far greater cost if they are caught breaking the repressive state’s rules.  However, cost-benefit analysis by states clearly suggests that repression works.  The rise of the internet has not only dramatically cut costs for businesses and social networks, but it has also cut the costs for governments to monitor their populations.  Even where governments choose not to censor online political activity, the Internet enables a step change in the ability to monitor, anticipate and manage civil protest (Drezner, 2010, pg 35-37).

Repressive states are not alone in seeking to coerce the web to their will.  Even in liberal democracies such as the United Kingdom, the Government is seeking to introduce legislation to allow the monitoring of all the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK (The Daily Telegraph, 2012).  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be required to give the intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.   The UK is not alone, similar laws are planned in the US and across many of the OECD states.

In conclusion, networks have always existed since the earliest times.  In particular networks of dissent have often formed around issues and campaigns for change such as the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage.  However, I cannot agree with the statement that networks and ICTs are transforming the international system as yet.  I believe that the impact of a networked Global Civil Society enabled by the Internet is rather more a normative idea than an empirical one.  Genuine power to cause transformation of the international order continues to rest with sovereign states that come together to operate in a co-ordinated fashion as was seen in the G8 response to the MPH movement.  The liberal norms of the Western Democracies that make up the G8 enabled the networking effects to be effective.  However, nothing would have happened had the states, such as the Western democracies making up the G8, felt that debt-relief for sub-Saharan Africa was not in their global economic interests and that pressure could be applied to the World Bank and the IMF to co-operate.  The MPH global network was effectively pushing on an open door whose time had come.  On the other hand, within states, and particularly those with a liberal democratic tradition, the additional tools of hard power offered by the various communication capabilities of the Internet have given the NGO sector an additional channel to publicise their case.

In many ways the increasing use of the Internet and growing penetration is adding support to pre-existing dynamics between sovereign states and civil society whether domestic or global.  In liberal democracies, the growth of the Internet, social media, citizen journalism etc. clearly empower civil society to influence government policy.  In this respect, liberalism may be viewed as a critical theory of transformation in which GCS and the Internet are key actors.  However, it would be a mistake to overstate any transformation impact of Internet empowered network campaigns that did not already have some form of political momentum behind it.  Outside the West the power of the Internet has been frequently used as a means of oppression as often as liberation.  In those states where liberal norms do not pervade, governments have successively adapted the Internet for their own purposes to continue to repress their citizens and to operate in a realist manner pursuing their own national interest.

However, it would be a mistake to ignore the potential that an Internet enabled GCS has in bringing about transformation of the international order.  The role of civil society and ICTs in the Arab Spring were not necessarily pivotal, but they were undoubtedly important in maintaining momentum and helping to generate widespread international support. Networks empowered by the Internet continue to grow in influence and are gaining main stream support as Avaaz has demonstrated.  Today’s political networks have not replaced the state in international relations, but they are becoming increasingly important and cannot be ignored.

Real power for change is still in the hands of the key hierarchies of sovereign states and the many inter-governmental and trans-governmental organisations.  The case of Syria is an object lesson in how extending consensus beyond the liberal West to involve both Russia and China is needed if the international system of states is to act.  Change will only occur when the circumstances are seen as beneficial to all interested parties in the state system and not because of the wishes of the Internet enabled global civil society.

References:

1.        Bullion, A, (2009) ‘Networks and international order: challenging states?’, Chapter 3. Edited by William Brown. Reordering the International, Open University Press.

2.        Bromley, S, Smith, M.J, (2009) ‘Transforming International Order?’ Chapter 15, Edited by William Brown, Simon Bromley & Suma Athreye.  Ordering the International, Open University Press.

3.        Brown, W, Yanacopulos, H, Bromley, S (2009) DU 301 Audio 7: Technology, Networks and International Order, Open University Press.

4.        Castells, M, (2009), Communication Power, Oxford University Press.

5.        Drezner, DW (2010), 'Weighing the Scales: The Internet's Effect On State-Society Relations', Brown Journal Of World Affairs, 16, 2, pp. 31-44, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 June 2012.

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7.        Foucault, M,( 1978),  ‘The History of Sexuality Volume 1: The Will to Knowledge’, Harmondsworth, Published by Penguin

8.        Gladwell, M,(2010), ‘Why the revolution will not be tweeted’, October 4, 2010, The New Yorker, New York, USA

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12.     Keck, M, & Sikkink, K (1999), 'Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics', International Social Science Journal, 51, 159, p. 89, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 June 2012.

13.     Teschke, B, (2009) ‘The origins and evolution of the European states-system’ Chapter 2. Edited by William Brown, Simon Bromley & Suma Athreye. Ordering the International, Open University Press.

14.     The Daily Telegraph, (20^th January 2012) ‘Anonymous attacks FBI website over Megaupload raids, The Daily Telegraph, London.

15.     The Daily Telegraph, (1^st April 2012) ‘Internet activity 'to be monitored' under new laws’, The Daily Telegraph, London.

16.     Thompson, G, (2009) ‘Global inequality, economic globalization and technological change’, Chapter 11.  Edited by William Brown, Simon Bromley & Suma Athreye.  Ordering the International, Open University Press.

17.     Yanacopulos, H and Mohan, G, (2009) ‘The global network society and transnational networks of dissent’, Chapter 12.  Edited by William Brown, Simon Bromley & Suma Athreye. Ordering the International, Open University Press.