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):-
- The
basic units that comprise the international level;
- The
structure of relations among those units;
- The
technological and organisational interaction capacity within the system;
- 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.
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Simon Bromley & Suma Athreye.
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