Contents - Index

4.4.   A New Political Institution?                 (Top)

Because A-Nets have a common technological platform and common origins and cultures and because every A-Net is part of a larger network, it is reasonable to ask whether they are the constituent parts of an embryonic public interest institution that may someday be of equal status with commercial special interest groups and other traditional centers of power in American democracy.  The case for a new political institution is growing as A-Nets proliferate and connect to each other.  This new "institution" could provide the independent checks on the government and corporations needed to restore balance in the system and it could serve the function of independent ad-hoc committees, commissions, and task forces to assist the government in policy making and planning in technical and complex decision-making. If all this comes to pass, we could be looking at that allusive independent parallel people's institution that democratic theorists only dared to dream about.

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Materials

Notes:
 Regarding Form:  Collection of unaffiliated units?
  Loose affiliation with units of more or less equal size and capability?
  Loose affiliation with a few large units and many small to family and friends groups?
  Confederation with umbrella organization?
  New institution - the fifth estate?
   
We might develop a better understanding of a public interest institution by comparing A-Nets to Corporate Interest Groups and the Church.  All are collections of entities.  A-Nets and corporate groups are more autonomous.  The Church is hierarchical, bureaucratic (or umbrella organization, like Presbyterians).  Internally, corporations and church units are organized from the top down.  A-Nets are organized from the bottom up.  A-Nets have missions in common, as do churches.  Corporate lobbies act primarily in the  interest of the business they corporation they represent - although some may have common industry interests like selling milk.  All have at least a tacit mission of supporting capitalism.  Explore idea of A-Nets for SMALL businesses.

 Watchdog - checks and balances role - single/multi-issue campaigns
 Proactive campaigns
 Structural reform campaigns
 Specialized technical/scientific assistance
 Predecessors: Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Union of Concerned Scientists

 Legal foundations - freedom to assemble and petition, first amendment
 Different from top-down public interest predecessors
 Self-organizing
 Proactive versus reactive
 Coalitions - confederation - cooperation
 Rotating citizenry
 Not likely to go away given a taste of participation - self-generating
 Watershed in Political System Evolution
 A paradigm shift?  Bottom up?  Self-organizing?  Replace representative institutions?

References
 Ito, Joi, Emergent Democracy Paper, See Weblog References for Democracy and the Internet.

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