Contents
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7.2. Does Emergent Democracy Cross National Borders? (Top)
There is already considerable evidence of cross-national advocacy networks in the memberships of nets like Moveon. This is true particularly when issues are common to more than one country, such as war and international trade. As the world is learning, there really are no issues without global implications, such as environmental protect. There is also an emerging phenomenon of international awareness and interest in the domestic politics of other nations and the expression of likes and dislikes of national leaders. Like local A-Nets, global networks begin with conversations among friends in countries all over the world.
In February, 2003, Joi Ito wrote in his WIKI on Emergent Democracy, "My thesis is basically that weblogs will allow the net to exhibit emergent behavior and properly used, this will allow us to create a new form of global democracy. I think the community of toolmakers is the key to getting this done." In response, Karl Friedrich Lenz wrote "Do you really mean "global" democracy? The "global" part does not seem to come over in the paper right now. And I think it is difficult enough to put democracy into practice in individual countries (Japan, US, etc.). Global discussion, yes, that will happen. But global democracy probably not."
Obviously, there is a long way to go, but it is likely that the technologies of Public Interest Democracy discovered in this project will generalize in selective ways to some future notion of global democracy.
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References
Ito, Joi, Emergent Democracy Paper, See Weblog References for Democracy and the Internet.
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