Re-Public: special issue on Wiki politics Michel Bauwens 17th April 2007
Re-public, the Greek-English webzine, continues its tradition of publishing specially themed issues on participatory politics, this time focusing on “Wiki Politics”
They write that “Wiki politics is a concept that encompasses existing practices which instantly give birth to new democratic forms. They produce a particular form of political participation -horizontal and equitable- which operates on the basis of the principles of decentralisation and openness. This issue aims to explore the openings that the concept of the ‘wiki politics’ presents for democratic theory and practice.”
Our own contribution, is entitled: P2P politics, the state, and the renewal of the emancipatory traditions. Amongst the participants are McKenzie Wark, Geert Loving, David Bollier and many others. Here is a summary of the main thesis:“It is important to distinguish the peer governance of a multitude of small but coordinated global groups, which choose non-representational processes in which participants co-decide on the projects, from representative democracy. The latter is a decentralized form of power-sharing based on elections and representatives. Since society is not a peer group with an a priori consensus, but rather a decentralized structure of competing groups, representative democracy cannot be replaced by peer governance.However, both modes will influence and accommodate to each other. Peer projects which evolve beyond a certain scale and start facing issues of decisions about scarce resources, will probably adapt some representational mechanisms. Representative and bureaucratic decision-making can and will in some places be replaced by global governance networks which may be self-governed to a large extent, but in any case, it will and should incorporate more and more multistakeholder models, which strives to include as participants in decision-making, all groups that could be affected by such actions. This group-based partnership model is different, but related in spirit, to the individual-based peer governance, because they share an ethos of participation.But the fundamental change is the following. In the modern view, individuals were seen as atomized. They were believed to be in need of a social contract that delegated authority to a sovereign in order to create society, and in need of socialization by institutions that addressed them as an indifferentiated mass. In the new view however, individuals are always-already connected with their peers, and looking at institutions in such a peer-informed way. Institutions therefore, will have to evolve to become support ecologies, devising ways to create infrastructures of support.The politicians become interpreters and experts, which can guide the issues emerging out of civil society based networks into the institutional realm.The state becomes a at least neutral (or better yet: commons-favorable) arbiter, i.e. the meta-regulator of the 3 realms, and retreats from the binary state/privatisation dilemma to the triarchical choice for an optimal mix between government regulation, private market freedom, and autonomous civil society projects. In particular, it can evolve to do the following activities. Recognizing the direct value creation of the social field, it can find ways to support such activities.”
They write that “Wiki politics is a concept that encompasses existing practices which instantly give birth to new democratic forms. They produce a particular form of political participation -horizontal and equitable- which operates on the basis of the principles of decentralisation and openness. This issue aims to explore the openings that the concept of the ‘wiki politics’ presents for democratic theory and practice.”
Our own contribution, is entitled: P2P politics, the state, and the renewal of the emancipatory traditions. Amongst the participants are McKenzie Wark, Geert Loving, David Bollier and many others. Here is a summary of the main thesis:“It is important to distinguish the peer governance of a multitude of small but coordinated global groups, which choose non-representational processes in which participants co-decide on the projects, from representative democracy. The latter is a decentralized form of power-sharing based on elections and representatives. Since society is not a peer group with an a priori consensus, but rather a decentralized structure of competing groups, representative democracy cannot be replaced by peer governance.However, both modes will influence and accommodate to each other. Peer projects which evolve beyond a certain scale and start facing issues of decisions about scarce resources, will probably adapt some representational mechanisms. Representative and bureaucratic decision-making can and will in some places be replaced by global governance networks which may be self-governed to a large extent, but in any case, it will and should incorporate more and more multistakeholder models, which strives to include as participants in decision-making, all groups that could be affected by such actions. This group-based partnership model is different, but related in spirit, to the individual-based peer governance, because they share an ethos of participation.But the fundamental change is the following. In the modern view, individuals were seen as atomized. They were believed to be in need of a social contract that delegated authority to a sovereign in order to create society, and in need of socialization by institutions that addressed them as an indifferentiated mass. In the new view however, individuals are always-already connected with their peers, and looking at institutions in such a peer-informed way. Institutions therefore, will have to evolve to become support ecologies, devising ways to create infrastructures of support.The politicians become interpreters and experts, which can guide the issues emerging out of civil society based networks into the institutional realm.The state becomes a at least neutral (or better yet: commons-favorable) arbiter, i.e. the meta-regulator of the 3 realms, and retreats from the binary state/privatisation dilemma to the triarchical choice for an optimal mix between government regulation, private market freedom, and autonomous civil society projects. In particular, it can evolve to do the following activities. Recognizing the direct value creation of the social field, it can find ways to support such activities.”
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