[p2p-research] Fwd: fyi: new paper on future of information-age government and governance

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Subject: fyi: new paper on future of information-age government and
governance
To: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com>
Cc: David Ronfeldt <ronfeldt at mac.com>



we're hoping some of you will be interested to see a speculative paper we've
posted on "the prospects for cyberocracy (revisited)."  while we continue to
seek formal publication somewhere, we've put it on the social science
research network, where you can download it at:

     http://ssrn.com/abstract=1325809

ABSTRACT:  The deepening of the information age will alter the nature of the
state so thoroughly that something new emerges:  cyberocracy.  While it is
too early to say precisely what a cyberocracy will look like, the outcomes
will include new kinds of democratic, totalitarian, and hybrid governments,
along with new kinds of state-society relations.  Thus, optimism about the
information revolution should be tempered by an anticipation of its
potential dark side.  This paper reiterates the view of the cyberocracy
concept as first stated in 1992, and then offers a postscript for 2008.  It
speculates that information-age societies will develop new sensory
apparatuses, a network-based social sector, new modes of networked
governance, and ultimately the cybercratic nexus-state as a successor to the
nation-state.

the paper represents, admittedly, an effort to gain new/extra mileage out of
the first paper i ever published about the information revolution, in
1991/1992.  if only the 2008 postscript sounds interesting, it begins on p.
39 of the .pdf file.

email comments to our rand.org or other addresses, or leave them at my
nascent experiment with blogging at http://twotheories.blogspot.com.

i'm sending this email in phases to about 250 people -- a mix of family,
personal friends, rand colleagues, highlands-forum members, and other
professional colleagues and contacts, near and far.  most of you i know
personally, and i send greetings.  about a dozen of you i've never met or
emailed before.  yet for one reason or another -- e.g., you cited the
original cyberocracy paper, or i/we cite you in this paper -- i'm hoping
you'll be receptive to my informing you about this new paper on long-range
trends in the nature of government and governance.

onward.




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