The rise of network campaigning
by Paul Miller
Here's a sneak preview chapter of the Network Logic collection we'll be putting out in a couple of weeks. The full book will include pieces from Fritjof Capra, Diane Coyle and Geoff Mulgan among others on how networks affect our lives.
The Rise of Network Campaigning looks at some of the characteristics of 'network campaigns' such as the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt cancellation and asks what politics might be able to learn from the way they operate.
Comments, as always, very welcome.
UPDATE: The whole of Network Logic is now available to download for free.
John Moore
Paul, I really enjoyed your paper, very clear and concise. I tend to agree with Andrew above. Maybe we're going to see more of these network phenomena and it's not their permanance but their vitality that we should focus on...
Robin Grant
Paul - this is interesting and semi-related: How the chattering classes turned to talk.
Ian Richardson
Networks certainly make the difference between support and action, but I cannot foresee any credible threat to the governments of developed countries. The slick political marketing machines of the world?s governing powers still dominate and manipulate the print and television media. Also, they are slowly but surely tapping into the full potential of the same technological advances that network campaigners have previously threatened them with.
In a similar line-of-argument to Paul, the dynamic structure of a network campaign gives it a best-before date ? when the need to impose leadership arrives, tensions can easily emerge due to a lack of strong solidarity. Governments know this is an intrinsic weak-point and respond accordingly.
Still, I think that fringe parties, such as the Green Party, can learn a great deal and develop techniques employed by network campaigners to expand their market and engage closely with disillusioned voters.
Andrew Kaye
I agree with you Paul - the unique appeal of networks is that they invariably resist the temptation to vest power into a centralised secretariat and become formal, 'traditional' institutions? If the only networks that were thought of as successful were those ones that, over time, came to mirror the organisations and institutions they were seeking to influence, or indeed were the ones that became more disciplined, most people would probably agree - their maverick nature would then become compromised.
Sure, networks can achieve notoriety and cause significant change in the medium-term, but to become permanent political and social players, don't they have to sacrifice what makes them so appealing in the first place?