Networked Politics Reader Work in Progress Barcelona seminar for an inquiry into political organisation in an era of movements and networks. NETWORKED-POLITICS: A READER OF WORK IN PROGRESS. Contents 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE INQURY AND ITS FOUR LINES OF RESEARCH AND OUTLINE OF SEMINAR PROGRAMME 2. THE INSTITUTIONS LINE OF INQUIRY i. Democracy, Citizens’ Participation and Social Transformation, by Joan Subirat. ii. Modernising Public Administration from the Left , by Quim Brugue 3. THE MOVEMENT LINE OF INQUIRY i. A first map of issues issues, by Macro Berlinguer ii. Report of Bolgnia meeting, by Marco Berlinguer iii. Problemas de la politica autonoma: pensando el pasaje de lo social a lo politico, by Ezequiel Adamovsky iv. About networks (and social movements?) by Joan Subirats v. Networks, swarms, microstructures, by Brian Holmes vi. Social forums and their margins: networking logistics and the cultural politics of autonomus space, by Jeffrey S. Juris 4. THE POLITICAL PARTIES PARTIES, REPRESENTATION LINE OF INQUIRY i. Rethinking political parties in an era of movements and networks, by Hilary Wainwright ii. Brief report of Manchester workshop for the ‘inquiry in rethinking political organisation in an era of movements and networks’ iii. Are there lessons to be learnt from the experience of the German green-alternative left?, by Frieder Otto Wolfe. iv. The left parties in government: the Norwegian case, by.Asbjorn Wahl v. Lula’s lament, by Hilary Wainwright 5. TECHNO-POLITICAL TOOLS LINE OF INQUIRY. i. Hot issues/questions on techno-political tools by Mayo Fuster ii. Free/Open sourced politics, starting points & proposals, by Jaume Naulart iii. Cathcart’s List : A brief review of current movements and trends in information politics. Jamie King; iv. The Dilemmas of an inevitable relationship: democratic innovation and the technologies of information and communication, by Joan Subirat v. Useful references. Networked politics: A reader of work in progress 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE INQUIRY AND ITS FOUR LINES OF RESEARCH 1 Networked politics: A reader of work in progress INTRODUCTION: NETWORKED POLITICS: AN INQUIRY INTO RETHINKING POLITICAL ORGANISATION IN AN AGE OF MOVEMENTS AND NETS Welcome to a space where people from different generations and political histories are sharing ideas and experiences with the aim of reinventing democracy in a context where traditional forms of democracy are exhausted. Networked Politics is a contribution to the continuing debates and practical experiments concerning new forms of political organization. It’s purpose is to help the activists who act in movements, collectives, associations, parties, trade unions to develop a deeper understanding of the innovations of which we are all a part. Some of us are from the movements of the late 60s and 70s, aware that our ideas at that time became in part – against our intention – resources for the renewal of capitalism but at the same time we are insistent that these movements, feminism especially, generated an unrealised potential towards rethinking politics. Some of us are shaped by intense involvement in the movements unleashed in Seattle and continuing into the 21^st century, aware that our activism is merely the surface expression of a far deeper popular disaffection for which we have not yet found the cultural tools to reach or the sufficiently innovative ways to organise. Some of us are from political parties, believing in the need to engage with institutional politics but fully aware, against the traditional assumptions of left politics, that parties can only be one actor amongst many and indeed the very nature of a party needs to be radically rethought. And most of us try to make transformative values part of the way we live, the way we work, the way we organise. We try to pre-figure our vision of a different world in present-day experiments in new systems of collaboration and creativity. We aim to make this project exactly such an experiment. We start from a common recognition of the crisis of existing political institutions and also from a belief in the enormous potential that exists in diverse forms of resistance both visible and beneath the surface, for creating alternative worlds. But what also motivates our collaboration is a cautiousness and an anxious curiosity as we come up against the problems of creating sustained forces, agencies or subjects of social change. With these thoughts in mind, we have initiated an inquiry based on four lines of research: * The innovations and problems arising from movements: their development in practice of a new approach to knowledge, new forms of action and organisation; * The process of renewal taking place in political parties of the left and more generally with attempts at transformative forms of the political representation; * Public institutions in the net society: the ambivalences, dangers and opportunities of the emergence of multi-level political 2 Networked politics: A reader of work in progress systems and the idea of the governance; * The New techno–political tools made possible by the revolution in information technology and their potentialities for transformative thought, action and communication. Many people are working on these issues. You will find many of these people here. Around this search we are creating a loose and worldwide community of activist researchers to share resources, compare experiences, debate ideas. We will use this wiki to allow collaborative writings and open discussions. We promote the cooperative production of a glossary or dictionary of new words (or old words with new meanings) emerging out of the search for new kinds of political organisation. We will encourage debates on “hot issues” emerging from practical experience and reflection. A central resource in our collaboration is also a web-bibliography e- library: articles, papers but also accessible transcripts from seminars, dossiers of interviews from the frontline of political innovation and its difficulties. Share your work; make use of ours; stimulate collective reflection. The basic language is English, but the contributions can be offered in other languages as well. Networked Politics is an open project promoted by Transfrom! Italia (www.transform.it), Transnational Institute (www.tni.org) – New Politics, and Institut de Govern the Polítiques Públiques – IGOP (igop.uab.es) and developed in cooperation with Euromovements (www.euromovements.info) Introducing the E-library http://www.networked-politics.info/library One of the aims of the Networked Politics inquiry is to create a community for sharing and exchange reflections. In order to facilitate this process and to make the access to web-bibliography resources easier we are developing an online e-library. The “Networked Politics E-library” is an open and collaborative online space for the storing and sharing of bibliographic resources. Its main goals are to create a meeting point between different disciplines and analytical approaches and to create a multilingual communication channel between different regions of the world on themes connected to rethinking political organization, including: the organizational innovations arising from movements; new forms of political representation; public institutions in the net society: and debates about techno–political tools. 3 Networked politics: A reader of work in progress What could you do with it? The e-library allows you to consult, read and downloud bibliographic materials. At the e-library there are different search channels: you can search by keywords, by author, by theme, by title.). And the e-library also enables you to uploud texts, that is to introuce texts to the e-library and share it with the others. And not just text, but also multi-media materials, such as: photos, recorded interviews, etc. The e-library has being designed to be as easy and intuitive usable as possible. 4 Networked politics: A reader of work in progress 2. THE INSTITUTIONS LINE OF INQUIRY 5 Networked politics: A reader of work in progress ELEMENTS OF INSTITUTIONAL CRISIS AND TRANSFORMATION Jon Subirat “Today, political leaders throughout Europe are facing a real paradox. On the one hand, Europeans want them to find solutions to the major problems confronting our societies. On the other hand, people increasingly distrust institutions and politics or are simply not interested in them” White Paper on European Governance, EU Commission, Brussels, 2001, p.1 From an institutional point of view, we are facing grave and diverse problems: - Disproportion between the remits and formal powers of the institutions and their real capacities for transformation and change. - An economy and market that have “escaped” from political and institutional control. - Obsolescence of the political bases of the nation state. - Electoral legitimacy every x number of years, its legitimacy daily questioned through the “media”. - Institutions with borders, politics without borders. - Growing confusion and polemic between legitimacy and legality. - Emphasis from the institutions on the unique prominence of channels of representative democracy, failing to consider the growing number of people who do not use these channels, because of indifference, legal incapacity, or because they see that it doesn’t change anything in their lives. - Biased use (unidirectional, hierarchical, controlling) of technologies in order to maintain their hegemony. The crisis of the institutions and the administration, and the need to transform or reform them has become a cliché.