Converted my Master's Essay "Panarchy: Governance in the Network Age" (pdf)
http://panarchy.com/Members/PaulBHartzog/Papers/Panarchy%20-%20Governanc...
to html and posted it online here:
http://panarchy.com/Members/PaulBHartzog/Papers/Panarchy%20-%20Governanc...
Why?
Well, so that the inner content becomes available for full-text searching, e.g. sections like this:
In this paper, I have shown that the convergence of processes crosses a critical threshold to create new possibilities for governance. The result is a new system. The key distinction between the old system and the new lies in the fact that governance in the old system was achieved through states, whereas in the new system it is not only achieved outside of hierarchies through horizontal networks, but is in fact often achieved in spite of hierarchies. Wapner states that we are able to observe this condition whenever agents “work to change conditions without directly pressuring states.”[209] What is significant is not that the EZLN sought to oppose the state, but rather that they sought to delegitimate it outside of the state system. Similarly, the Seattle protesters sought to delegitimate the forces of globalization.
We have opened the door on the notion 1) that the state could participate in the new networks as a legitimate actor, or 2) that the state could decentralize to the point of being a network itself. Certainly states participate in networks already, but for many global networks the impetus to their formation is the failure of the state to adequately address their interests. The result is a general antipathy toward the state, a resistance to its inclusion, and an oppositional attitude. On the second point, the primary characteristic of statehood is an embrace of hierarchy (at least one), i.e. that the state is the supreme legitimate representative of the collective will and that all others must be ultimately subject to it. This fundamentally at odds with the “plurilateralist” nature of networks. Therefore, in both instances, it may be that for the state to continue to participate effectively it would have to overcome its own nature, or state-ness, and in so doing would no longer be a state in any real sense.
:-)
