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Networked Activism: What It Can Do For Us |
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Political conflicts today increasingly incorporate networked forms of action.
As Arquilla and Ronfeldt argue, networks use information as a force multiplier and can thus be much more effective than more hierarchical organisations (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1996, 44). This article will show that this move towards networked activism is good news for those non-governmental organisations that are working for political change, despite having relatively scarce resources.
The traditional model of a political organisation has often been the centralised party structure. While such hierarchies may work for large and well-resourced organisations, although it is far from clear if they are working well for Britain's main political parties at the moment, they are not suitable for smaller NGOs: our limited resources mean that, if we try to compete on the same level as these larger bodies, we will be massively outgunned".
An important example of the efficacy of networked activism can be seen in the way that the Afghan resistance defeated the Soviet Superpower. A relatively poorly-resourced network of anti-Communist fighters was able to challenge, cause extensive damage to and ultimately defeat a much better-resourced hierarchical opponent a Superpower, with more soldiers than the resistance and more and better weapons (Clarke 2004, 54; Fisk 1980). They were able to achieve this through making effective use of the advantages of a network form: the loose networks of resistance in Afghanistan managed to gain a good understanding of what the more hierarchical Soviet forces were doing and deny these forces the information they needed in order to fight the resistance (Coll 2004, 117). The Afghan resistance thus used information as an effective force multiplier.
Most NGOs including, of course, the Henry George Foundation are committed to non-violent struggle. However, we can still use network structures as a kind of force multiplier when trying to influence more centralised organisations such as states or political parties, we can often act more quickly than they can and deal more effectively with information. For example, the Henry George Foundation is currently moving to give our volunteers more responsibility for deciding what we should do and for doing it. This bottom-up structure gives us the potential to move faster than larger bodies can, and to move into areas that they may not even be aware of yet for example, to engage with the fast-moving tax reform debate in the UK while the political parties are still struggling to decide on their policies.
While we cannot match the resources of larger organisations, what we therefore can do is to handle information better and faster than they can, and thus use information to multiply the efficacy of those resources we do have. While moving towards a more decentralised structure may limit what the Henry George Foundation can do in certain ways, it thus also opens many new opportunities for us. What these opportunities are depends, of course, on what our members and supporters decide to do. Land & Liberty can and should provide information on activities that our supporters might like to become involved in, and up-to-date information about current events and debates. However, the small team behind this journal cannot effectively do all that should be done or even provide as much information as activists might want we need more supporters, more activists, more writers and more researchers.
So at this point, reader, it really is over to you.
Bibliography
Arquilla, J. and D. F. Ronfeldt (1996) The Advent of Netwar, Santa Monica: RAND.
Clarke, R. A. (2004) Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, New York: Free Press.
Coll, S. (2004) Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, New York: Penguin.
Fisk, R. (1980) "Moscow Adds its Most Advanced Weapons to Kabul Arsenal" The Times 9/2/1980, 4.
Jon Mendel is a Visiting Fellow at the Watson Institute, Brown University; he is a PhD. student registered at the Department of Geograpy, University of Durham, writing a thesis on 'Virtual Wars: A Comparative Analysis of the 1991 Gulf War and the 'War on Terror'"
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