In Cairns Blog: Democracy of Groups, Beth Noveck alerts us to her new First Monday paper, in which she makes two central claims, acording to her blog and the paper's abstract:
"First, technology will enable more effective forms of collective action. This is particularly so of the emerging tools for "collective visualization" which will profoundly reshape the ability of people to make decisions, own and dispose of assets, organize, protest, deliberate, dissent and resolve disputes together. From this argument derives a second, normative claim. We should explore ways to structure the law to defer political and legal decision–making downward to decentralized group–based decision–making. This argument about groups expands upon previous theories of law that recognize a center of power independent of central government: namely, the corporation. If we take seriously the potential impact of technology on collective action, we ought to think about what it means to give groups body as well as soul — to "incorporate" them. This paper rejects the anti–group arguments of Sunstein, Posner and Netanel and argues for the potential to realize legitimate self–governance at a "lower" and more democratic level. The law has a central role to play in empowering active citizens to take part in this new form of democracy."
"A democracy of groups" (First Monday, November 2005)
Posted by dougsimpson at November 18, 2005 05:14 AM