Beyond the democratic state: anti-authoritarian interventions in democratic theory

 
VI. Networks: Self-Governance in the Context of Difference
In the first half of the chapter, I laid out two quite distinct literatures: a framework for 
self-governance and a debate within democratic theory about various ways of accommodating 

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difference. I then proceeded to introduce the idea of decentralized coordination through 
networks, and to offer an example of social movement networks on both global and local scales.
In this concluding section, I tie these various themes together by focusing on the question: How, 
and to what extent, do networks enable self-governance in the context of difference? 
Recall that self-governance refers to “the capacity to get things done without the legal 
competence to command that they be done” (Lipschutz 1999, 102, citing Ernst-Otto Czempiel).
As I have argued, the complementary practices of direct action and networked organization 
enable precisely this to occur. Both the 
call
for a “day of action,” such as the February 15, 2003 
anti-war demonstrations and the 
call
to Occupy Wall Street resulted in massive (and, in the latter 
case, sustained) mobilizations, even though no individual or group could compel others to join. 
The self-governance that networks enable, then depends on leadership, but anarchic leadership: 
leading by example and leading without compelling. As Graeber (2009, 211) puts it: 
Most anarchists…do not see themselves as a vanguard whose historical role is to 
‘organize’ other communities, but rather as one community setting an example 
others can imitate. The approach – it’s often referred to ‘contaminationism’ – is 
premised on the assumption that the experience of freedom is infectious, that 
anyone who takes part in a direct action is likely to be permanently transformed 
by the experience, and want more. 
Democratic direct action is a form of leading – a way of encouraging action and building the 
capacity to “get things done” – that succeeds only to the extent that others find the action (or the 
call for action) compelling. Networks enable those direct actions to have ripple effects or 
reverberations by spreading information, experiences, tactics, messages, and so on rapidly 
throughout the various nodes in the network. There is real democratic value in this process of 
reverberation or “contaminationism.” The actions or models that spread – over both time and 
space – are those that resonate with and inspire others. Consider the way that Tahrir Square or 
the original Occupy in New York City acts as examples that others can use to spur action and 

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adapt to their own circumstances. Actions or models spread only when – and only to the extent – 
that people are drawn to them. In a sense, this is a networked way of gauging popularity: people 
“vote” for actions or “elect” models by replicating and reproducing them. But rather than voting 
or electing someone else to exercise power on one’s behalf, the “voting” or “election” that occurs 
through direct action involves the mobilization of one’s own power. 
We can also think about the possibilities of networked forms of self-governance using a 
quite different example: open-source software such as the Mozilla Firefox web browser or the 
Linux operating system.
Traditional, proprietary software makes it impossible for users to see the source 
code that shows how a program works…The open-source movement takes the 
opposite approach. When the source code is open so that anyone can see it, more 
of its bugs are fixed, and better programs are produced: the more eyes that see it 
and the more people allowed to contribute to it, the better a program it becomes 
(Hardt and Negri 2004, 339). 
The collaborative development of computer software, as well as collectively built websites like 
Wikipedia and Reddit, speak to the creative and constructive capacities of networked self-
governance.
However, it would be too much to argue that networks can straight-forwardly solve the 
sorts of self-governance challenges that Ostrom has identified. I am not claiming that networked 
organization provides a self-governance solution to, for example, our global commons like the 
atmosphere or the oceans – though I must point out that neither state nor market governance is 
working here either. I do want to argue, though, that there is some evidence that networks enable 
actors to solve the three central problems that Ostrom (1990, 42-45) identifies for any system of 
self-governance: 1) supplying new institutions (or basic rules), 2) establishing credible 
commitments, and 3) mutual monitoring. In thinking about the example of open source software 
and user-built websites, we see individuals and groups supplying the “institutions” (software and 

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website) and using “mutual monitoring” in order to establish “credible commitments” (reviewing 
each other’s updates and changes, blocking users who violate the rules, and so on). If self-
governance means to the “capacity to get things done” even when no one can compel others to 
do so, then, I think networks offer an organizational structure that makes that possible in larger 
and more complex contexts than Ostrom’s case studies suggest. 
Beyond just enabling self-governance, though, networks enable people to do things 
differently, while still acting together. For this reason, networks are ideal for fostering self-
governance in the context of difference.
The significance of [the alterglobalization] movement’s focus on diversity is not 
that it understands ‘the people’ to be diverse and complex, although it does, but 
that it allows this diversity in ‘the people’ to be translated into a diversity of 
outcomes…Creating plural outcomes is part of decentralizing power” 
(Maeckelbergh 2009, 172). 
Whereas “reasonable pluralism” eliminates many differences at the outset, and “communicative 
action” eliminates difference as the outcome, networks enable a plural people to produce plural 
outcomes, without abandoning the idea that they can act in common. Whereas Mouffe sees the 
“moment of decision” as a closure (and she is basically right about this), the closure is less 
closed, if you will, when the decision enables multiplicity, rather than requiring uniformity. 
[T]he anti-summit mobilizations [that characterized the alter-globalization 
movement] are organized simultaneously by different groups who organize in 
parallel to each other but only partially with each other. This means that the 
various strands of political beliefs can function side by side without all of them 
having to come together or agree on a common methodological approach 
(Maeckelbergh 2009, 84). 
Hardt and Negri (2004, 217) note a similar dynamic at the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle:
What most surprised and puzzled observers was that groups previously thought to 
be in opposition to each other – trade unionists and environmentalists, church 
groups and anarchists, and so forth – acted together without any central unifying 
structure that subordinates or sets aside their differences. 

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There are, of course, much sharper differences or larger gulfs between groups existing in the 
world today, and I do not claim that networks will magically allow cooperation between them.
What I do want to emphasize, though, is that networks enable cooperation between groups that 
do not just have trivial differences. Labor unions and environmentalists have real and significant 
disagreements, as do anarchists and church groups. The potential of networks is to enable 
cooperation and coordination without having to set these differences aside, because agreement 
and consensus is not needed (and, further, would be coercive). And, it is not just that groups can 
set aside differences in their worldviews – or their “comprehensive doctrines” as Rawls would 
say – in order to focus on shared tactical or strategic objectives, though surely this is also 
important.
Networks also enable groups to disagree on the basic substance of what they do and still 
function together. Maeckelbergh gives the example of action planning for the 2003 anti-G8 
mobilization in Lausanne, Switzerland. Not only did the various groups who wanted to 
participate disagree on a range of religious, moral, and philosophical questions, they also 
disagreed about how to protest the G8 itself. Rather than developing a single protest strategy or 
a single repertoire of tactics, the network decided to enable plural outcomes in order to allow 
different groups to act differently. Their main objective was “…to ensure that all these different 
groups could do what they were planning to do. This meant ensuring that the actions of one 
group did not interfere with the actions of any other group” (Maeckelbergh 2009, 131). They 
implemented this through a principle of “diversity of tactics” and a practice of discrete “blocs.”
First, the pink and silver blocs would engage in mobile blockades – essentially marches, with a 
relatively low risk of arrest, which would enable the participation of large numbers of people – 
through the “no-protest” zone. The aqua bloc, a pacifist bloc, would engage in a fixed and non-

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violent blockade. The black bloc would engage in mobile actions aimed at confronting the 
police and damaging state and corporate property. Finally, several additional groups would 
engage in blockades at key points of access to the port. Though they would all act in quite 
different ways – differences that speak to both philosophical and tactical diversity – they were 
able to help each other achieve a common goal: disrupting the G8 meeting. Moreover, each 
group would amplify the disruptive power of the others by spreading state resources thin and 
confusing police responses to groups acting in widely divergent ways. This is the meaning of 
coordination without consensus, and action without agreement.
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This is, of course, is not to say that there are never unbridgeable differences or 
unresolvable conflicts. Rather, network democracy does not see these as a necessarily 
problemlatic, but as a potentially useful source of parceling and decentralization. 
Due to the network structure, this type of division does not necessarily mean a 
permanent fissure that disassociates, that cuts the ties and connections between 
actors and groups, but can mean a realignment of unities and the creation of more 
and more nodes and clusters and the further decentralization and diversity of the 
movement. In this way, even unresolvable or unresolved conflict, is resolved.
What counts as resolved, however, changes in that it no longer means everyone is 
united in one singular form, but that people are still linked to each through the 
rhizomatic network structure” (Maeckelberg 2009, 107). 
The conflicts, much like the “Indian” logic of violence discussed in Chapter II, have a centrifugal 
function of spreading and dispersing power. As I discuss in the conclusion, networks are a 
contemporary manifestation of the logic of centrifugal power and point us toward a democracy 
that works to disperse power, rather than legitimate its centralization. 
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I think it is possible to characterize the action plan for the anti-G8 protests as an agreement, but – and this is the 
important point – it is an agreement that does not require unanimity. Maeckelbergh (2009, 100) even argues that 
consensus and conflict – need not be at odds with each other. “Consensus…should be conflictive…Insistence on 
conflict was an attempt to create a consensus process that allowed for diversity, a consensus that did not insist on 
unanimity.” Insofar as consensus enables a group to decide to allow difference her point is fair one, but it seems to 
stretch the meaning of “consensus” beyond recognition, at least the way the term is used within democratic theory. 

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Network democracy is meant as a stark contrast to the way we usually think about 
democracy. In a typical model of democracy, a polity comes together – either directly or through 
representatives – to address some issue. The end result of that process is 
a
(singular) decision.
Agreement must be reached, whether by plurality, majority or consensus. This model of 
democracy remains fundamentally the same whether employed at the local level (such as a town 
hall meeting), at the national level (as in Congress) or at the global level (as in the United 
Nations). The networked model of organization is distinct: it is a vision of democracy in which 
people can collaborate with each other,