New Aspen Institute Report Examines How Internet Is Altering Diplomacy And World Affairs

2/12/2003

From: James M. Spiegelman of the Aspen Institute 202-736-3849

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 -- The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program (C&S) released a report today on the impact of network structures and technologies on the conduct of world affairs. This timely report, The Rise of Netpolitik: How the Internet Is Changing International Politics and Diplomacy, reflects the insights of top-level leaders from the worlds of politics, diplomacy, finance, high technology, academia, and philanthropy who met at the Aspen Institute to consider new ways of understanding how information technology is changing the powers of the nation-state, the conduct of international relations, and the very definition of national security.

"Netpolitik is different from Realpolitik or global interdependence," said Charles M. Firestone, executive director of the Communications and Society Program. "It focuses on the primacy of the network structure as an organizing principle for the conduct of world affairs. In this complex world of blurring borders, flattened hierarchies and heightened ambiguity, the new rules of diplomacy involve the astute uses of social, media, financial and other international networks. The US is, after all, at war with a network. How do we combat terrorism and other modern degradations without using all of our various network resources in this new environment?"

The Rise of Netpolitik also looks at the role of storytelling in a world where the Internet and other technologies bring our competing stories into closer proximity with each other, and where stories will be interpreted in different ways by different cultures. In the way it distributes these myths and stories, the Internet is changing the environment for understanding cultures throughout the world.

"We are in the process of melding our stories in many different ways, primarily because of the impact of global communications and the ability to hear the other person's story," said former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and one of the contributors to this report. "The result of more stories, however, is a new tension between 'local' stories and the emerging 'global story'. There is a conflict between being part of a small group to which you belong and being part of a larger group-the world community. The concept of national sovereignty and your individual story is being threatened by the pressure of having to be part of a larger system."

Other contributors to this report include Macedonian President Boris Krajkovsky, Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana, Egyptian Ambassador to the US Nabil Fahmy, German Ambassador to Azerbaijan Klaus Grewlich, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, Xerox Chief Scientist John Seely Brown, Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman Bob Hormats, and technology commentator Esther Dyson.

Authored by David Bollier, The Rise of Netpolitik is the eleventh report of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology. The report is available online at www.aspeninstitute.org/c&s/pdfs/netpolitik.pdf or by contacting the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program at (202) 736-5818 or at sunny@aspeninstitute.org. Earlier reports from the Roundtable series are available at http://www.aspeninstitute.org/c&s.

The Communications and Society Program aims to design new models, options, initiatives, policy recommendations, and insights in areas where the use of communications technologies will have a significant impact on human interaction, organization, and governance. Through roundtable discussions, the promotion of research, and the dissemination of conference materials, the program draws the focus of both experts and the public at large, on local, national and global levels, to the implications of communications and information technologies on democratic institutions, individual behavior, instruments of commerce, and community life. Recent topics addressed by the program have centered on Internet policy, electronic commerce, information literacy, digital broadcasting, international and domestic telecommunications regulation, journalism, the role of the media in democratic society, and the impact of new communications technologies on democratic institutions and practices.

The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international organization dedicated to informed dialogue and inquiry on issues of global concern. Through its seminar and policy programs, the Institute convenes leaders and policymakers to address the foremost challenges of the new century. The Institute operates internationally through a network of partners in Europe and Asia and has offices in Aspen, Colorado, Washington, D.C., New York, NY, and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore.