The State is dead. Long live the State!
Written by Ana Simina Stoian and Maxime Delavallee
Over the past decades, liberal democracies have been hit by both a quantitative and qualitative depreciation of their democratic expression. While excessive bureaucracy and influencing actors have been highlighted for long time as potential sources of this decline in the US, the crisis of sovereign debt in Europe recently intensified the people’s defiance toward governments. Among several consequences of this defiance, the decreasing global voter turnout and the polarization of domestic politics around extremist ideologies are calling for a substantial change in the way of administrating liberal democracies.
Within a relevant digital government strategy, blockchain appears as a solution to reengage societal stakeholders in a stable dialogue through “liquid democracy” governance. In the long-run, the implied shift from Nation-State to Network-State questions the evolution of sovereignty.
Liquid democracy, Blockchain, and the New Paradigm of Politics
The era of knowledge-society implies a constant improvement of transparency and accountability in the public action, the government acting as a platform. In response to the negative outcomes generated by the decline of democracy, several projects have started around the globe to challenge the current paradigm of politics. Ambitioning to reconnect citizens and politicians in Argentina, the Partido de la Red developed in 2013 the online tool DemocracyOS to propose, discuss and vote for public policies. Even though the party did not win a seat for its first election, the concept DemocracyOS has been spread around the world by the foundation Democracy Earth, promoting borderless governance and liquid democracy through its blockchain-based decentralized network Sovereign.
By enabling citizens to delegate their vote to a trusted and knowledgeable person, liquid democracy combines the assets of direct democracy and representative democracy. As nobody is an expert on every subject, liquid democracy also empowers voters with accrued responsibility in selecting their delegate. This form of governance brings out transitivity and lowers the entry barrier for democratic expression, transforming the political environment in a collaborative process of taking public decisions.
This change of the paradigm of politics, from a Machiavellian art of conserving power to a social bond unifying society’s stakeholders, is also questioning the role of politicians. Increasingly sharing the power with citizens in elaborating and deciding public policies indeed implies a gradual transition from symbolically representing power to becoming a pure public administrator.
From Nation-State to Network-State: How will Sovereignty evolve?
While citizens are going digital and global, social medias are growing bigger than countries. With the rise of open source softwares and peer-to-peer networks, central authorities and political intermediation will be no longer meaningful. The scalability of blockchain technology and liquid democracy implies to redefine the geographical scale of sovereignty. As corporations being outperformed by agile startups, States that do not embrace this new techno-politico paradigm will soon become obsolete.
In a speech delivered at the Startup Societies Foundation Summit, Balaji Srinivasan (CEO of Earn.com) described the rise of the Network State. As the 19th century witnessed the rise of Nation-States –artificial constructions built on common realities, identities and territorial boundaries–, a new era within which the Network will become the next Leviathan has started. The increasing mobility of citizens and the easiness to coordinate crowds through online channels have huge implications on how the 21st-century-State will evolve. With hindsight, as the Internet allows people to gather around the same interests, why wouldn’t It allow determining the State’s infrastructures based on the current digital opportunities?
The fundamental driver of this tremendous change — as Srinivasan points out — is the migration of the most talented people. Human flows will constantly form and reform Network-States. The logic is simple: every country will be forced to become fully digital and provide citizens with the highest quality services; a failure to adapt signifying to mechanically lose them. By going beyond the territorial boundaries, these digital democracies could also enable citizens to engage at a larger scale, bringing out ultimately the emergence of transnational societies (for instance in the EU). With the blockchain technology solving the issues of trust and scalability, decentralized borderless interactions will reshape democratic governance at broader scale.
Establishing a borderless digital nation is already possible. Estonia’s entirely digital infrastructure is offering a preview of how governments can unleash the full potential of blockchain technology. Among a large range of public services, the “E-Residency” program allows us to envision an impressive future. This transnational digital identity, open to everyone whatever his or her nationality, give access to Estonia’s amazing digital business environment and opportunities. More than simply providing public services online, Network-States will redefine sovereignty by adding a nomad and digital approach to this concept. As an illustration of this phenomenon, the blockchain-powered project Bitnation is already establishing a decentralized and borderless new world.
All in all, this revolutionary and multidimensional transition process appears inevitable, and thus, Nation-States may be confronting their near-term expiration date.
