University of Flensburg

European Studies

WS 2010/2011

The Impact of the Internet Revolution in making the

Present World More Cosmopolitan

By Borjan Gjuzelov

European Contemporary History

Prof. Dr. Hauke Brunkhorst and Prof. Dr. Miguel Vatter

Table of contents:

1 Introduction

2 A word or two about the term Cosmopolitism

2.1 Origins of the term Cosmopolitism

2.2 The different perspectives of the Cosmopolitism.

3. The internet revolution and the rise of the new 21st century cosmopolitism

3.1 The internet revolution

3.2 World Wide Web and its influence on the recent world changes

3.3 The free software and the new left

4. The internet and the new legal and institutional challenges (how to regulate it)

5. Conclusion

Abstract:

Cosmopolitism has always been a synonym of something opposed to the state and the

traditional state and borders world order. Even from the ancient times it was a

synonym for totality and universalism opposed to the polis-oriented idea of small

different entities, which existed fragmented and spited. Today, in the time of

postindustrial era, while the information becomes the strongest political instrument,

information technology and its outcomes like social networks, wiki-based systems and

the new ways for informal education start to be considered as big factors which will

eventually change the character of the world politics. The spread of information, which

is enabled by the rapid development of the Internet, means that the power will be more

widely distributed, and informal networks will undercut the monopoly of traditional

bureaucracy. The big ones such as: governments, corporations and international

organizations, all of them highly centralized and elitist, will lose their domination; will

have less power and new opponents in the small ones. On the other hand, the

voluntary forms of organization and individuals, due to the Internet, will have the

biggest benefit from the free motion of information and will become new players in the

worlds political arena. The creation of the cosmopolitan civil society, which will act on

a global level, has just started

1. Introduction:

To date, globalization has led to a spread of democratic regimes all over the world, a

considerable increase in the number of working or normative democracies.1 The worlds

elementary political values, the rule of law and the respect of basic human rights, are spread

on a global cosmopolitan level. Compared to the past, the current era can be called a free and

democratic era, where most of the humans enjoy the civilization benefits of the long

evolution of philosophical, political and legal ideas. However, current democracies and state

or inter-state systems are far from being perfect, because there is still big room for future

improvement and development, or in other words, for further evolution. Furthermore the

present world is faced with new challenges which are determined by the rapid development

of information technology. This paper is concentrating on the latest events that have shown

how the Internet revolution has started to change the environment around us and how this

revolution may affect our present and future lives.

In the following pages, the impact that the Internet revolution has in the lives of different

political entities will be discussed, starting from individuals to the more complex groups and

organizations, and we will try to prove that: The internet revolution is making the present

world more cosmopolitan.

That is the main thesis of this paper, which we will be discussed in the following pages. In

the first part there will be a very brief theoretical explanation of the term Cosmopolitism, its

origin, its different perspectives and the present most important institutional forms. Later on,

we will discuss the rise of the Internet and its impact in changing the societies and making the

world different. The rapid development of the informational technology has already made its

contribution in shifting the information and the power of information from the traditional

centers of power to the new internet based forms of voluntary organizations where simple

individuals can have an impact in the present world and even more influence in the flow of

history. All of this has been achieved thanks to the Internet and its opportunities for rapid

share of information and data. Also an emphasize will be put on the current most relevant and

recent examples of political issues directly connected with the rise of the Internet. Finally,

few words will be said for the further political and legal challenges related with the impact of

the internet revolution and its still unregulated gray zone of influence in the modern 21st

century societies.

1 Hauke Brunhorst, Normative Learning Processes, pp: 138

2. Different forms of cosmopolitism.

Cosmopolitism is very wide term, which can be interpreted very broadly. Because of that, we

think that in relation to the main idea of this paper, this term requires additional explication

and more precise definition. That is not an easy task, so we will try to take just a slice of the

big cosmopolitism pie and work just with one more precisely defined meaning of the

Cosmopolitism and the adjective cosmopolitan. It is obvious that there will be much more to

say, about cosmopolitism, for its history and its different meanings but in interest of the

limited space for this paper we will be as brief as possible, providing the reader only the basic

definitions and explanations, which will be used as starting premises for the final idea of this

paper.

2.1 Origins of the term Cosmopolitism

The word cosmopolitan derives from the Greek word kosmopolits (citizen of the world),

and, has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moral and socio-political

philosophy. The basic consensus shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human

beings, regardless of their political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a single

community, and that this community should be cultivated.2

Cosmopolitanism is an old project, and it is not specifically European, except in the notion

that combines the cosmos with the polis, the universe with the civil society. 3 For early Greek

stoic philosophers the cosmos was a polis because it was a perfect rational order, and to live

in accordance with it was the telos of the political animal (zoon politicon). 4

So far, it can be said that cosmopolitism is still a dynamic and open concept, which is

changing and reshaping over the time, and can be interpreted in various different ways. As

such, it can be argued that the Cosmopolitanism is a multiple invention of the evolution.5

Because of that the discussion for the future possible developments and forms of the

cosmopolitism and its directions, is always interesting and provocative.

2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/ (10.03.2011)

3 Hauke Brunhorst, Normative Learning Processes, pp 71

4 ibid

5 Hauke Brunkhorst, Normative Learning Processes, pp 72

2.2 Few different perspectives of the Cosmopolitism.

There are many different versions, ideas and perceptions of cosmopolitanism that interpret

this term in many different ways, some focusing on political institutions and legal theories,

others on moral norms or relationships, while others are focusing on the open markets or

different forms of freedom of cultural expression. As many authors tried to define the

cosmopolitism from different perspectives, different meanings were found, so in this part, the

following differentiation of few different (but not contradictory) interpretations of the

cosmopolitan ideas will be made:

First, we will start with the most common, moral interpretation of the cosmopolitism. It

consists of the philosophical perspective which puts all human beings at same level, as a

citizens of the world that are morally committed to an essential humanity above and beyond

the reality of ones particularistic attachments (such as nationality, kinship, religion).6 It

means that this interpretation of the cosmopolitism is closely related to the individuals and

their own perception about the others. Cosmopolitan is any person, who identifies himself

as a part of the universal set of values, worthy for all human beings, accepting the differences

between them and tolerating the different cultures and traditions. This set of universal values

is against the borders (of any kind) and mental frames that are created by them and for unity

of the human kind. This position argues that everyone deserves equal treatment and enjoys

the same basic human rights. In other words, this cosmopolitism has the openness, tolerance,

and equality as its own basic premises.

The second perspective in our short story about different kinds of Cosmopolitism is the

cultural cosmopolitism, that puts a strong emphasize on the problem of recognition difference

and the respect for the variety of cultures7. The problem of accepting the others, is in the

core of this cosmopolitan perspective. This is extremely important for the present globalized

world, as opposed value to the cultural nationalism and the rising hidden cultural racism,

which stands behind the idea about developed and civilized societies and cultures from one

side and the undeveloped and uncivilized on the other . For cultural cosmopolitism, there are

no such terms, the cultures can be different by not less civilized, and as such the differences

are welcomed This cosmopolitism has again the openness, tolerance, and equal treatment

as its basic premises, but in this case it is more oriented to the (different) groups and cultures,

6 Magdalena Nowicka, Maria Roviso ; Cosmopolitism in Practice ; Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009 ; pp 3.

7 Ibid, pp 4.

than to the individuals, as that was the case with the first example of the moral

cosmopolitism.

The third way of cosmopolitan reasoning is the economic cosmopolitism. It advocates free

trade and abolishing of all various customs and tariffs that can introduce a world in which

markets and not governments take care for the need of the people.8 Economic cosmopolitism

was arguing that everyone will have some benefit from the abolition of protectionism, and it

can be now argued that the idea which was avant-garde for its own time as a clear opposition

to the mainstream mercantile economic approach, today is a leading intellectual stream in the

economics. Furthermore, in the idea of ideal global market, war would be in no one's

interest9; instead of that, the nations and individuals will cooperate on the basis of their

economic interests. Following this, today the economic success of European Union, thanks to

the creation of the common market, is the best argument for this kind of economic

cosmopolitism.

Finally, there is probably the most essential cosmopolitan approach, which is the political

cosmopolitism as a synergy of all other already mentioned cosmopolitan views. Because of

that, it is also probably most difficult to define, what exactly cosmopolitism is, from this

political perspective. We can agree that the basic premises of the moral and cultural

cosmopolitism, the openness, tolerance and equal treatment to individuals and to groups,

together with the economic ideal about single global market are creating the bigger picture

of political cosmopolitism. The same can be interpreted as an idea of global governance,

where the initiative and power for human action will be organized from top to bottom, or

even more importantly with the idea about global civil society, where the distribution of

power and initiative is organized horizontally and voluntary in a more bottom to the top

shape.

Both concepts of political cosmopolitism previously mentioned are much more than just a set

if ideas; they are represented in the present world, and they have some influence on global

level. For instance, the concept of global governance is represented with the various

international government organizations, mainly UN and formal actions which are oriented to

the whole world and, as such, they can be named as cosmopolitan. However those

organizations stayed highly centralized and elitist and can hardly be considered as really

8 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/ (10.03.2011)

9 ibid

cosmopolitan in the sense of global civil action, or as what global citizenship as a civic

concept should be. Without doubt UN and some other international organizations in one point

of the past, especially in the post-World War Two period, had a huge impact in creating the

cosmopolitan ideas possible, but now at this current point, they can be hardly criticized10

and

are really ineffective It has decreased their legitimacy and opened space for new forms of

human organizing, which are less elitist and more horizontally and voluntary organized.

Evident example of that is the continuous rise of the non-governmental sector. Moreover non-

governmental organization, formal or informal ad hoc groups and movements have left their

city or national borders and started to act on a global level. But could the rise of global civil

society become modern political cosmopolitism of the 21th century? How do the

technological improvements and the Internet revolution influence on the rise of the same?

Some of the possible answers would be given later in the paper.

As a conclusion of this chapter, which had the intention to give us better definition and more

clear idea about cosmopolitism, we can say that, no matter from which perspective (moral,

cultural, economic or political) do we observe the idea of cosmopolitism, it is important to

understand that ancient idea about kosmopolits (citizen of the world) today is interpreted in

various ways. In order to clarify the final idea of this paper, we will further concentrate on the

political form of cosmopolitism, mainly on the civil, non-governmental one.

3 The Internet revolution and the rise of the new 21st century cosmopolitism

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are living in a fully-fledged world society

with a global system of states, world organisations, global media of dissemination, world

markets, world politics, and problems which concern everybody equally all over the world. 11

Influenced by a huge development in informational technology, the world is becoming

smaller and the distances (physical, cultural, intellectual) get every day smaller and

smaller. We can easily say that the Globalization is todays fashion of cosmopolitanism,

where the ideas about single community and polis for all start to be a reality. Everyday

10

More of the same criticism in the article Criticism of the United Nations available at the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_United_Nations 11

Hauke Brunkhorst, Normative Learning Processes, pp 68

millions of people are traveling, exchanging their knowledge and ideas and are living more or

less in one big single culture similar to the basic ideas about cosmopolitism in ancient times.

But how is Internet revolution related with the abstract cosmopolitan ideas which have taken

place in ancient times?

Further on, the impact of the Internet in making the world more cosmopolitan will be

discussed, about the positive and negative effects and influences of this process of

technological cosmopolitization, for which we will use some examples from the recent

history and finally we will say a word or two about future possible developments and

perspectives.

3.1 The Internet revolution

The rise of Internet in the recent twenty years was significant; moreover its impact for the

change of the world and societies was even bigger. The rapid spread of Internet, was the

fastest change in the history of the media. Web was the fastest-growing communications

medium in history, reaching its first 50 million users in four yearsas compared with 36

years for radio and 13 for television12

That is why the term Internet revolution has been

introduced.

Every day new technologies contribute to this permanent revolution, which makes the

possibility for transfer and exchange of information available for all. The Internet revolution

is not just a technological revolution, it is much more than that and it can be compared with

the Gutenberg's invention of printing in the mid-1400s13 or the Industrial Revolution in the

19th

century. The Internet revolution has a political and social dimension, because it changes

the character of world society and implies change in almost all segments of human life. The

various kinds of information that can be exchanged could be pictures, videos, knowledge,

various public or secret documents (the recent case of Wikileaks) and simply everything that

just before few decades was unimaginable to be transferred on intercontinental destinations in

just a friction of the second. People can send E-mails, read newspapers on line, discuss

12

John Naughton, CONTESTED SPACE: THE INTERNET AND GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY, 2001, pp 13

13 Clay Shirky, From 'why?' to 'why not?, The Guardian, 18 May 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/18/internet-future

different issues and organize themselves in various virtual or real forms of organization

Furthermore, they can talk with their relatives and friends on Skype even if they are

thousands kilometers away: parents can be virtually close to their children and lovers can

maintain long distance relationships This and much more is made possible thanks to the

everyday smaller and smarter electronic boxes, connected in the Internet network which are

changing our lives even when we are not completely aware of that. Finally, long distance

studying programs, on line business meetings, the emergence of on line markets (like

Amazon or E-bay), together with the social networking and blogosphere and many other

similar things were all unimaginable before 20 years, but now they are unavoidable reality for

all of us, which has strong effect on our everyday life.

In addition, the possibilities that Internet is allowing for the individuals and groups to

exchange various kind of information with rapid speed opened new possibilities for creation

new forms of organization. Even more important, because of its horizontal architecture it is

almost impossible to make the Internet subject of regulation and governance from the

national or international institutions, which makes it even more attractive in the context of

political activism and the new potentials for such activities thanks to the Internet revolution.

3.2 World Wide Web and its influence on the recent world changes

As we have already mentioned, the impact of the Internet in changing the world is enormous.

Due to the fact that it affects almost all parts of the world where humans live, we can also say

that the same effect is cosmopolitan and it stands by itself. Moreover the same effect helps in

making the world more cosmopolitan too. In the following part of the paper we will discuss

the recent world events which were strongly affected by the unlimited power of Internet and

how there effects are related with the main idea of this paper, about the huge influence of

Internet in making the world more cosmopolitan.

First we will mention the case with Wikileaks. Namely, it emerged as a global issue in the

final months of the year 2010, when the voluntary web page wikileaks.com published

shocking documents, which before have been kept as classified diplomatic and military

secrets. Suddenly the worlds public saw some of the dirty underwear of their democratically

elected representatives. The worlds political elites were mobilized, because of the new

danger of uncontrolled information, shared on the network and available for all common

citizens. The new media showed their power and stunning potential. In the same time the old

fashioned media (CNN, BBC) got a great opportunity to have great material for sensationalist

news, which can be (again!) sold for high profit, while the academia was caught unprepared

and confused.

All in all, there were various different reactions, some of them were positive and happy that

the secrets are available for the masses, some were against and strongly affected by the

unlimited flow of information In the same time, the usual theoreticians of conspiracy had

full hands of work for creating yet another one of their usual shocking conspiracies. The

debate was raised: do the citizens as holders of the sovereignty in their democratic regimes

have the right to know what their political elites are doing? Why do we need government

secrets in conditions when we think that the world democracy, compared with the past, is at

its peak? The answers can be various, but no one can argue against the fact that if the

transparency is one of the basic principles of the democracy, then wikileaks is the newest tool

for cosmopolitan global democratization. The fact that, fortunately or not, Wikileaks has

emerged against the big democracies, namely USA, does not make it less valuable. As one

Macedonian politician recently said, Wikileaks is the modern Robin Hood14

, who takes the

wealth from the rich, (in this case, the wealth is the information and the monopoly of the

same, held by the big ones) and gives it back to the poor, in this case the individuals, who

have been hitherto uninformed and in that sense treated as the small ones.

Wikileaks, was just a first step for creating a global civil society15

, which is voluntary, well

organized, with clear purposes and ideas, and opposed to the informational monopoly that

great countries and other multinational and supranational institutions have. Furthermore and

probably most important, this network is almost horizontally organized and as such has

achieved to create problems for the traditional, best functioning forms of formal, strictly

vertical organized entities. As such it showed the real power and the potential that the Internet

network has gained. Because of the above stated arguments, it can be argued that Wikileaks

is a pure cosmopolitan creature, thanks to the new opportunities that informational

technology provides us in the modern times of today.

14

Filip Petrovski, Julian Assange Modern Robin Hood, 18.12.2010, http://www.filippetrovski.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=231:julien-asanz-moderen-

robin-hud&catid=41:kolumna&Itemid=84 15

Ivica Bocevski, Panel discussion about the impact of Wikileaks, Skopje, 22.12.2010

Other important examples, where we can find the marvelous impact of the Internet in

organizing masses and articulating the public opinion are the most recent developments in the

Middle East and North Africa, mainly in Egypt and Libya. The protests which broke the

dictatorship regime of Hosni Mubarak and are on the way to do the same in Libya16

and the

other countries in that region, were organized and coordinated on line, by the social networks,

mainly Twitter and Facebook. Millions of people went out of their homes, on the streets,

asking for change and breaking the authoritarian regime. Authoritarian regimes tried, but did

not succeed to regulate and censure the Internet communications and protect themselves

The collective spirit was created with just few clicks, on line and the famous crowd

psychology of Gustav Le Bon showed its even bigger and uncontrolled power, this time with

the help of the Internet and the possibility for rapid share of information through the social

networks. These events showed that social networks are not just a toy for filling the free time

of millions of Internet users, but can be also used as a basic tool for social mobilization of the

masses (on a horizontal level!), asking for a change in their lives and bringing down their

illegitimate rulers and governments.

Without a doubt, this time the Internet (and not USA or UN or NATO!) showed its potential

for democratization and making the democratic values universal for the whole world.

3.3 The free software and the new left

The concept of free software dates back from the 80s, and consists of very unconventional set

of ideas which today have important impact in the shaping of the present Internet society, and

because of that we think that is worth to be mentioned in this paper.

Free software is a set of practices for the distributed collaborative creation of software source

code that is then made open and freely available through a clever, unconventional use of

copyright law.17

In other words, Free Software is a creation of millions of people working on

a voluntary basis, and using the Internet for redeveloping and sharing the skills and

16

In the time of writing this (10.03.2011), Libyan dictator Gaddafi is struggling to keep his dominance, by forbidding civil protests and killing civilians which are against his regime.

17 Christopher M. Kelty , Two bits: the cultural significance of free software , Duke University Press, 2008

knowledge in order to provide others free of charge and free for further developing software

which is good and functional in the same way as the ordinary software (Windows,

Macintosh) created by the big multinational profit-oriented companies. This means that the

concept of free software can be positioned against the big multinational software companies

as producers of the mainstream software and holders of the patents for their know-how

knowledge. Because of that, they were holders of the monopoly of the production and

development of software and made big, very big profits (Bill Gates). On the other hand, with

the emergence of the free software as a product of the small ones, the Internet becomes

more liberal and open environment. The monopoly of know-how power, which the

corporations have had before, was broken, thanks to the geeks18

, whose work changed forever

the Internet world and put a new dimension in the impact of the Internet revolution.

This is very important for our topic and for the emergence of the present from bottom to the

top cosmopolitism. Before its emergence, the Internet and the Informational technology

world in general was a product of few very powerful and rich entities (mainly Microsoft)

which had marvelous influence in it. Furthermore, they were protecting their intellectual

property with various copyright laws and patents and were restricting the further distribution

of the new technology only to certain individuals and societies which were able to pay for it.

Since the growing role of the Internet this knowledge becomes a civilizational benefit for all,

and as such too important to stay in the hands of a small group of people and enterprises, it

started to be non-sense that the right for further development and sharing is limited just to the

big ones. As a reaction of this, the free software activists developed the free software as a

bottom to the top project (made by individuals, not by corporations). Furthermore they

invented the concept of copy-left19 as a reaction to the closed and protectionist concept of

copyright. Because of this, the emergence of free software is very important for the

technological cosmopolitization because it broke the monopoly of the big ones, and as many

examples show in the past, changed the character of the society, mainly the character of the

Internet society.

As the anthropologist and the theoretician for free software Christopher M. Kelty puts it:

Free software appeared to be something shocking, something that economic history

suggested could never exist: a practice of creating software-good, software that was privately

18

The term Geek is considered to be more politically correct than the term Hacker, which often refers to some criminal activities, related with the use of the Internet. 19

More about this interesting play on words on the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

owned, but freely and publicly accessible. Free software, as its ambiguous moniker suggest is

both free from constraints and free of charge.20 Such characteristics seem to violate

economic logic and the principle of private ownership21

and as such it can be easily

concluded that, in the concept of free software, it is recognized as new leftist idea of the small

ones against the big ones, on a global level, without borders or other boundaries such as

software copyright laws and patents

To summarize: in the Internet world, virtual or real, free software activists and movement

should be considered as a new force from the left, a progressive monopoly-braking

alternative which matches with the basic cosmopolitan premises of openness, tolerance,

equality, creating the Internet into a civilizational benefit for all, even more decentralized and

available for the masses, independent from any center of power and all in all a lot more than

just capitalist invention created by narrow profit motivation.22

4. The Internet and the new legal and institutional challenges (how to regulate it)

After presenting the huge impact of the internet in the changing the present world and making

it more and more cosmopolitan, it is worth to rise a debate about the further challenges that

the Internet societies, which are affected by the mentioned technological cosmopolitization,

will face.

By this we mean the fact that the rapid technological development is really hard to follow by

the matching institutional and legal development. This is the most recent and relevant

challenge for the social scientists and legal theorists and in our opinion it is still not enough

examined. We showed that the state order is highly affected by the Internet and its

possibilities and purposely we did not put so much attention on the negative effects that

Internet can have. However we can agree that even if the impact of the Internet is marvelous

in creating a better world for all, it also has, as any other social phenomena, a negative side

because of which regulation is necessary needed.

As many other rapid changes in the history of the world, which changed the flow of history,

the Internet revolution affected various social relations and it should be followed by new, up

20

Christopher M. Kelty , Two bits: the cultural significance of free software , Duke University Press, 2008 21

ibid 22

Heiko Khoo, The Internet Revolution, http://www.marxist.com/internet-revolution-linux151099.htm

(10.03.2011)

to date institutional and legal framework. We can all agree on that. But the question is: how

the regulation should be made and what should be the subject of regulation? How to protect

the public good from not braking the basic liberalism premises, where is the point where

freedom of information flow is risking the security of the system? Can the Internet and its

rising power be the new Leviathan of the 21st century? How to limit its power? And that is

how the most frequent political and legal questions are raised again

It will be a duty of the new generation political and legal theorists to give answers to these

new questions, which will have to shape and create the new values and norms and will cope

with the latest social changes, impacted by the Internet revolution. This values and norms will

have to have effect on all people of the world in the new, 21st century Internet polis for all.

Cosmopolitan challenges were never more essential and compulsory then now, again, mainly

because of the Internet Revolution!

5. Conclusion

In this paper, it was shown that in the polycentric Internet environment which has got

everyday more and more participants, the old fashioned political forms of organization have

less and less monopoly of information and data. Following this, it was shown that simple

individuals are becoming ever stronger, and more able to reach beyond the borders of their

environment, city or country where they live.

The basic premises of all of the shown cosmopolitan perspectives, the openness, tolerance

and equality, can be easily found in the effects that Internet makes every day. Additionally,

the global values that are creation of the Internet, such as the free software movement, are

complementary with those of the modern soft left ideologies, so one may argue that the

Internet can be the most efficient tool not just for further mass democratization of the world,

but also a turning point, where the world will again turn left towards more tolerant and open

set of democratic ideas and practices, independent from the pure capitalism principles, such

as the protection of private property and the copyright laws. All in all, the next period will be

interesting to analyze, how the world will change, under the influence of the Internet

revolution and the possibilities which are now here, available with just one click.

The Internet revolution has changed the world rapidly. In just a few decades it created new

opportunities but also new problems which are now starting to be a challenge for the

institutional and legal framework of the societies. The character of the societies changed as

well. The traditional elites are not any longer the holders of the monopoly of information, and

much more information is available widely for many people, with just one click, while they

are sitting in their confortable armchairs at home. Because of that, The big ones such as:

governments, corporations and international organizations, all of them highly centralized and

elitist, may lose their domination; have less power and new opponents in the small ones.

Additionally, individuals and the voluntary forms of organization, due to the Internet, will

have the biggest benefit from the free motion of information and will become the new

players in the worlds political arena. Following that, we argued that: the Internet

revolution is making the present world more cosmopolitan. The citizens of the world will

have more power to organize, act and create strong bottom-up organized entities and as such

to challenge and change the character of the world politics. The rise of the global civil society

just has started

Bibliography:

Christopher M. Kelty , Two bits: the cultural significance of free software , Duke University

Press, 2008

Clay Shirky, From 'why?' to 'why not?, The Guardian, 18 May 2009,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/18/internet-future

Filip Petrovski, Julian Assange Modern Robin Hood, 18.12.2010,

http://www.filippetrovski.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=231:julien-

asanz-moderen-robin-hud&catid=41:kolumna&Itemid=84

Hauke Brunhorst, Normative Learning Processes

Heiko Khoo, The Internet Revolution, http://www.marxist.com/internet-revolution-

linux151099.htm (10.03.2011)

John Naughton, CONTESTED SPACE: THE INTERNET AND GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY,

2001

Joseph S. Nye, The Reality of Virtual Power, 02.02.2011, http://www.project-

syndicate.org/commentary/nye91/English

Magdalena Nowicka, Maria Roviso ; Cosmopolitism in Practice ; Ashgate Publishing

Limited, 2009

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmopolitanism/

(10.03.2011)