Power Shifts into Horizontal Network

Alec Ross’s official title is Senior Advisor for Innovation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but perhaps a better way to appreciate his role in the Obama administration, and indeed in the American political sector, is to note the simple statistic that he is the third “most-followed” official in the U.S. government, coming after only President Obama and Senator John McCain, in terms of number of Twitter users who regularly receive his wide-ranging, globe-trotting tweets. Ross does not just talk about public diplomacy in the digital age; he is pioneering it, by applying emerging information and networking technologies to foreign policy, international crises, and global diplomacy. He represents the cutting edge of 21st century American statecraft.

At the Korea Foundation’s invitation, Ross took a moment out from his conduct of digital statecraft, as a practicing diplomat, in order to talk about it to an enthusiastic and younger-than-usual audience at the 40th Korea Foundation Forum, held on March 16 in Seoul. His reflections on diplomacy in the Internet Age were refreshingly candid and nuanced, particularly for a diplomat, but, as Ross himself pointed out, he is still young!

The focal point of his presentation was, in fact, a very old theme, one of history’s oldest: power. Ross argues that the real power shift in our world today is not a geographic one, from West to East or North to South or U.S. to China or G-7 to BRICs. Rather, the most fundamental change going on in the world around us today, due to the transformative effects of new communication technologies, is from vertical hierarchies to distributed, horizontal networks; from states and corporations to individuals, entrepreneurs, and grassroots organizations. And therein lies the grand significance of emerging technologies and new media: power is devolving from big to small, and the kind of control that was possible in the 20th century is impossible today.

Two Faces of Digital Information Revolution

In light of his reputation as an influential “twitterati,” one would expect Ross to celebrate the virtues of information technology, social networking, new media, and the like. But Ross makes clear that he sees this information revolution as morally neutral. The devolution and distribution of power can be used for good, or for ill, and he provided case studies of both situations.

Ross uses a dramatic example from his own service at the State Department to demonstrate how powerful the impact of virtual government can be for the good: the innovative effort by the U.S. government to use text messaging to raise relief-aid funds for Haiti, after its devastating earthquake. Ross and a couple of his young State Department aides came up with a simple method for SMS fundraising the very night that the earthquake had struck. Hillary Clinton signed off on the idea, and, with almost no budgetary expenditures, a campaign was born. Within three weeks, the campaign had raised some $35 million from Americans who made $10 donations to help Haitians recover from their natural catastrophe.

Another major topic of his talk was, not surprisingly, the Arab Spring ― commonly hailed as the “Facebook Revolution.” Yet Ross emphasized that social media was not the cause of the revolution, even though they are fundamentally shaping its form and consequences. Rather, the causes of the revolution are traditional ones ― like socio-economic grievances and the desire for better governance. But Ross does point out profound ways in which social media have transformed the nature of political change, as demonstrated through the Arab Spring. Most notably, the Facebook revolutions are fast, they are diverse, and they are leaderless.

Regimes that had stood for decades across North Africa and parts of the Middle East collapsed in a matter of weeks or months under the subversive, insidious pressure of a social-media rebellion. And in addition to being extraordinarily fast, new revolutions, like those seen in the Arab Spring, bring together individuals and groups who would normally have nothing to do with one another, because online communities cut across age, religion, and gender in a way that “real” community life does not. Thus, older Muslim fundamentalist men joined together with young liberal secular women through social networking to amplify their contempt of the current leadership of their countries. And lastly, in these new-style revolutions, power can be exerted without leadership. There are no Thomas Jeffersons, no Che Guevaras, no Lech Walesas, or Vaclav Havels to be found ― despite the drama of the Arab Spring. Rather, revolutionary power is distributed among the rebellious virtual crowd.

Economic Success in the Internet Era

Thus, while supportive of the openness demanded by SNS revolutionary movements, Ross remains skeptical of what comes next. The speed and anonymity that strengthens revolution from below also makes it difficult for the revolutionary victors to establish a new, stable government in place of the old. And the absence of charismatic revolutionary heroes ― the fact that the Facebook revolutions are, ironically, faceless ― means that there is no one around whom societies can reorganize themselves around after the old regime is overthrown.

Ross argues that the Internet Age not only s a new kind of political power, but also demands a certain kind of economics, which boils down to a single concept: openness. The Internet cannot be controlled, he insists. The 21st century is a lousy time to be a control freak, Ross cautions. And in those countries where the government tries to control and restrict the flow of information and social network formation, economic performance will inevitably suffer. Pointing out that 40 percent of the U.S. GDP comes from companies that didn’t exist in 1980, Ross argues that countries like the U.S. cannot rely on manufacturing ― rather, future economic success depends on innovation, on the creation of new companies to exploit the opportunities generated by new technology.

Ross made only passing comments about the stark contrast between hyper-connected South Korea and Internet-free North Korea, but audience members pressed him for more of his thoughts during the Q&A. Asked about South Korea’s restrictions on online content related to the National Security Law, Ross argued that there is no longer anything to fear from propaganda in the Internet Age because it simply doesn’t work. Asked about ways to encourage a virtual opening of the North, Ross responded that it is a rare case where there is simply no “connectivity,” and without that, there is little that can be done.

John Delury
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University