Inspired by Lada Adamic‘s excellent Coursera on Social Network Analysis I thought it might be interesting to try to graph the network of Twiplomats – the world leaders or diplomats on twitter. Simply to see who follows who, who the central nodes in the network are, and whether hubs or communities have developed.
About a month ago I posted a proposal for an Open United Nations web platform. This is the idea of making global governance – the discourse, debates and decision-making at the UN and beyond – more transparent.
I thought it might be useful (to me, at least) to blog about what it’s like to try to start something like this despite having no idea what you’re doing. Here’s post number one.
Le mouvement “Open“ (“ouvert” en anglais) est en plein essor. Il existe actuellement des projets de gouvernements ouverts, de budgets participatifs, d’ “Open Charities” et même d’ “Open Corporates (EN)” (pour une plus grande transparence des entreprises).
Mais il n’y a toujours pas d’organisations internationales “ouvertes”: pas d’Open FMI, d’Open World Bank ou d’Open OMC.
1. Moleskines are expensive. Because they have to pay for lovely marketing like this:
2. The new Myspace looks a billion dollars. Which is considerably more than its share price.
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The ‘Open’ movement is in full force. There are now projects for Open Governments, Open Budgets, Open Charities, and even Open Corporates.
But, as yet, there are no Open International Organisations. No Open IMF, no Open World Bank, no Open World Trade Organization.
As well as writing my MA dissertation, I spent this summer interning with the United Nations Department for Public Information. And in particular with the social media ‘focal point’ in that department.
It made a lot of sense – I love a bit of a digital communication, I’m passionate about global affairs and I think social media changes the way the world will be governed.
The UN – in its central role as an inter-national organisation – is a particularly old-fashioned way of governing the world, but one that, by virtue of its wide membership is often said to be the most ‘legitimate’ way of setting global rules. (As opposed to something like the G20, for example.)
But legitimacy is granted by the public in complex ways, and if the UN doesn’t open up or engage with people on a more personal level, I believe it will struggle to remain relevant.
Produced by Hakan Altinay of the Brookings Institution and directed by Jian Yi, this film is probably the first documentary on the development or lack of development of ‘global civics’. That’s an ugly phrase, but it basically concerns the idea of global rights and responsibilities for all individuals on Earth.
The film tries to debate whether there is such a thing as global citizenship or a global community. Can people on one side of the world owe a responsibility to, and demand respect for their rights from, others on the other side of the world? I’d say that a positive response to that question shows the development of a ‘Globopolis’ – this should definitely be a word. You heard it here first.
Joe blogs.