Difficulties clarifying the differences between tribes and networks — a continuing challenge for TIMN

One of the challenges for TIMN is clarifying the distinction between the tribal (T) and network (N) forms. I’ve written about this several times (esp. 2006, pp. 22–26). Yet, my efforts remain incomplete, not entirely satisfactory.

The differences seem sharp, easy to draw, if we look at an interesting blog about militant tribalism in South Asia whose motto is “It’s the Tribes, Stupid” — then compare it to an insightful blog whose theme is network-weaving in American government, business, and civil-society circles. The first blog is clearly about pre-modern practices, the second about modern ones — much in line with the evolutionary thrust of TIMN.

But the differences are often not on display so starkly. And besides, the analysts at the second blog may claim that the tribes at the first blog are really just ancient networkers.

The TIMN table I posted a couple posts back summarizes my current view of the attributes of the two forms. And my last post added a new distinction that seems to help, by associating tribes with club goods and networks with collective goods. But even so, the differences between tribes and networks remain fuzzier than, say, between hierarchies (I) and markets (M), or tribes and markets.

Here are some reasons why:

One is simply that the bright sides of the two forms do indeed have much in common. Both tend to be egalitarian and consensual, even democratic. Yet, differences exist amid these commonalities. For example, classic tribes, even when being democratic, do not tolerate minority dissent or minority rights once a decision is taken. Information-age network actors take a more complex approach to problem-solving than do tribally-oriented actors, and there may be endless ways for minority views to remain alive, regroup, and find expression.

A second reason is the very term network. It remains the best I’ve seen for naming this emerging, information-age form. But as I’ve critiqued at length several times elsewhere, it’s also a favorite term of sociologists who view all forms of organization as social networks. And the term has another history of being used by anthropologists to define tribes as kinship networks. These usages may muddle what people presume when they see the word. I continue to hope that a better, more distinctive term will eventually appear for naming the futuristic +N form.

A third reason is that the +N form is still emerging. The network form has received voluminous attention for two decades now; and many analysts act quite sure about its growing significance. But, in my view, it’s not entirely clear yet what the +N form is all about and exactly what kind of realm will take shape around it, though I’ve specified my speculations elsewhere. I’d say its emergence is at about the same stage that the +M form was in the 17th–18th century — a time of growing momentum, but well before it leads to a separate system and has its Adam Smith.

A fourth reason is that every TIMN form seems to have a tribal tone at first. This could go without saying for the T form. It is also obviously true for the +I form; it grew out of clan-based chiefdoms and hereditary claims to rule, before it became a professionalized form of organization. But it also appears to be true for the +M form; many early trading, banking, and craft enterprises were family-based and kin-biased. As for the next form, today’s +N proponents often act as though they belong to special tribes, bound by memes, not genes. Decades may pass before this tribal tone dissipates, and the form’s deep nature and systemic potential become fully evident.

Which leads to a fifth reason why it’s difficult to distinguish sharply between tribes and networks in today’s milieu: I keep seeing that some ideological orientations, particularly on the Left, slide easily between tribe and network notions. This is particularly the case where the rise of networks is portrayed as favoring high ideals, such as collective sharing, that hark back to a golden construct of communal tribalism. The result is a kind of conflation of the tribe and network forms — as though tribes were networks 1.0, or the new networks are tribes 2.0. This clouds trying to identify and discuss in what ways +N should turn out to be a distinctly new form of organization.*

Meanwhile, distinguishing between tribes and networks is not just a concern for TIMN. It appears to be a concern elsewhere too, for example among P2P advocates and Global Guerrillas theorists. Though they represent different schools of thought, both are interested in how tribal and network actors are resisting state and market actors, and how new combinations of tribal and network forces may serve people’s hopes for the future. For P2P theory, this means working for a peer-produced commons and peer governance. For GG theory, it means building resilient communities. Does it make a difference for such analyses whether tribes and networks are conflated, or defined distinctly? It certainly makes a difference for TIMN and its goal of figuring out how best to project the rise of quadriform T+I+M+N societies.

I see no quick easy way to settle all this. Thus, against this background, I scan and grasp for any clarificatory insight that comes along. Such was the case with the distinction between club and collective goods, noted earlier. Now I’ve spotted something else: the idea of “collaborative community” as presented in a paper by Paul Adler and Charles Heckscher. It looks helpful for thinking about +N. I blurbed about a table in it a couple posts ago, and I initially meant for this post to focus entirely on imparting a summary and discussion of its full text. But instead, I’ve rattled on about reasons why it’s been difficult to differentiate between tribes and networks. So the next post will focus on the Adler and Heckscher paper, in an effort to dissect whether it really is about +N, or again about tribes in disguise.

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FOOTNOTE:

* I continue to hold in theoretical reserve, to be discussed at another time, the possibility that there are only three cardinal forms of organization, not four. The three would be networks, hierarchical institutions, and markets (NIM). That I keep wondering about this is hinted by noting that the new information-age networks may be tantamount to tribes 2.0, and classical tribes to networks 1.0. At first glance, this might be a welcome formulation for some folks, especially on the Left. But it may have curious implications: What comes later may be a spiral featuring hierarchies 2.0, followed by markets 2.0. Just a thought, worthy of at least a footnote here. Meanwhile, I prefer to stay on track with TIMN; I think it’s more correct than NIM.

TIMN table details: learning that tribes are about “club goods” — and rethinking “collective goods”

[UPDATE — August 11, 2013: Just a quick note to put down a marker for a new idea that may eventually deserve its own post. It occurs to me that “member goods” might be a more appropriate term than “club goods” for getting at what this post is about. Member is a broader, more inclusive term than club; families, clans, tribes, and other such groupings, including clubs and teams, consist of members. I don’t find, using Google, that anyone else has fielded the term. But it seems better than the alternatives I’ve tried so far (e.g., club goods, household goods). If sensible, then that means the corresponding line in my TIMN table should distinguish between member goods, public goods, private goods, and common or commons goods.]

This post concerns just one row in the TIMN table displayed in my prior post: the row about the “Key Product” for each TIMN form. Since I’m not an economist and not much interested in the production of goods, I’ve regarded that row as necessary but also boring — yet perplexing too, as indicated by question marks with the entries under the Tribes and Networks columns.

Figuring out what goes in that row has just become a lot more interesting.

Thanks to an unusual reference (and link) within a posting at the Zero Intelligence Agents blog by Drew Conway, I’ve learned about a kind of collective good known as “club goods” — where something is held in common for members, but everyone else can be excluded, unlike the case with a true commons. I knew about the concept of “clubs” and have regarded them as mini-tribes or mini-clans, worthy of note but not elevation in the TIMN framework. But this concept of club goods is another matter; it’s serendipitously intriguing, especially for improving that TIMN table.

As the “Key Product” of Tribes, the table presently lists “shared gifts” (an earlier version listed “household goods”). I now see that “club goods” would be a better entry. Indeed, not only reciprocal gift-giving and household goods, but also arranged marriages, dowries and brideprices, food stores, feasts, and a lot of other tribal/clan matters fit readily under the club-goods category.

The lineage of this concept traces back to a seminal paper by James Buchanan, “An Economic Theory of Clubs” (1965). What is extra-interesting, however, is the adjacent table about club goods that depicts its relationship to other kinds of goods. The table — a screen-grab (click to enlarge) — is from an article at Wikipedia, but appears to come from a similar table classifying types of economic goods posted at EconPort, (and may come originally from an economics textbook by Greg Mankiw).

What a clear, concise table! And it does more than just point me to club goods.

The existing entries for the Key Product under the Institutions and Markets columns — “public goods” and “private goods” respectively — remain correct. But the adjacent table, plus other writings I’ve perused in recent months, suggest that the entry under Networks should be revised. It presently says “collective goods.” That’s not necessarily wrong — it conveys the right spirit — but it is too broad, too indefinite. Club goods and public goods are often collective goods. So too are goods called “common goods” and “common-pool resources” — also known simply as “the commons.”

This latter set of goods — I prefer the less-used term “commons goods” for it — may be what most pertains to the Network cell of the TIMN table. Turning to that term would bring that entry, and thus the table, better into line with those thinkers who believe that the future belongs to the rise of a peer-produced, peer-governed information commons (e.g., Yochai Benkler, David Bollier), who are working to identify better organizational designs for managing common-pool resources (e.g., Elinor Ostrom), and who are building online endeavors on behalf of the commons (e.g., P2P Foundation, Cooperation Commons, The Commoner). Making this change would thus also respond to criticisms that I neglected to notice the rising importance of the commons and its theorists in my cyberocracy paper (2008).

So, if I were to repost the entire TIMN table today, it would be with those revisions about club goods and commons goods. But that may not be the end of the story. Commons goods are not specific to only that one cell in the TIMN table. Tribes often speak in terms of commons goods; at least that’s true for many indigenous-peoples organizations. Some public goods are tantamount to commons goods. Even market actors — notwithstanding the private sector’s historic disrepute in leftist circles for enclosing the ancient commons and converting it into private property — depend on promoting particular kinds of common goods, such as common standards for transportation, communications, and power.

Furthermore, there are still some other ideas on the rise. A popular notion among some policy analysts and activists is “global public goods” — but it may be too resonant with global institutions to be the best entry for this TIMN table. Potentially more interesting may be the notion of a global ecumene. Indeed, the opposite of the club (and being clubby) is not so much the commons as the ecumene (and being ecumenical). Perhaps “ecumene goods” or “ecumenic goods” would make for a sensible entry eventually.

Once again, this is a new area and a new set of concepts for me. I am open to suggestions and further discussions. Funny how one row in a table may become so pivotal. Funny too how roaming around the blogosphere can lead to insights missed through deliberate scholarly reading.

Organizational forms compared: my evolving TIMN table vs. other analysts' tables

FINAL UPDATE — May 12, 2016: I have just posted a revised expanded iteration of this post. Which means this post is now obsolete and superseded. So please go here instead:

http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2016/05/organizational-forms-compared-my.html

Onward.

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[UPDATE — October 18, 2013: I’ve added figures and ideas fielded by Allen Paige Fiske and by Clay Spinuzzi, plus corrected a chronological mis-order.]

[UPDATE — September 25, 2012: I've added a figure and discussion about Kim Cameron's and Robert Quinn's "competing values framework".]

[UPDATE — January 23, 2012: I've added a table about a distinction Jane Jacobs (1992) made between “guardian” and “commercial” syndromes.]

[UPDATE — June 16, 2009: I’ve added a table from a remarkable paper by Paul Adler and Charles Heckscher. (Many thanks to the orgtheory.net blog for pointing it out.) I’ve also edited my bulleted overview remarks a bit.]

[UPDATE — June 15, 2009: Apropos tables, over at the growing changing learning creating blog, innovation specialist Tom Haskins has done a series of interesting posts with tables — more than a dozen, starting here, with possibly more to come — on how TIMN may relate to other frameworks, notably the Cynefin framework about problem-solving situations. Whereas I pitch TIMN mainly at the societal level, Haskins is interested in how TIMN and other frameworks may be useful for analyzing pressures and opportunities for innovative change at micro-levels — e.g., groups, firms, other small enterprises. I compliment him on his interesting efforts, but I also have some doubts and would suggest revisions. After one of his posts became the subject of a post at the P2P Foundation blog, I used that to offer some comments. Haskins added a reply. Our exchange was later re-posted here.]

[UPDATE — May 21, 2009: For some critical commentary and discussion about this post with Michel Bauwens at the P2P Foundation blog, go here. Many thanks also to ZenPundit for making this post “recommended reading” a few days ago. And on another note, yes, I edited the name of this blog; let’s try Visions from Two Theories instead of Apropos Two Theories for a while.]

[UPDATE — May 19, 2009: I added three more tables to the appendix.]

What follows are draft paragraphs for introducing an eventual chapter. There is some repetition with what I posted in a summary overview earlier. But this post offers more detail and some new elaboration. The table in particular is more elaborate (and I’m still wondering how best to lay it out and fill it in).

The main purpose is to post the table, along with a bunch of alternative tables by other analysts in the appendix. I’ve seen at least a dozen other such tables, but just don’t have them as handy. Suggestions for additional tables (and directions for locating them) are welcome, even months from now. I’d eventually like to have about a dozen tables laid out. (By the way, click on a table to enlarge it in a separate window.)

Most such tables are about hierarchies, markets, and/or networks. Some analysts include other forms as well, such as heterarchies, or use other terms, such as peer-to-peer (P2P). Far as I know, mine is the only table that treats tribes as an equally distinct, separate form.

My notion is that it can be instructive to have various tables available in one spot for side-by-side comparison. It provides a way to highlight differences in underlying assumptions and dimensions.

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Table 1 (click to enlarge) summarizes many points that have been made (plus some not yet made) about the four TIMN forms. Its details indicate their differing strengths and limitations.


As an overview, the table conveys that each form, once it is subscribed to by many actors, is more than a mere form — it develops into a realm, even a system of thought and action. Each form embodies a distinctive cluster of values, norms, and codes of conduct; and these must be learned and disseminated for a form to take root and a realm to grow around it. Indeed, each form’s rise spells an ideational and structural revolution. Each is a generator of order, for each defines a set of interactions (or, if you prefer, transactions) that are attractive, powerful, and useful enough to create a distinct realm of activity, or at least its core. Each becomes the basis for a governance system that is self-regulating and ultimately self-limiting. And each tends to foster a different kind of worldview, for each orients people differently toward social space, social time, and social action. Indeed, what is rational — how a “rational actor” should behave — is different for each form; no single “utility function” suits all of them. Each attracts different kinds of personalities.

Thus each form becomes associated with high ideals as well as new capabilities. As each develops, it enables people to organize to do more than they could previously. Yet all the forms are ethically neutral — as neutral as technologies — in the sense that they have both bright and dark sides, and can be used for good or ill. The tribal form, which should foster community solidarity and mutual caring, may also breed a narrow, bitter clannishness that can justify anything from nepotism to murder in order to shield and strengthen a clan and its leaders. The hierarchical institutional form, which should lead to professional rule and regulation, may also be used to uphold corrupt, arbitrary dictators. The market form, which should bring free, fair, open exchanges, may also be distorted and rigged to allow unbridled speculation and profiteering. And the network form, which can empower civil society and its nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), can also serve to strengthen “uncivil society” — say, by enabling terrorist groups and crime syndicates to organize transnational networks. Thus, it is not just the bright sides of each form that foster new values and actors; their dark sides may do so as well. As Jane Jacobs (Systems of Survival, 1992, esp. p. 151) observed about what she calls the guardian (+I) and commercial (+M) syndromes, “monstrous moral hybrids” can take shape if they are mingled improperly.

Finally, note the bottom three rows. One points out that each form has a different architecture: Tribes, with their interlaced lineages and marriages, resemble circles and labyrinths (not to mention networks and webs). Hierarchical institutions are often depicted as pyramids or stovepipes, and markets as atomized billiard balls moving freely in space. Nowadays, information-age networks are said to resemble geodesic domes and “buckyballs” (after Buckminster Fuller). The next row observes that each form corresponds to a different aspect of anatomy: tribes to a body’s skin or look; hierarchical institutions to a musculo-skeletal system (as Thomas Hobbes implied); markets to a cardio-pulmonary circulatory system (as Karl Marx noted); and networks to a sensory nerve system (as Herbert Spencer thought, and many writers still suppose today). These are only analogies and metaphors, but they help impart the distinctive nature of each form.

The last row notes that each form is associated with a different information and communications technology revolution. In brief, the rise of the tribal form depended on a symbolic revolution: the emergence of language and early writing (runes, glyphs), enabling the storytelling that is central to tribal cultures. The rise of the hierarchical institutional form — as in the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church, the absolutist states, and their vast administrative structures — reflected a mechanical revolution: the development of formal writing and printing, first penned script and later the printing press. This was important not only for keeping records and issuing commands, but also for inscribing laws that chiefdoms and states could apply to growing populations who were not kinfolk and often not well-known to each other. Next, the rise of the market form and its far-flung business enterprises was sped by the electrical technologies of the 19th century: the telegraph, telephone, and radio. Today’s spread of the network form extends from the digital revolution and its technologies, notably the Internet, fax machines, and cellular telephones, which are especially empowering for civil-society associations around the world and across political spectrums.

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Appendix: Other Tables about Organizational Forms

For comparison and inspirational purposes, here are screen grabs (again, click to enlarge) and a little discussion about other tables. These are the ones I have handy; I know I have more somewhere, and I’ll add them as I find them. If anyone is reading, suggestions are welcome.

There are many write-ups about organizational forms, as I have discussed elsewhere. But not every write-up is accompanied by a table (or figure, or chart). This constrains whose ideas may get presented here. Indeed, some of the best write-ups are devoid of tables.

A few generalizations appear to cut across these tables:

• The treatment of hierarchies and markets (and their cognates) is clearer and more standardized than is the treatment of networks.
• Where networks (and their cognates) are discussed, the tables and related text are often more about social than organizational networks — and the analyst may not be clear about the distinction.
• “Trust” is often listed as an attribute of networks, but not of hierarchies or markets — a sign the analyst may be thinking more in terms of social than organizational networking. And it’s not a good sign; in my view, some kind of trust is involved in each and every form — it is not unique to networks.
• Tribes (or cognates, like clans) rarely show up as a distinct form, but their attributes often show up listed under the network form, especially when the analyst is thinking in terms of social networks.
• There is little consistency to the order in which the forms are listed. Usually because the analyst is a sociologist or economist thinking in terms of the classic dichotomy between hierarchies and markets, either markets or hierarchies usually comes first, and networks later on the right side of a table. But I have seen tables where networks are given the middle position, especially if the analyst views it as an in-between or hybrid form. It depends on the analyst’s focus and rationale. In contrast, I have a specific, evolutionary order in mind: TIMN.

From William Ouchi’s article about clans as an alternative to bureaucracies and markets (1980 — walled but lately here):

Ouchi is a management professor and strategist. This table (p. 137) summarizes his proposal (p. 132) that: “Markets, bureaucracies, and clans are therefore three distinct mechanisms which may be present in differing degrees, in any real organization.” With this, the paper offers a rare early effort to add clans — a variant of tribes — to the established transaction-cost view that hierarchies and markets are the key alternatives. Accordingly, clans may, under some conditions, offer a better way to create efficiencies and avoid organizational failures from a transaction-cost perspective. The conditions Ouchi identifies are where harmony is essential — i.e., where teamwork and a strong sense of community are needed, and individualistic opportunism must be avoided — more so than is the case with hierarchies and markets. His concept of clans draws on Durkheim’s concept of organic solidarity, and he notes how common this was in preindustrial enterprises. But his focus is its rising significance in modern high-tech industries, notably in Japan.



From Walter Powell’s seminal paper on networks as neither hierarchies nor markets (1990):


This is a classic table, the first by an economic sociologist to add networks to the traditional dichotomy of hierarchies and markets as the paradigmatic options that business enterprises face. His particular focus was on craft and high-tech industries. What the table (p. 300) indicates is that, by comparison, network designs are (more?) relational, reputational, open-ended, and nimble. Among the points that the table misses but the text notes is that networks may also excel at gathering and processing information. I also like the point in the text (p. 303) that “In essence, the parties to a network agree to forego the right to pursue their own interests at the expense of others.” However, this kind of behavior is not unique to networks — it often crops up in other organizational settings as well.


From Jane Jacobs book Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (1992):

Jacobs lays out the “guardian moral syndrome” and the “commercial moral syndrome” as the two key “systems of survival” that lie behind successful social evolution.  For each syndrome, she specifies fifteen precepts (see chart).  Her view tracks with TIMN, for the syndromes correspond roughly to TIMN’s institutional and market forms.  She refers to practices that correspond to TIMN’s tribal form; but rather than separate them out, she embeds them mostly under the guardian syndrome — in my view a shortcoming that makes it more (T) tribal than (+I) administrative in some of her applications.  But I like very much her emphasis on keeping the syndromes separate and in balance.  For additional discussion, see my post about her concept of “monstrous moral hybrids”.


About Alan Paige Fiske’s work on “four elementary forms of sociality” and Relational Model Theory (1992, 2004):

Fiske, a behavioral anthropologist, posits that all social relationships, minor and major, reduce to four forms of interaction: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. People develop their capacities for social interaction in mostly that order, from infancy onward. His own table about these forms is large and detailed; so I’m displaying a simplified table by a proponent. Fiske’s sharing, ranking, and pricing forms correspond to TIMN’s tribal, hierarchical, and market forms. But his equality-matching form, which is mainly about equal-status peer-group behavior, does not correspond to any single form — some attributes fit the network form, but other attributes (e.g., reciprocity, feuding, revenge) fit better under TIMN’s tribal or market form. So the overlap is limited. I hope to do a full post about his interesting work someday.


From Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps’s book on the rise of virtual teams (2000):

In this Toffleresque table (p. 36), management strategists Lipnack and Stamps highlight what they regard as the four ages of organization, beginning millennia ago. The first age is about small groups, but in the text these are equated with nomads and tribes — terms I prefer. The authors explain their distinction between hierarchy and bureaucracy, but I question its significance. Moreover, why markets are not featured as a form of organization remains a mystery to me — but it has something to do, I suppose, with their emphasis on the internal workings of organizations. In any case, the table barely does justice to their ideas. They were early, articulate pioneers in spotting that an “age of networks” was dawning, and in analyzing the rise of “virtual teams.” And I like their point (p. 46) that “The postindustrial model is inclusive of old models, not a replacement for them.”


From Bob Jessop’s paper on governance and metagovernance (2003):

Jessop writes about governance (and what he calls metagovernance) for solving coordination problems, particularly in the European Union. In this chart about the major modalities of governance (p. 3), the terms he prefers — exchange, command, and dialogue — correspond, as two rows indicate, to markets, hierarchies, and networks respectively. I like that it has a row about spatial-temporal horizons — a rarity among these kinds of tables, but an interest of mine. I also like that it has two rows about system failure, a focus of this particular paper.


From Mark Considine and Jenny Lewis’s paper about bureaucracy, network, and enterprise models (2003 — walled):


This paper and its chart (p. 133) are focused on alternatives ways of delivering services — the evolution from traditional bureaucratic, to new corporate, market, and network models of governance. A key finding is that “A new corporate-market hybrid (called ‘enterprise governance’) and a new network type have become significant models for the organization of frontline work in public programs” (p. 131), particularly in Europe and around the British Commonwealth. It’s a pertinent finding, but I don’t find the chart all that illuminating. Moreover, the write-up emphasizes trust and a shared organizational culture as being essential to network designs. This is not a wrong point, but as I’ve already indicated, it may well be that in the final analysis all organizational systems rest on trust and a shared acceptance of the culture most suited to the functioning of that form (even if it is a hierarchy).


From Federico Iannacci and Eve Mitleton–Kelly’s paper on heterarchies (networks) as lying between hierarchies and markets (2005):

This table (online, unpaginated) is from two scholars at the London School of Economics interested in complexity theory, information technology, and open-source networks. It represents their effort to add heterarchies to the usual dichotomy about their being two major forms of organization. What’s unusual here is that they locate heterarchies in between hierarchies and markets. Moreover, they claim that many heterarchies consist of nested hierarchies bound together by loosely coupled networks. So, heterarchies are networks, but not simply so. Indeed, they suggest in a couple spots that “Networks might just be sets of social practices rather than meta– or new organizational forms.” In any case, the table makes the point that heterarchies offer coordination processes different from what’s offered by hierarchical firms or autonomous market actors. And they see this as a boon for developments like open-source software.


From Paul Adler’s and Charles Heckscher’s remarkable paper on collaborative community (2005):

This table (p. 16) distinguishes three approaches to coordination: hierarchy, market, and community. The authors focus is the corporate business realm. Their concern is that hierarchy and market ways of doing things have eroded community ways far more than is desirable, especially now that collaborative knowledge production is becoming paramount. What’s needed is a new kind of community principle to go along with the hierarchy and market principles. By “community” they mean much that other analysts mean by “network” and related terms — thus their trifold array is quite standard. But their key point is unusual: They advise against returning to the old form of community, because it would draw sharp distinctions between insiders and outsiders, protect traditional values, and stifle individual autonomy and creativity. Instead, what’s needed is the development of a new, higher form — “collaborative community” — that would engage participants who have multiple identities, stimulate the collective creation of shared value, and place trust in peer dialogue, review, and accountability. Indeed, they say (p. 37), “without a rebuilding of communal institutions, the potential of a knowledge economy cannot be realized.” Their best examples presently lie in the scientific community and the open-software movement. (Of all the papers I have blurbed about here, I am especially taken with this one. More on this in a future post.)


From Karen Stephenson’s recent article commending heterarchy over hierarchy and network (2009 — walled, but maybe here or here):

This paper strives to make a useful point under a concept of heterarchy: that performance may improve when hierarchical organizations are interconnected by collaborative networks. Yet, the table (p. 6) and some of the text is conceptually problematic, as several of the invited counter-point commenters indicate. The paper’s notion of a network is often more social than organizational — it’s even called a tribal form at one point. And the notion of heterarchy is more what others view as some kind of network — as an organizational network, as a hybrid of a hierarchy and network (a networked organization), or as a networked set of otherwise separate hierarchical organizations (“silos”). Other analysts would probably blend the network and heterarchy columns into one; or perhaps make a case that heterarchy is not so much a distinct major form as a hybrid or amalgam of other forms. It’s good to see the mention of collective goods in the heterarchy column. But it remains unclear to me why networks are associated with personal interests. And there’s that word “trust” again; I’ve already mentioned my view of that. Even so, the text makes a point I like that is not reflected in the table — that heterarchies, not to mention networks, can operate perversely in some contexts, and may have a dark as well as a bright side.


From Kim Cameron’s and Robert Quinn’s work on the “Competing Values Framework” (esp. 2006 — figure on p. 16):

While early versions (in the 1980s) of this framework about organizational culture do not align well with TIMN, the current version does — with its four quadrants about Clan, Hierarchy, Market, and Adhocracy, so long as adhocracies are viewed as networks.  One criticism: they equate Clan with collaboration and Adhocracy with creativity, but adhocracies are as much about collaboration as are clans, just in a different way.  Another qualm:  theirs is not quite an evolutionary framework about corporate culture, but their presentation makes it seem that Hierarchy evolved first, Market second, Clan third (à la modern Japanese business models), and Adhocracy fourth (because of the digital information revolution).  While their point about Japan is sensible, a longer TIMN-type time perspective implies that family/clan models preceded bureaucratic hierarchical ones.  Yet, much of their framework is in keeping with TIMN dynamics:  They observe that organizations may be constructed around a dominant form, yet may draw on the other forms to suit particular goals and contexts.  They observe that the four value systems embody opposed and competing principles; and that using them in effective combinations means dealing with the necessity of paradox, the need for congruence, and the ever-present challenges of tensions and trade-offs.  Here’s a quote (pp. 21-22):  “The two upper quadrants share in common an emphasis on flexibility and dynamism, whereas the two bottom quadrants share an emphasis on stability and control. The two left-hand quadrants focus on internal capability whereas the two right hand quadrants focus on external opportunity. What is important to remember is that the quadrants represent clusters of similar elements and similar orientations, but those elements and orientations are contradictory to those in the diagonal quadrant. The dimensions in the framework, in other words, separate opposite, competing, or paradoxical elements on the diagonal.”  (Thanks to Clay Spinuzzi for spotting this framework.)  [UPDATE — October 17, 2012:  For more about comparing CVF and TIMN, see Spinuzzi's post and our discussion in the comments section here.]


From Clay Spinuzzi’s briefing on “Toward a Typology of Activities” (2013):

Spinuzzi, a professor of rhetoric and writing who is keenly interested in networks, has lately “been trying to characterize different sorts of activities and particularly how hybrids of those types lead to internal contradictions.” His preliminary typology looks at group activities according to whether an object of activity is defined internally or externally, and tacitly or explicitly. This leads to a two-by-two matrix — thus his typology — about clans, hierarchies, markets, and networks, as presented in the adjoining graphic. He lists seven main sources for this typology, of which five are among those above, including TIMN. As his work develops, he intends to examine hybrids — activities that combine two or more of the four types — with an eye out for “interference patterns and internal contradictions”. [UPDATE — 10/15/14: Spinuzzi’s article, “Toward a typology of activities,” now appears in the Journal of Business and Technical Communications, 2014, as specified here.]

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Blog roll: a list of pertinent blogs:

I’ve gone looking for blogs where organizational forms get discussed — all the forms, not just networks. Here are the main ones that I have found so far:

• Clay Spinuzzi
• Global Guerrillas
• JeffVail.net
• orgtheory.net
• P2P Foundation
• TNT — The Network Thinker
• Wirearchy

Again, suggestions are welcome, if/when someone interested is reading, even if its months ahead from now.

Finally, don’t be surprised if I make small edits to this post in the few days after it appears. I seem to have a tendency to do that.

Cuba: ready to exit its evolutionary cul-de-sac? — a TIMN perspective

I haven’t worked on Cuban issues for over ten years. But I still discuss Cuba and Castro with former co-authors. And I perked up when I saw that the Obama administration was offering to hold new talks with Cuban officials. I also recalled that I had once drafted a few paragraphs about Cuba’s system and Castro’s worldview from a TIMN perspective. As a result, I’ve gone and revisited my old notes, done a bit of new reading, and written the following little essay.

It may seem rather hard on the Castro regime and Fidel’s views, but that is not my main intent. I think Cuba is an interesting case for illuminating some theoretical principles that may be important for building the TIMN framework and understanding its implications for how to achieve social evolution. Fidel represents violations and departures from many of those principles:

• Castro is about centralization and control, whereas TIMN is also about decentralization and decontrol.
• Castro is about the fusion of two forms (T and I) and the rejection of a third (M). TIMN is about the balanced, separated, regulated growth of each and all forms.
• Castro is about the bright sides of two forms (T and I) and only the dark side of the third (M). TIMN involves recognizing that all the forms have both bright and dark sides — and dealing with them.

I plan to be clear about all that and more in a new theoretical post before long. For now, I mention it as background for showing where I’m headed — and to hope that this post is of interest to readers other than maybe a few Castro/Cuba specialists.

* * * * *

One aim of the TIMN framework is to provide clarity as to why systems like Cuba’s are so limited — in fact, self-limiting. The framework also shows how to think about Cuba’s future from an evolutionary standpoint.

Briefly stated: In the name of revolution, Fidel Castro committed a strategic error of devolutionary proportions. He rejected developing Cuba in T+I+M directions, and fell back to construct a hyper T+I system. If this could have served to prepare Cuba for an eventual new transition to a +M system, the outlook for post-Castro Cuba might be promising. But his regime’s practices have not assured that Cuba will get a +M transition right, even though it is the inevitable next phase. Meanwhile, +N forces are even more suborned and restricted, especially among civil-society NGOs.

The current hoopla about U.S.–Cuban relations provides an opportunity for elaborating on this theme.

The current policy juncture

It is sensible for the Obama administration to alter U.S. policy in order to increase information and communications flows to Cuba, as it did in a recent memorandum. We — Cuba expert Edward Gonzalez and I — have long advised going in this direction:

[T]he present policy should be sustained but augmented with a parallel policy to increase information flows and build communication bridges to Cuba. . . This seems to be the best prescription for continuing to deal with a Fidel Castro who cannot change with the times, while preparing for a post-Castro Cuba that is bound to go through profound changes, requiring yet another U.S. policy. (Gonzalez and Ronfeldt, 1992, p. xii)

We recognized early on that the information revolution does not necessarily favor democratic forces, and that authoritarian systems can exploit it too. The Cuban regime will continue to do its utmost to guard and manipulate Internet access and other telecommunications. Nonetheless, expanded information flows and communications links should help strengthen some civil-society elements in Cuba, and provide U.S. policy with some benefits in the event of an opening-up or a major crisis on the island.

At the same time, it is sensible for the Obama administration to maintain the U.S. economic embargo, pending further developments. Simply lifting it remains inadvisable; conditions are still such that doing so would reward and strengthen the Castro regime and its hardliners, more than it would free up the Cuban people or induce evolution toward a +M system. Indeed, the recent expansions of Canadian, European, and other countries’ economic relations and commercial ventures in Cuba provide no confirmation that such expansions will induce democratic change, a market economy, or increased respect for human rights in Cuba.

Better to wait, maneuver, and negotiate a while before easing the embargo. Perhaps it is archaic, and perhaps it imposes only marginal constraints on the regime’s intentions and capabilities. After all, Castro’s own policy choices have placed the major constraints on Cuba’s potential for economic growth. Yet, lifting the embargo will be such a big deal, with so many ramifications, that it should be linked to when Cuba finally opts to exit its evolutionary cul-de-sac and turn in +M directions.

Cuba in TIMN perspective: past, present, and future

In the decades before Castro, Cuba represented a flawed, halting, muddled effort to evolve a democratic T+I+M society. Cuba’s political system was supposed to be based on political parties and democratic elections. But by the early 1950s, the government was again in the hands of a dictatorship, backed by the military (and U.S. government) and fraught with cronyism. Meanwhile, the economy appeared to be based on the capitalist market system. But in fact, it was rigged to favor corrupt government officials and oligarchic families. Moreover, it was dominated by foreign-owned sugar mills and gambling casinos.

Indeed, these foreign-owned enterprises often did more to reinforce local T+I practices that reflected Cuba’s colonial heritage, than to help instill a true +M system. As often happens in Latin America, Cuba had a kind of distorted, corrupt, oligarchic, crony capitalism that was not leading to an open, fair market system. Nor was it doing much to spread wealth and strengthen democracy.

Thus, when Fidel Castro seized power, he had plenty of grievances and distortions to deal with. He also had an opportunity to direct the Cuban Revolution to foster a liberal, democratic T+I+M society — and initially it looked as though he and the revolution’s moderate leaders might do so. But instead, in the name of what he claimed were forward-looking communist ideals, Castro reverted Cuba’s government, economy, and society back to a T+I system — and of a type that was more centralized and fused than ever. He installed a totalitarian single-party government, eliminated the private sector, suborned the cultural (T) realm to the state, and used his charisma to arouse a fervent, worshipful nationalism. Nothing — no TIMN realm or any individual — would be allowed to develop on its own. He demanded tribal solidarity and institutional solidity. He said this would end poverty and inequity, foster immense growth, and assure a home-grown culture, while also enabling Cuba to eradicate foreign influence and resist U.S. imperialism.

Thus, it is often said, Castro chose communism over democracy. My own view, at this point, is that he never really faced such a choice; his choice was mainly between fascism (a type of fused T+I+M system that he had long admired) or communism (an I-centric system). He opted for the latter partly because, from a TIMN perspective, he knew how to promote a nationalistic tribalism (T) and hierarchical institutions (+I), but not how to develop and rule over the kind of market system and private sector (+M) that fascism involves. Besides, he had a patron — the Soviet Union — to underwrite his turn to communism and his ambition to become a major actor on the world stage, the superclient of a superpower.

Fidel represents a supreme contemporary expression of the fusion of T+I ideals and principles. Accordingly, he has believed that if people would just behave like one big family under his chieftaincy, then everything would work fine. He did not see that the organizational forms on which his ideals rested — the tribal and institutional forms — have performance capabilities that are self-limiting, especially with regard to economic growth. Indeed, Cuba’s low level of development today reflects the inherent incapacity of T+I designs to promote and manage increasing levels of economic complexity. As with the feudal and absolutist systems of long ago, as well as recent Soviet systems based on central planning and social exhortation, this design can produce a strong, aggressive state and military, but not an advanced, multi-purpose economy and society.

By seeing only capitalism’s dark side, Fidel not only rejected adding the market form to Cuba’s capabilities, he also ignored that all four TIMN forms have both bright and dark sides. It is already becoming evident that his T+I regime is far from clean of the clannish cronyism, nepotism, arbitrariness, venality, crime and corruption that often infest the obscure echelons of such regimes. Meanwhile, the degeneration (or at least, stagnation) of Cuba’s economy and society is causing a return of many of the vices and distortions that Fidel denounced in the 1950s — e.g., prostitution, apartheid tourism. Is he blind to this? Or does he, through a self-serving logic, secretly want vices and distortions to return if Cuba abandons communism for capitalism?

Led by Raul Castro and the military, some regime elites realized years ago — especially after Soviet subsidies ended, and consumer shortages mounted — that the island’s inefficient, malfunctioning economy required reform. They initially supposed, in line with Fidel’s exaltation of institutional ideals, that all they had to do was “modernize” the regime’s administrative systems; surely then the economy and its state enterprises would finally work well. But administrative modernization did not succeed in revitalizing the economy, and some reformists recognized anew a need to experiment with selected +M practices.

Shifting to a market system was not an option, given Fidel’s antipathy to capitalism. Yet, selected liberalizing measures have been allowed since the 1990s, with his reluctant approval. These include peasant markets for foodstuffs; small, mostly home-based businesses (microenterprises) for restaurants, repair services, room rentals, and taxis; and large hotels and resorts for tourism that operate as joint enterprises with foreign investors.

All are productive, to a degree. But all exist under tight restrictions — most microenterprises can employ only family members, the resorts amount to tourism enclaves where most ordinary Cubans cannot go, and Cubans must submit to a dual-currency system. Moreover, all these enterprises must serve the state; their purpose is to strengthen institutions, not individuals. Indeed, the joint enterprises operate as army franchises — favored officers are assigned to run them, earning good salaries.

Meanwhile, Cuba has long had trade deals with foreign companies, lately expanded to include U.S. agricultural companies. These provide Cuba with access to world markets, but without marketizing its internal economy. (The U.S. embargo has constrained but never blocked Cuba’s access to non-U.S. markets and companies.)

The result is an anomalous political economy that remains statist — socialist if not communist — with allowances for limited market-like endeavors in a few selected areas. Some Cuban leaders may sense the limitations, if not obsolescence, of this T+I (or T+I+m?) system and desire further liberalization. Some may prefer to move to a kind of market socialism, even a market socialist economy like China’s or Vietnam’s where key sectors and enterprises remain in state hands but the economic system as a whole is becoming +M. But Fidel is determined to sustain his fused, collectivist, centrally-run T+I regime as the only true and trustworthy expression of the Cuban Revolution. There will be no +M for Cuba’s evolution on his watch.

U.S. policy and strategy: able to induce Cuba’s evolution to +M?

From a TIMN perspective — my view of it, anyway — a challenge for U.S. policy and strategy is to ameliorate Cuba’s hard-line T+I behaviors while nudging its evolution toward a +M system.

Washington has endeavored to do that for decades (though not in TIMN terms, of course), and nothing it has done has worked well. Some measures have proven worthwhile for specific goals (e.g., to enable remittances to needy family members). But Fidel has remained resolute; his worldview has not budged. For him, Cuba already represents the vanguard of social evolution. He does not understand or believe in +M (not to mention +N). Moreover, no cracks or other weaknesses have arisen in his regime that might open doors for promoting economic or any other kind of liberalization.

Today, Cuba does not pose a military threat to U.S interests, by itself or as an ally of a foreign power. Nor does it pose a criminal threat, though the island could serve as a base for some transnational smuggling operations. It is also doubtful that Cuba is offering much support to insurgent or terrorist movements anywhere. Thus, with Cuba’s external threat potential lower than ever and its internal economic needs higher than ever, the environment is riper than ever for calling into question the centerpiece of U.S. policy: the economic embargo.

I have no desire to review all the pros and cons, ins and outs, of U.S. policy or alternative options for dealing with Castro’s Cuba or preparing for a post-Castro Cuba. Others have done that. But I do want to comment on notions that relate to TIMN.

Idealistic notions are sprouting anew — here and here, for example — that ending the embargo would ameliorate Cuba’s hard-line T+I behaviors and induce +M effects: Thus, it is said, lifting the embargo would deprive the regime of an anti-American rationale — a scapegoat — for maintaining its tyranny and explaining away Cuba’s economic woes. It would generate maneuvering room for reformers who want political and social as well as economic liberalization. It would encourage free-market reforms, and a more open, pluralistic civil society.

Yet, there is no evidence — only speculation — that ending the embargo unilaterally would have such positive effects under current circumstances. More likely, it would reinforce Fidel’s sense that he is winning and provide him with extra resources and rationales for staying his course. And there is evidence for this contrary prospect.

The infusion of foreign investments and tourists from Canada, Europe, and elsewhere since the mid-1990s, by providing new income for the regime, actually enabled Fidel to slow or reverse the modest liberalizations he had grudgingly permitted in order to ease the economic shortages following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Little new liberalization has occurred since then. Moreover, European governments that have increased their trade and investment with Cuba have been rebuffed when they have pressed for even modest shifts in the regime’s human-rights behavior.

And then there’s this recent development: Fidel is aged and ailing, and he has passed the mantle of rule to his brother, Raul. But the way he barked back at Obama’s overtures for talks with Raul last month confirm that Fidel still has a grip on Cuba’s direction and is not about to alter course because of any shift in U.S. policy.

In a bit of a contrast to the idealistic views about lifting the embargo, a more nuanced, pragmatic U.S. view has surfaced in a U.S. congressional staff trip report. It recognizes that lifting the embargo may not have grand effects, but supposes it may be advisable to countenance anyway. In this view, the Cuban regime is so institutionalized and accepted among the Cuban people that it will probably endure without democratizing, even if the embargo were to be lifted. Yet, Washington should begin to hold talks about specific matters of mutual interest. The prospect of eventually lifting the embargo might give us some bargaining leverage. Besides, it would please U.S. commercial interests who stand to benefit from new trade and investment opportunities. It may also gratify some U.S. political sectors.

I have less to say about this pragmatic view. I see no reason to object to talking with Cubans along the lines the report suggests, for it makes few claims about inducing change in Cuba and some of its points (e.g., about improving the U.S. image abroad) have little to do with TIMN. But the report still contains a notion, partly modulated, that the prospect of easing the embargo may give U.S. officials leverage for negotiating some economic and political liberalization, through a process of “sequenced engagement.”

Again, this notion of leverage seems illusory. It is doubtful that the current regime would negotiate any kind of liberalization in exchange for easing the embargo. And easing it for any reason while Fidel still holds sway would mainly reinforce his and his fidelista cohorts’ efforts to preserve his T+I system, while preventing a transition to +M.

That said, the report’s proposal for increased dialogue with Cuban officials is a good idea. So is it’s proposal for a bipartisan U.S. commission to forge a future U.S. policy and strategy (echoing a 2007 proposal by Ed Gonzalez). The two initiatives could lay groundwork for an eventual propitious situation when Cuba may decide, on its own and in its own ways, that evolving in +M directions is advisable.

In sum, Fidel Castro remains committed to a theory of social evolution that is fundamentally erroneous. He is not entirely wrong to rail against the evils of capitalism — it can have detrimental effects, and what’s happening in the United States today provides new evidence. But by failing to see that the market system is essential for continued social evolution, and by not figuring out how to make it apply in a balanced, positive way in Cuba — even so that it deserves a name other than capitalism — he keeps Cuba’s potential arrested in an evolutionary cul-de-sac of his own fabrication.

Eventually a breakout will occur. Odds are, a multitude of U.S. actors will then rush ahead with their usual patterns about promoting democracy and freedom, including free enterprise. But if the objective is to see Cuba turn into a balanced T+I+M system, new kinds of advice and assistance may be needed. The United States has policies and strategies for promoting capitalism — basically saying, open your markets, and we will come. But do we really have adequate policies and strategies for building a properly free, fair market system? I gather not, for that’s never been as major a goal as promoting capitalism. It’s time to rethink. Otherwise, assuming that the post-Fidel regime endures, the model it prefers next may be a mild kind of fascism rather than a potential liberal democracy.

[Many thanks to Ed Gonzalez for sharing his knowledge and providing edits on an earlier draft.]

[UPDATE — May 8, 2009: The original version of this post, yesterday, indicated I would do a second, follow-up post on Cuba, but of a much more theoretical bent. I've changed my mind. I'll be doing a more theoretical post before long, but it won't be focused just on the case of Cuba. So I've edited this post to remove references to its being the first of two. It's now a stand-alone post.]

[UPDATE — July 7, 2015: While I’ve refrained these past six years from updating this post, two recent articles in The Wall Street Journal are worth noting, because they track with my TIMN analysis above: Dr. Jose Azel, “Cuba after the Castros: The likely scenario” (June 15, 2015, The Wall Street Journal, as re-posted here), warns that Cuba’s military will benefit more than democracy from future U.S.-Cuban relations. Mauricio Claver-Carone, “When helping ‘the Cuban people’ means bankrolling Cuba’s Castro dictatorship” (June 24, 2015, The Wall Street Journal, as re-posted here) warns that improved economic relations will benefit the regime more than the people.]

[UPDATE: September 20, 2015 — Former RAND colleague and co-author Edward Gonzalez makes a valuable point when he writes, in a letter to the NYT editor, that “As an academic and policy consultant specializing in Cuba, I came to the conclusion several years ago that the United States faced a moral and political conundrum in its Cuba policy: how to help the Cuban people without helping the Castro regime.” (source)]

The Zapatista social netwar revisited — more grist for TIMN

Ten years ago we — John Arquilla, Graham Fuller, Melissa Fuller, and myself —wrote The Zapatista “Social Netwar” in Mexico (1998), and in the last few days it has bounced back to my attention. I’m seizing on the opportunity to make a few comments, and to post for the first time in English a Postscript that we wrote a couple years ago. I include it here as an Appendix.

The impetus comes from the post “Social Netwar, Fifteen Years On,” at Adam Elkus’s Rethinking Security blog, beginning April 23, 2009. He makes several salient points about the Zapatista movement, including that

. . . it does demonstrate the difficulty of netwar groups to sustain campaigns after the "culminating point" has been reached.

I/we quite agree; indeed, our Appendix concludes on that note. Netwar — a mode of conflict that revolves around the use of network forms of organization and related doctrines, strategies, and technologies, especially for mounting swarming attacks — is easy to undertake in today’s information age. Violent examples currently abound, notably in aspects of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Somali piracy, and in the attack at Mumbai. Social netwars gain less media attention, but there have been plenty of those too, recently including in the turmoil in Thailand, the protests against the G20 meeting in London, and in some activist campaigns here in the United States. But it’s also true that governments and their security forces are learning to wage counternetwar more effectively. The Zapatista movement, a seminal social netwar, has run its course partly for that reason, as we explain in the Appendix.

Elkus’s departure point is a summary of a recent academic conference, “Fifteen Years After the Zapatistas,” posted at the Harvard International Review blog, beginning April 13, 2009. This summary barely alludes to netwar aspects, or even to the once-important roles of activist NGO networks. But the summary does convey a critical understanding of what has happened in the Zapatista zone in Chiapas, and to the Zapatista movement more broadly throughout Mexico:

[E]ven the most ardent supporters of the Zapatistas [at the conference] admitted that the militants, who have largely given up violent struggle, have not replaced it with a realistic alternative tool of social change. Zapatistas today continue to experiment with the creation of “autonomous” zones of power in Chiapas, where they have set up parallel institutions of governance. Panelists disagreed about the efficacy of these institutions in political and juridical terms, but not in economic terms: the Zapatistas have not created a viable model of economic autonomy for poor peasants. At the same time, the turn inward, and away from the state, has rendered the Zapatistas less effective at reforming the Mexican state. While some panelists saw the Zapatista experiments as noble efforts to create alternative political structures that are more democratic than those of the wider society, others argued that the Zapatistas had missed an opportunity to build a broad movement to reform the state.

These are important points not only for understanding the dynamics of netwar and counternetwar, but also for another key aim of this blog: understanding the nature of tribal peoples and their forms of organization, pursuant to fleshing out the TIMN framework. The conference summary makes the Zapatista indigenas appear to be leading rather unhappy lives fraught with poverty and inequity, as though the Zapatista movement were a failure. But two blogpost commenters, presumably outside anthropologists, insist that many indigenas are living just fine in Chiapas, in accordance with the traditional cosmologies and values that they had fought to defend — and, the commenters scold, the conference participants do not understand this.

What calls my attention here is the commenter’s elevation of the bright side of tribalism as something valuable that should not be discarded in today’s market-mad world. Tribalism’s dark side has become daily news, particularly in reportage about Taliban excesses, Somali piracy, and Mexican gang-fights. But as the two commenters point out — and as Bolivia’s President Evo Morales elaborates in a recent speech — the bright side has much to offer, especially where people are attuned to living in balance with nature and kinfolk, forsaking many material possessions.

Expressed in TIMN terms about long-range social evolution, this means that there are many people who would rather live according to idealized T-type practices than deal with the stresses and strains of the T+I+M+N progression. I’m fully in favor of the TIMN progression; that’s how major societies progress and great civilizations rise (and fall). But it’s evident that many traditional peoples in diverse places around the world, from the jungles of Mexico to the valleys and mountains along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, think otherwise. They are bound into their ancient tribal ways and determined to defend them, no matter what, and no matter how. Globalization — and the attendant intrusions of outside actors — are just making them feel more so (as I've discussed elsewhere).

All very interesting. Enough to prompt a rethinking of U.S. prospects, policies, and strategies in distant battlegrounds?

But I’ll end on a different note: In a sense, the significance of the Zapatista social netwar is barely about the Zapatista indigenas in Chiapas and their particular expression of the tribal (T) form. Instead, it’s more about the world at large, the growing role of the +N network form, and the fusion of T and +N forces among modern actors who are not indigenas.

This netwar was able to occur in 1994 because so many activist NGOs were already networked and mobilized outside of Mexico, ready for a new target, after having tried (quite unsuccessfully) to protest U.S. policy in Central America and/or halt passage of NAFTA. Then, years later, as we discuss in the Appendix, many Mexican and foreign NGOs turned away from the Zapatista struggle to focus (quite successfully) on other high-impact efforts: e.g., in 1999, the protest movement known as the “Battle of Seattle”; and in 2000, the presidential campaign and election in Mexico that displaced the ruling PRI party from power. In sum, the Zapatista social netwar was about much more than the Zapatistas.


[Many thanks to John Arquilla for reviewing and commenting on an earlier draft of this post, and for remarks that prompted me to expand on the points about the persistence of tribalism.]

[Notice: Readers interested in Mexico may want to know that I have added updates to the counter-alarmist post a few weeks ago on why Mexico may not fall apart.]

* * * * *

Appendix

Emergence and Influence of the Zapatista Social Netwar: Postscript (March 2007)[1]

David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla


What follows is the Postscript we prepared for a Japanese book that reprinted the chapter on the Zapatista movement from our book on Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (2001). This is the first time this Postscript is posted in English. It’s a bit dated, and may not be precise enough for some readers, but many of its points remain timely.

* * *

That was the case in 1998. Here is a summary of what has occurred since then.[2] The most exciting, innovative phase of the Zapatista social netwar, which ran from 1994 to 1996, is long over. Since then, the Zapatista story has cycled several times between quiescence and renewed activism. It is a story still in search of an ending.

1999 and 2000 were comparatively quieter years for the Zapatistas and other parties to the conflict. Subcomandante Marcos spoke out less. The EZLN did not mount major new operations, in the field or in the streets. The Mexican army confined it to a small zone in Chiapas. Mexican officials kept a sharp eye on foreign activists. And most NGO activists began to turn their attention to other issues.

Inspired by the Zapatista experience, many U.S., European, and Asian activists shifted to organizing anti-globalization and pro-democracy protests elsewhere around the world. In particular, many U.S. and some foreign activists gathered to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference meeting held in Seattle in 1999. The ensuing “Battle of Seattle” became the next major model of social netwar.[3]

Meanwhile, most Mexican activists turned their attention to Mexico’s presidential election campaign of 2000. That proved consequential. The fact that the Zapatista netwar had aroused so many NGO activists had the interesting side-effect of helping create a good climate for voter mobilization, democratic competition, and electoral transparency throughout Mexico. And for the first time, the powerful ruling party -- the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) -- lost the presidential election, after major competition from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the rightist National Action Party (PAN). The surprising result was victory for the PAN candidate, Vicente Fox, who took office in December 2000. This victory became possible partly because the Zapatista netwar had opened up political space in Mexico for people to organize to oppose the monopolistic PRI regime.

Seeking reconciliation, President Fox quickly proposed a new peace initiative, released some imprisoned Zapatistas, and withdrew army forces from some positions in the rebel zone in Chiapas. Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN, voicing both hope and doubt, responded by conducting a huge, dramatic “March for Indigenous Dignity” from Chiapas to Mexico City in early 2001. Their goal was to press the government, specifically Congress, for a new law on indigenous rights and culture that would grant more autonomy to local communities.

However, Congress rejected the EZLN’s draft and passed a diluted version of the law. The EZLN promptly renounced it, and marched back to the Chiapas countryside to install its own system of what it declared to be “autonomous communities” and “good government councils” based on indigenous traditions of self-governance. In addition, five small regional coordinating centers for health and education were eventually organized. The EZLN, as a military organization, claimed it was transferring local power and authority to these affiliated political bodies.

All this created an odd patchwork of political, economic, and military conditions in Chiapas. The scattered Zapatista communities, only 32 in number, existed amid a far larger number of indigenous communities that were aligned, to varying degrees, with the government or with a major political party. These communities received increasing amounts of economic aid from President Fox’s administration. But the Zapatista communities rejected government aid, seeking assistance instead from international agencies. Meanwhile, Mexican officials avoided going into the Zapatista zones, and the Mexican army kept a low profile. To its credit, the army responded innovatively to the Zapatista uprising, by granting new authority to small units while improving their dispersed deployment patterns, tactical mobility, and communications networks in the region. This amplified the army’s presence and the speed with which its units could respond to signs of unrest.

As a result, Chiapas remained the impoverished, isolated scene of an uneasy ceasefire and unofficial truce. There was occasional talk about restarting formal peace negotiations, but nothing formal developed. At least, armed conflict was not occurring, aside from some isolated atrocities apparently committed by pro-government paramilitaries. The social netwar had died down as well. Marcos and the EZLN still enjoyed a presence on the Internet; but many social activists remained more interested in anti-globalization and pro-democracy struggles elsewhere in the world.

For the next several years, Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN laid low again. Indeed, Marcos -- whose family name was found to be Rafael Guillen, and who was identified as a former school teacher from another state -- turned to spend some of his time quietly overseas, often in Parisian salons, cultivating global civil-society actors for whom he remained an iconic figure. He seemed to neglect matters in Mexico, but he did co-author an odd detective novel published there. All this diminished his standing as an activist in the EZLN and in Mexico as a whole.

Lately, however, Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN are making a new effort to generate a resurgence. And once again this has occurred on the eve of a presidential election. They began by publishing the “Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona” in June 2005. It reiterated their opposition to the destructive effects of capitalism and “neoliberal globalization.” It called for building “another way of doing politics” that is “from below and for below.” And it declared the following: Marcos and the EZLN will maintain their commitment to an “offensive ceasefire” despite the absence of a peace treaty. They will convene a new “intercontinental encounter” for activists from around the world, perhaps in 2007. They will organize a new leftist social movement, in which all people who are trying to rebel realize “that you are not alone.” And they will propose a new Constitution for Mexico.[4]

Next, the EZLN disbanded the civic front it had established in 1997, the Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN). Now, the EZLN declared, it alone would be in charge of promoting “a new stage of civil zapatismo.”

This set the stage for Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN to approach the 2006 presidential election cycle with a major new initiative: They created, in parallel to the official campaign, what they called “the Other Campaign.” Through the media and in small meetings convened across Mexico, they heaped scorn on traditional party politics and refused to back any party’s candidate. The rightist PAN candidate, Felipe Calderon, narrowly won the hotly disputed election.

So far, President Calderon has shown little interest in reaching a settlement with the Zapatistas. Meanwhile, they continue to conduct “the Other Campaign,” including on the Internet, as a vehicle for pursuing the goals announced in the “Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona.”[5] In some respects, the EZLN wants to use “the Other Campaign” to represent what is sometimes known as “the Other Mexico” -- the masses of poor, downtrodden, oppressed folk who have little voice and not truly benefited from modernization and liberalization.

* * *

That is the situation as we write today (March 2007). What do we conclude from these ten years of activities, since we wrote our original analysis?

First, in our view, the EZLN has not fared particularly well in Chiapas. It has wrested no new agreements from the government. Its control of its “autonomous zone” has slowly eroded. And its NGO allies have largely gone away. Nonetheless, the EZLN has persisted; it has held onto most of its initial territorial gains at the municipal level.

Second, the social netwar of 1994-1996 has died down, and nothing so significant has recurred in Mexico. The EZLN has continued to mutate from an armed insurgency into a rebellious but nonviolent radical-reformist movement. It now sees itself as conducting a “war against oblivion” and trying to “change the world without taking power.” It is focused mainly on traditional efforts at building coalitions with other groups. Moreover, the Zapatista movement as a whole -- that is, the EZLN plus its NGO allies -- is much smaller. Nonetheless, the EZLN can still attract some attention from NGO activists, and it still has a significant presence on the Internet at various Web sites. Thus, the prospect of a renewed social netwar lingers in the background, giving both the government and the EZLN reason to continue on a path toward a peaceful resolution of their differences.

Third, in retrospect it appears that the Zapatistas’ major initiatives are timed to Mexico’s presidential election cycle, every six years. Remember that the initial uprising occurred on January 1, 1994. At first, this date looked important because it was the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. But it also marked the beginning of the year when President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s term (1988-1994) would end, a national election would be held, and power would pass to his successor, President Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000). No EZLN leader has ever said that this was a reason for beginning the uprising in 1994. But we see that the next two presidential election cycles -- in 2000 and 2006 -- were the next times that the Zapatistas shifted from being quiet to making a new effort at mobilization. This may be a sensible strategy for a dissident organization that is relatively weak, yet wants to maximize its leverage in the Mexican political context. This way it can reassert its presence and gain attention, while it waits for new opportunities to align itself with unrest elsewhere in Mexico (although, in the past ten years, only a few minor opportunities have arisen.)

Fourth, the Mexican government and army have become adept at constraining the Zapatistas within Mexico. In addition to containing the EZLN, they were routinely able to control and inhibit visits to Chiapas by foreign activists. The army also institutionalized the organizational innovations it used to deal with the armed uprising in 1994, notably by improving its own networking in order to counter the Zapatistas. The skillful responses of the Mexican government and military may prove instructive for authorities who may, sooner or later, have to deal with social netwars in other countries. The Zapatista movement was initially far more adept than the Mexican government and military at using information-age doctrines and technologies, but the government and military have learned as well.

Overall, then, the Zapatista story continues to unfold, and its ending is far from near or clear. The EZLN’s lower profile and the constraints imposed by the Mexican government leave little choice for the Zapatistas but to pursue a two-part strategy.[6] One part is to play a waiting game. This is especially true now that Subcomandante Marcos’s waning international prominence has reduced the EZLN’s chances of seizing the initiative alone once again. The Zapatistas may have to maneuver prudently for long periods -- mostly via ideas expressed on the Web, with a multitude of postings -- as they strive to protect their political space and wait for possible, even unlikely, opportunities to reassert their influence.

The second part of their strategy, in our view, is to build “parallel structures.” The Zapatistas stand no chance of gaining control of Mexico’s existing institutions at national or state levels. Indeed, it seems they have never aspired to do so. Instead, they appear to be pursuing a strategy that aims to create new organizations and/or coalitions, amid civil society, that can be used to displace or pressure the existing institutions. An indirect, lateral strategy of creating “parallel structures” -- even a “parallel polis” -- was used in the pro-democracy struggles in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, after this concept was espoused by an underground Catholic philosopher-activist, Vaclav Benda, in the 1970s in Czechoslovakia.[7] It is not clear that the Zapatistas are deliberately emulating the East European case -- as a leftist movement, they have other Marxist sources to draw on. But the growth of the information age, by facilitating social networking and online broadcasting, may make this strategy a sensible one for the Zapatistas.

* * *

Whatever befalls the Zapatistas in the future, their social netwar of 1994-1996 will remain a seminal model for (mostly) nonviolent social netwar elsewhere around the world.[8] Indeed, activists who have emulated the Zapatista example have often been successful at achieving their aims. In Asia, for example, the deepening of pro-democracy movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea have been facilitated by the social-netwar paradigm, which has helped guide opposition movements into power in several countries. In Europe, a series of "color revolutions” -- empowered by organizational networking and netwar techniques -- has toppled authoritarian systems across a range of countries, from Serbia and the Ukraine to transcaucasian Georgia. In all these cases the Internet, the World Wide Web, and other information-age tools have proven crucial for the creation of powerful social and political forces. Activist networks have raised the price of political repression to high levels, and many authoritarians are giving way in the face of social netwar.

Even so, there are significant exceptions to the rule that activist networks will generally drive authoritarian leaders into submission, or at least acquiescence. In Burma, the military junta has figured out how to wage counternetwar by engaging in international propaganda campaigns and building a support network among multi-national corporations. Singapore, too, has shown adroitness in dealing with even the hint of a threat to authoritarian rule. The Singaporean government’s measured responses resemble how Mexico’s civil and military authorities dealt with the Zapatistas. And nearly two decades after the Tiananmen Square unrest, the government of the People’s Republic of China has shown a new aptitude for putting social networks on the defensive -- notably in its campaign against the Falun Gong. Each of these cases provides counterpoints to the idea that networks are somehow ultimately destined to sweep all before them.

The information age will continue to give rise to new cases of social netwar and counternetwar. But do these all have to be struggles where one side necessarily wins, and the other side loses? No. Civil-society activists and governments around the world are still learning how to take advantage of the new network forms of organization, as well as the new strategies and arrangements that are now possible. In these early years of the information age, there are likely to be many confrontations in which civil-society activists will use social netwar to press their demands regarding political democracy, economic justice, human rights, the environment, and poverty. But conflict is not the only prospect. In time, we expect that all parties will learn to develop new mechanisms, based on networks, to improve communication, coordination, and cooperation among government, market, and civil-society actors. This is already beginning to happen in a few cases where NGOs and corporations are collaborating on environmental matters.

With this more constructive possibility in mind, the Zapatistas merit continuing study, as they have provided a pioneering case of social netwar. It is important to keep watching what happens with them and the Mexican government, to see whether they can move beyond constant criticism and opposition, and help point the way to a future that benefits both nations and networks. We hope this will be the case.

Endnotes

1 The authors prepared this Postscript on their own. It reflects only their own views. They thank Harry Cleaver for insightful comments on a prior version, and for posting online many informative documents about the Zapatista movement.

2 To prepare this Postscript, we consulted articles in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. We also consulted web sites, such as the “ZNet Chiapas/Zapatista Crisis Page” (at http://www.zmag.org/chiapas1/index.htm), and “Zapatista Army of National Liberation” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation. These sites have links to additional sites. Also see the guide called “Chiapas 95” at http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/chiapas95.html.

3 See Paul de Armond, “Netwar in the Emerald City: WTO Protest Strategy and Tactics,” in John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MR-1382-OSD, 2001, Ch. 7, pp. 201-235 (online at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/index.html). Also see Starhawk, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2002. The text of this book is not posted online, but key ideas appear in Starhawk, “How We Really Shut Down the WTO,” December 1999, online at http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/shutdownWTO.html.

4 From the “Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona” (June 2005), as posted at http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/SixthDeclaration.html.

5 From “The Other Campaign: Documents of the New Zapatista Initiative” as posted at http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/TheOtherCampaign.html.

6 We stress that this is our interpretation. No Zapatista leader has stated that this two-part strategy is being pursued.

7 See Vaclav Benda, “The Parallel ‘Polis’,” in H. Gordon Skilling and Paul Wilson, eds., Civic Freedom in Central Europe: Voices from Czechoslovakia, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, Ch. 2, pp. 35-41. We thank Ted Coopman, at the University of Washington, for pointing this out. See Taso G. Lagos, Ted M. Coopman, and Jonathan Tomhave, “Parallel polis: Towards a theoretical framework of the modern public sphere and the structural advantages of the internet to foster parallel institutions,” paper presented at the Western States Communication Association convention, Seattle, WA, February 2007.

8 Recent writings on the Zapatista social netwar from a leftist perspective include Harry Cleaver, “Computer-Linked Social Movements and the Threat to Global Capitalism,” July 1999, posted at http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/polnet.html; and Harry Cleaver, “Deep Currents Rising: Some Notes on the Global Challenge to Capitalism,” September 2006, posted at http://www.eco.utexas.edu/facstaff/Cleaver/DeepCurrentsRisingFinal2.htm. Another interesting analysis of the netwar concept appears in W. Sean McLaughlin, “The use of the Internet for political action by non-state dissident actors in the Middle East, First Monday, vol. 8, no. 11, November 2003, online only at http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/mclaughlin/index.html.