{{primary sources|date=November 2008}}
{{Politics}}
In [[politics]], '''emergent democracy''' represents the rise of [[political structure]]s and behaviors without central planning and by the action of many individual participants, especially when mediated by the [[Internet]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Open Government: Collaboration, Transparency, and Participation in Practice|last1=Lathrop|first1=Daniel|last2=Ruma|first2=Laurel|publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc.|year=2010|isbn=9780596804350|location=Sebastopol, CA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/opengovernmentco00lath_0/page/167 167]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/opengovernmentco00lath_0/page/167}}</ref> It has been likened to the [[Democracy|democratic system]] of [[Athenian democracy|ancient Greece]] in the sense that people could [[Public participation (decision making)|publicly participate]] as much or as little as they please, although a form of [[Representative democracy|representation]] exists which is based on personal trust networks instead of [[Political party|party]] affiliations.<ref name=":0" /> More recently, American writer and researcher [[Clay Shirky]] has referred to this as "[[Here Comes Everybody (book)|the power of organizing without organizations]]."<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Shirky
  | first = Clay
  | authorlink = Clay Shirky
  | title = [[Here Comes Everybody (book)|Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations]]
  | publisher = The Penguin Press HC
  | page = [https://archive.org/details/herecomeseverybo0000shir/page/ Subtitle]
  | year = 2008
  | isbn = 978-1-59420-153-0
  }}</ref>

== Origin ==
Emergent democracy was coined to stand in contrast to more traditional forms of democracy, such as [[representative democracy]] and [[direct democracy]]. The phrase draws upon [[emergence]] theory for the idea that the simple actions of individuals can collectively create complex and unpredictable results, as when the behavior of [[termites]] results in large, efficient nests beyond the comprehension of any individual participant. Another analogy involves the way a slime mold, a single-celled organism, gathers together to form a super-organism within a specific condition (short supply of food).<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MrAsDAAAQBAJ&q=%22Emergent+democracy%22+emergence+theory|title=Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future|last1=Ito|first1=Joi|last2=Howe|first2=Jeff|date=2016-12-06|publisher=Grand Central Publishing|isbn=9781455544585|language=en}}</ref> Emergent democracy is said to work the same way, that once people's minds are plugged into the system, collective signal triggers are revealed, resulting result to new ideas and a new way of looking at the world as these minds coalesce.<ref name=":1" />

In the paper that first drew attention to the term,<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://joi.ito.com/joiwiki/EmergentDemocracyPaper
|title=a "EmergentDemocracyPaper"
|accessdate=March 5, 2007
|author=Joi Ito
|authorlink=Joi Ito
|date=2003-02-13
}}</ref> [[Joi Ito]] said that the [[Internet]], as a large and decentralized network, will enable innovative responses by citizens to highly complex problems. He described a possibility - in the case of the Internet - to become a method that allows citizens to self-organize so that such problems can be deliberated on and addressed.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Multi-stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum|last=Malcolm|first=Jeremy|date=2008|publisher=Terminus Press|isbn=9780980508406|location=Perth|pages=274}}</ref> From its outset, emergent democracy has been seen arising most clearly among bloggers who, as a decentralized network of writers, can provide a fuller airing and development of ideas than can the relatively limited resources of traditional media.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Gillmor
  | first = Dan
  | authorlink = Dan Gillmor
  | title = We the Media
  | url = https://archive.org/details/wethemediagillmor
  | publisher = O'Reilly
  | year = 2006
  | isbn = 0-596-10227-5}}</ref> Supporters of the idea point to instances in which [[blogs|bloggers]] have brought about political change by posting about issues that mainstream media had not paid much attention to. The canonical example of emergent democracy was the December 2002 resignation of [[Trent Lott]] as [[United States Senate|Senate]] [[majority leader]] after bloggers publicized his praising of [[Strom Thurmond]]'s 1948 [[Racial segregation|segregation]]ist campaign for the [[President of the United States|presidency]].<ref>Gillmor, pp. 44–45</ref><ref>Shirky, pp. 61–66</ref>

== Background ==

Ito had been vocal about issues with Japanese democracy, and had spoken at Davos about how broken he felt Japanese democracy was. "Afterwards, Ms. Ogata, the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees told me that I should stop ranting as a Japanese and think more about global democracy and global issues," he posted. "These words stuck with me and last year I tried to think about blogs and emergent democracy outside of the Japanese context."<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2004/02/22/caring-about-th.html
|title=Caring about the rest of the world
|accessdate=February 22, 2004
|author=Joi Ito
|authorlink=Joi Ito
|date=2004-02-22
}}</ref>
He organized a group effort to discuss and document the emergent democracy concept, using a term initially coined by Ross Mayfield. He announced meetings on his weblog, inviting his readers to attend a [[conference call]] that was augmented by [[Internet Relay Chat|IRC]] chat for posting realtime visual cues and backchannel conversation, and a [[wiki]] for gathering notes from the call. This "multimodal" approach was called a "happening" by Ross Mayfield.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/02/13/a_happening_on_emergent_democracy.html
|title="happening" on "emergent democracy"
|accessdate=March 5, 2007
|author=Joi Ito
|authorlink=Joi Ito
|date=2003-04-29
}}</ref> The conversation resulted in Ito's online article that generated discussions about the potential for weblogs and other [[social software]] tools to influence participation in governance. The discussion and notes were captured in a paper that was placed on a wiki for collaborative editing and enhancement. [[Jon Lebkowsky]] edited the wiki version, and published it as a chapter in the 2005 book ''Extreme Democracy''.<ref>{{cite book
  | last = Lebkowsky
  | first = Jon
  | authorlink = Jon Lebkowsky with Mitch Ratcliffe
  | title = Extreme Democracy
  | publisher = Lulu.com
  | year = 2005
  | isbn = 1-4116-3139-0}}</ref> A "[[teach-in]]" on that topic was held on February 9, 2004, as part of the [[O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference]].<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://conferences.oreillynet.com/et2004/edemo.csp
|title=Digital Democracy Teach-In
|accessdate=February 9, 2004
|author=O'Reilly Publishing
|authorlink=O'Reilly Publishing
|date=2004-02-09
}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[List of politics-related topics]]
*[[Direct democracy]]
*[[E-democracy]]
*[[Open source governance]]
*[[Panarchy (political philosophy)|Panarchy]]
*[[Second Superpower]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.extremedemocracy.com/ Extreme Democracy: A Collection of papers on Emergent Democracy and related concepts]
*[http://extremedemocracy.com/chapters/Chapter%20One-Ito.pdf Emergent Democracy], pdf of [[Jon Lebkowsky]]'s edit of the paper that resulted from the Emergent Democracy discussions.
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080725082213/http://www.wiki.demosphere.net/ Demosphere Project]—The wiki & global project to develop a community based democratic framework using [[open source]] and [[interactive]] software.
*[http://conferences.oreillynet.com/et2004/edemo.csp O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In]
*[http://www.mindjack.com/feature/nodal.html Nodal Politics]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emergent Democracy}}
[[Category:Politics and technology]]
[[Category:Types of democracy]]