There is a decline in submissions to MN-POLITICS after the 1994 electoral cycle, with a low of 28 in March 1995. However, activity increases again as the electoral cycle begins anew. After the lows in 1995, when the future of MN E-Democracy was uncertain, there is a consistent trend of between 300 and 500 messages each month. Furthermore, around the time of important activities outside MN E-Democracy output increases. In January 1996, for example, during the Presidential primaries, there are 451 messages; in June 1996, around the time of the DFL State convention, there are 507 messages; and during the run-up to the 1996 elections in month of October, a historical high water mark of 552 messages is reached. During this time leaders from the political arena, political activists, individuals in the media and citizens, participated in MN-POLITICS with a wide range of effects, large and small, in the community (Bonchek, 1996, Schwartz 1996). Most importantly, organisers including Mick Souder, and Steve Clift and I were a continuing presence in the forum, guarding the boundaries of MN-POLITICS. The most significant result of these activities was the codification of guidelines and rules of participation during the spring of 1996 (see APPENDIX 2).

The statistics and events in MN-POLITICS inform us of the stability and maturation of the forum over a two year period, but do not address the effort that went into creating this stability and maturation. Soon after the elections in 1994 a group of interested individuals gathered to extend the success of the Project. Regular meetings were held and an e-mail list was created to discuss the maintenance of MN E-Democracy. While most of the group was located in the Twin Cities, I was able to participate from Cambridge, England through the e-mail list. In addition I made regular trips to the Twin Cities to remain current with the situation.

One of our goals was to reproduce and expand in 1996 on the success of 1994. To achieve this, MN E-Democracy asked in December 1995 if the US Senate candidates would be willing to participate in an E-Debate in 1996. Once all the major party candidates agreed, we asked major media with an online presence - including the Star Tribune Online, The Pioneer Planet, MN Online - to be partners in the Project. The participation of the candidates and the local media was announced at a press conference at the State Capitol in January 1996. Furthermore, between the winter and summer of 1996, MN E-Democracy was made into a 501.c.3 non-profit, a Board of Directors was created, a $15,000 start-up grant was obtained from Cowles Media Foundation/Star Tribune, an Executive Director was named, and I agreed to return in the fall to run the campaign activities. Because of the success of the Project, because we were aggressive, and because the new field was in a state of flux, these developments proceeded smoothly.

After over a year and a half the participants in MN-POLITICS were people who had invested time in ongoing deliberation and, therefore, people who were particularly attracted to the activities. With an extended history and the construction of guidelines and rules to ensure the well-being of the forum, the list had been honed down to approximately 300 members. The group included media personalities such as Dave Brauer and John Yewell, activists such as Dennis Hill, political candidates such as Renee Jensen and Marc Asch, and youthful political operatives such as Blois Olsen. On the whole the group was made of youthful individuals active and influential in the community and interested in the new technology. Participants came to expect the characteristic of serendipity. When a new issue or event was raised in the forum this would often result in reverberations among participants and, often, in the community. Perhaps as importantly, the deliberations had become substantive enough in the lives of the group, and the group had become comfortable enough with one another, for a July picnic to be organised easily after someone suggested having a party. Among organisers the face to face meeting was considered a gauge for the success of the project. It meant that the list was making a contribution in the Twin Cities that had some meaning in the lives of the influential group of participants. As list member Cindy Carlsonn put it, "The level of civility in our society is really becoming appalling. (That's why picnics and such are so important -- the more people you know, the more people your likely to at least be decent to!!)" Indeed, after the picnic one thread was generated discussing the picnic and another discussing the need for civility in society. As self-described libertarian Mitch Berg wrote, "Since the picnic, I’ve learned that flameage is not really appropriate on this list. This is good - cuz in my earlier incarnation on this list, I’d have really uncorked at this one."

Although there was some churn, this core group carried the deliberation through the fall. As the elections developed and the 1996 E-Debate came and went, the number of participants increased to approximately 500, the number of submissions increased, and the number of authors increased. Yet, although there was an increase in the level of activity to levels similar to the fall of 1994, the public forum was unchanged qualitatively from how it had developed through the summer and into the fall. The behaviour in the forum remained well under control, with no need for the intervention of management, and the discourse was of a remarkably high standard. While the activities in MN-POLITICS confirmed my analysis of the 1994 archive, MN E-Democracy had prepared for a greater challenge by creating another public forum and several Web-based conferences hosted by local media, including the Star Tribune Online, Channel 4000 (owned by WCCO TV and Radio) and Cafe Utne (owned by the Utne Reader magazine). The fact that the other e-mail forum was unneeded and the three Web forums largely went unused during the E-Debate was an unexpected consequence of the fall activities.

The explanation for these events is complex. Put simply MN E-Democracy was a new institution with certain strengths - such as MN-POLITICS, the participation of the candidates, and the participation of media organisations - trying to create a product in a highly unstable and ferociously competitive emerging marketplace. While MN-POLITICS and the participation of the candidates carried MN E-Democracy through to a successful fall, the connections to media organisations did not result in a built-in publicity machine to communicate the existence of the project to a mass audience. The politics of the media was and will for some time be fractious, to say the least. For example, in August Star Tribune news reporters publicly questioned the value of a Star Tribune civic journalism project. Also, the 1996 Senate candidates engaged in a record 11 debates. Intra-media rivalry and highly engaged candidates resulted in a lack of publicity about the E-Debates in the mass print media. While the Project was well received by the radio press, the print coverage that did appear was sparse and bland. The coverage was similar to the seemingly threatened pronouncements of Glenda Holste in the Pioneer Press in 1994. As the 1994 statistics indicate, coverage by the mass print media results in an upsurge in participation. The lack of coverage meant we did not get the upsurge in participation that would have involved the mass public, making the forums more fractious perhaps, but more valuable for the community as a result.

Despite the lack of a mass audience and although the candidates participated in 11 debates, the E-Debate distinguished itself. This is most easily illustrated through a recollection of events surrounding and following the second E-Debate question. First, however, it is important to note that the E-Debate format was largely unchanged. Three questions were asked over a one week period. After each question responses and rebuttals were expected from all of the participating candidates. This time, however, the questions were scheduled to coincide with activities being staged by other media organisations working with the Project. Thus, the first question about the economy coincided with a nation-wide online talk radio chat about the Senate race hosted by Minnesota Public Radio; the second question about democracy coincided with a public journalism style TV debate hosted by the Star Tribune and KTCA Public Television; and the third question about the future of medicare coincided with a major TV debate hosted by the League of Women Voters of MN and WCCO TV. By using the lengthy time frame of the E-Debate to ‘drape’ the deliberations over a series of election events we sought to foster the continuity of events and construct a week long period of deep democracy in Minnesota.

As events transpired, this strategy demonstrated how the new technology might deepen the process and change politics permanently. The second question to the candidates was as follows,

As important a scholar as Robert Dahl has expressed concern that democracy itself may be at risk as our economies go through rapid, global transformation. This is supported nationally by allegations that candidates are disregarding campaign finance laws, and accepting vast sums from national and transnational organisations. It is also supported by a citizenry clearly suspicious that politicians and the media organisations responsible for facilitating the democratic process are, as scholars Christopher Arterton and Jeffrey Abramson put it, "secret sharers".

Question:

Do you think the democratic process is at risk? If so, why and what needs to be done so the democratic process thrives in an information society?

The manner in which the three major party candidates handled this question was relevant to the campaign, and confirmed trends discerned in my analysis of 1994. First, the three major party candidates included former Senator Rudy Boschwitz for the Republicans, Incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone for the DFL and, once again, Dean Barkley for the Reform Party.

The race was notable as a rematch between Boschwitz, a two term Republican Senator from 1978 to 1990, and Wellstone, who upset Boschwitz in 1990. During that year the underfunded Wellstone, a former political science professor at Carlton College specialising in grassroots community organising, and the campaign manager of Minnesotans for Jesse Jackson in 1988, put together a strong advertising campaign and powerful grassroots organisation to pull off what was considered a major upset. In 1996 Boschwitz ran a traditional media campaign, painting Wellstone as "embarrassingly liberal" and himself as mainstream. Wellstone called for 11 debates, ran an extended grassroots organisation, and argued that corporations had enough representation and he was in DC to represent "children, the elderly and working families". In addition to these two, candidate Dean Barkley continued to preside over the growth of the Reform Party in Minnesota. With increased media exposure Barkley was able successfully to make a case that both parties in power were beholden to special interests and unable to solve the problems facing the nation.

A powerful dynamic was made apparent after the three candidates answered the second E-Debate question. Both Barkley and Wellstone said the political process is at risk. Barkley sounded themes reminiscent of 1994 and Wellstone the political scientist and US Senator concurred, writing, "I agree that our democratic process is seriously undermined by our current system of campaign financing, and by the undue influence of special interests it allows. I said it six years ago, when I was elected to the Senate, and it remains true: the central ethical issue of politics in our time is the dominance of governmental decision-making by moneyed special interests." The two candidates spoke clearly and in some detail on critical issues. In the rebuttals, Wellstone restated his views on campaign finance reform. Barkley initiated an expansive assault on the role of media in the democratic process. Among other things, Barkley pointed out that even as the League of Women Voters of MN decided to include him in their debates, others such as Bill Hanley at KTCA Public Television continued an anti-democratic policy by excluding major party candidates from debate. [As you will recall, Barkley won major party status for his party in 1994.] This was particularly effective as the KTCA-Star Tribune debate was held the night before Barkley submitted his rebuttal. Trends favouring an increasing variety of voices and the opening of the media were clear, as fuelled by projects such as MN E-Democracy, individuals such as Dean Barkley, and movements such as the Reform Party. As Barkley concluded, "

Let’s keep the pressure on the other debate sponsors and media organisations to be mindful of their public responsibility to the citizens they purport to serve...On election day, I ask you to keep the health of our democracy in mind. I ask you to express your opposition to the seizure of our airwaves and the betrayal of our democracy that is being perpetrated by the Democrats and Republicans.

A contested terrain was created among the candidates as Rudy Boschwitz responded, "Although our democratic process remains intact, America has strayed from its heritage of individual freedom and personal responsibility....Our experiment with the liberal philosophy of big government has been a disaster for our treasury, our culture, and our national spirit." In other words, two candidates including a US Senator stated their belief that the democratic process is at risk, while a third candidate, a former US Senator, stated his belief that the process is intact.

These interactions had a significant if largely unquantifiable effect on the election. The following Monday, two days after the above events, Senator Wellstone and Dean Barkley accepted an invitation to chat for an hour on Minnesota Public Radio. Boschwitz markedly declined to participate. During the programme the two men discussed their views on the risks confronting the political process, concluding that on this most important issue they shared significant common ground. That Tuesday evening, the three candidates appeared together on the League of Women Voters of MN/WCCO TV debate, the most watched debate of the campaign. When asked by a member of the studio audience about campaign contributions and the political process, both Wellstone and Barkley launched into eloquent statements of their views, and both expressed that they shared common ground on these issues. Boschwitz, continuing to ignore the notion that the political process is damaged, appeared entirely out of step. This was reflected the following week when Wellstone captured 51% of the vote, Boschwitz 41% and Barkley 7%. If Wellstone had not been such a powerful voice for reform and a remarkably good campaigner, Barkley, who spoke eloquently about many problems and came into his own in terms of media coverage, most probably would have received more support. As it stood, a number of times Wellstone invited Barkley to fly with him to various parts of the state, commenting that Barkley possessed an important voice in Minnesota politics. (But, Wellstone would add, not important enough to merit voting for him in 1996.)

As the only online project to have the full co-operation of the candidates, MN E-Democracy’s achievements in 1996 were considerable in a large and increasingly competitive market. At the same time, as the existence of the project was not properly communicated to the mass public, the potential for the State-wide democratisation of systems of public opinion formation was not realised. Instead, the media organisations seeking to secure their futures in an information age ran their own Web-based forums. The anti-normative behaviour observed in 1994 in MN-POLITICS was again observed in these forums, particularly at the Star Tribune Online. One reason MN-POLITICS did not receive greater attention in certain quarters might be the realisation by the relevant media partners that e-mail based forums in 1996 had a competitive advantage over Web-based forums. If organisations were to promote a successful e-mail system over their own struggling Web-based system, they would be hurting themselves. It is not, in fact, clear whether Web-based conferencing will ever have the same properties that make e-mail based conferencing successful, as analysed in the above. Furthermore, it is debatable whether the major media organisations had the expertise to manage their forums properly even if they did have adequate technology. In any event, the result of this was the existence of one highly elite and highly effective public discussion forum and a fragmented series of poorly attended Web forums run by different organisations.

According to these results I believe the machinery exists in Minnesota to render apparent neglected processes of interaction and the tools exist to train a substantial percentage of the public in the art of politics in a new arena so that an enriched understanding of citizenship becomes prevalent in the community. This machinery and these tools can be a means to reverse the deterioration in civil society and contribute to a genuine deliberation over normative values. At the same time, in a competitive marketplace, where entrenched media organisations are trying to survive, the ongoing construction of new institutional structures to affect the above described Deweyan revival will continue with great difficulty. The will to finance a public utility for the regeneration of democratic norms, to ensure it as a non-partisan body, to ensure it remains open and free for citizen participation, and to organise it to ensure expert management, does not currently exist amongst the entrenched media and the emerging transnational telecommunications regimes. With such benefactors the segregation into elite and mass forums and the further confusion and alienation of the mass public are likely outcomes. The will to secure a democratised system of public opinion formation must, rather, come from the newly emerging Deweyan public, the community of symbolic analysts, opinion leaders and information elites. It falls on these groups to preserve democratic norms in the twenty-first century.

Certainly, the proof that orthodox methods of political communication erode the tools of citizenship necessary to maintain normative values is of lasting value beyond Minnesota, at least in the United States. For the political culture of Minnesota is part of the political culture of the United States, except that Minnesota is reputed to have a particularly robust political culture. If the civic culture in Minnesota is above average, then the trends indicating the erosion of civic culture in Minnesota are most likely to be more pronounced in other parts of the United States.

Additionally, the new technology can be seen as part of an emerging civic revival in Minnesota. Thus the beginnings of a Deweyan system - characterised by freedom from the profit motive, a geographic base, a non-partisan system open to the public and an emphasis on electoral politics - have thus far been successfully developed. Minnesota clearly provides fertile soil for the growth of a Deweyan system. This is not surprising as Minnesota is home to a rich civic tradition characterised not only by MN E-Democracy but also a variety of public journalism projects, a continuing tradition of strong public broadcasting, the strength of the Reform Party, the success of the Wellstone grassroots campaign, and a voter turnout in 1996 that was 25% higher than the national average (64% versus 49%). Even in Minnesota, however, it will be a struggle to institutionalise this system. If it will be a struggle in Minnesota, with its strong civic tradition, it will certainly be more of a struggle in other parts of the United States.

According to Robert Putnam rich civic traditions in a geographic area make civic renewal more likely, and the lack of civic traditions makes civic renewal less likely (Putnam 1991, 1994). It will be possible and important work to co-ordinate e-democracy initiatives and study what they uncover about the status of civil society and the understanding of citizenship in various political communities. The e-democracy concepts can be used as tools to gauge the state of civic culture. It might also be possible and beneficial to study how the concepts are absorbed into existing and not yet existing institutional structures located locally, regionally and globally. Through such a study it would be possible to gauge whether, when and where the new technology can, in fact, act as a catalyst to civic revival across regions and even continents.

Thus far, across the United States, a haphazard and thoroughly impenetrable mish-mash of usenet newsgroups, listservs catering to specific interests and Web-based bulletin boards has emerged. The success of usenet and the creation of new listservs have been driven by the market power of the early adapters. These creations are the unorganised flowering of Internet culture and as such are quite possibly the major contribution of the Internet to a global culture. Most of these lists are, however, removed from geographic concerns and most are targeted to a specific area of interest, such as "clinton.96" or "online-newspapers".

As one might imagine, large local, regional and global institutions of mass media have not eagerly embraced the anarchic Internet, the non-profit Internet, or e-democracy concepts. Even so, the world of online media has exploded since 1994. Locally, as in the case of the Twin Cities, most newspapers and many other media ventures have created an online presence. For example, the Star Tribune Online, the Pioneer Planet, Channel 4000, MPR Online and others all have created online divisions with significant resources. In addition, the major mass media organisations also have directed substantial resources at the new market. For example, Politics Now (a collaboration of the Washington Post, National Journal and ABC News), All Politics (a collaboration of Time-Warner and CNN), MSNBC (a collaboration of Microsoft and NBC), are each substantial services with a variety of products struggling to survive. This burgeoning field continues in a state of flux as is evident from the constant creation of new partnerships as traditional institutions try to adapt themselves to a new era. It is even more difficult to say where developments are headed on consideration of such products as WebTV, the potential investment of some $7 billion by Microsoft in the creation of local content, and the unknown and/or developing plans of organisations like Disney/ABC, BT/MCI, AT&T, etc.

To an extent, to be sure, large corporations are of necessity heeding the experiences of early pioneers such as MN E-Democracy, the usenet news and the thousands of listservs. There is a general acceptance that local content and virtual community will be important. It is, however, unclear whether large players wish to understand why local content and virtual community as exhibited by anything like MN E-Democracy succeed as a popular response to the regimes set in place over generations by many of the large players. For many reasons the online products of large organisations are poor candidates for Deweyan systems. First, the interaction created by the mass media organisations is almost entirely Web-based and lacking the important characteristics of e-mail listservs observed earlier. Second, the national focus of many services ignores the needs of any viable, local political community. Third, most services are operated by organisations constrained by the profit motive. As a result the services are often heavily moderated or otherwise constrained. Fourth, most services are placed in regions such as New York, Los Angeles, or Washington DC in which the local culture has for generations been strongly influenced by free market capitalism, and a philosophy of rugged individualism. Finally, the major media centres are also characterised by a profoundly heterogeneous population. The last two points are especially significant. First, if one follows Putnam’s thesis about the existence of civic traditions and the possibility for civic renewal, the widespread existence of excessively individualistic cultural traditions might be an inhibiting factor. This point further explains why Minnesota, with its strong social democratic traditions preserved by generations of Scandinavian immigrants, provides fertile ground for e-democracy concepts. Second, the existence of extreme variance in a sample population as a result of extreme ethnic diversity will clearly have consequences in the analysis of the political effects of new technology. Again, the homogeneity of the population in Minnesota made it easier to focus on social and political effects by eliminating extreme variance. Variance will, however, have to be increasingly taken into account in other areas where experimentation is pursued. In fact, it is possible that variance in the sample population in a given context will result in an inability to create the unifying self-category of citizenship. This may result in a pessimistic conclusion about the prospects for a Deweyan revival in a particular area. This, of course, remains a significant concern for research.

It is, in any event, fully possible that large organisations in the US and elsewhere will successfully co-opt the concepts such as community networking and e-democracy that have sparked enthusiasm among early adapters. On the basis of these they may peddle wares that reinforce the hollow version of citizenship that results in the continuing deterioration of our norms and political communities. At the same time it remains unclear what effect the popular response - the Deweyan public currently organising itself through usenet, the haphazard creation of listservs, and organised projects such as MN E-Democracy - will ultimately have when it comes to the maintenance of democratic norms. There are currents of dissent forming possibly into a wave through use of the new technology. It is possible that e-democracy initiatives will be constructed and meet with some success in places similar to Minnesota, such as Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington State and Vermont. It is also possible that the activities of individual activists such as Jamie Love and Ed Schwartz, the work of journalists such as Graeme Browning and Ronnie Dugger, and the influence of embryonic populist movements such as the Reform Party and the new Alliance for Democracy, will initiate a nation-wide process of change. In all cases, the continuation of a rapid decline in civil society across the United States, as illustrated by a 49% voter turnout in the 1996 elections, will - for good and/or ill - continue to be a determinative trend.

For the short term, prospects for a Deweyan system look remarkably better in Europe than the US. Nation-states in Europe are rather autonomous mid-size units in which a variety of regionally based discussions could be developed. Also, there has been a much more multi-faceted dialogue between social democratic and free market capitalist intellectual currents than the rather one-sided discourse in the US. In addition to a consideration of Dewey, many of the concepts put into practice in Minnesota originated upon consideration of English and continental philosophical currents. As a cause and effect of differing intellectual traditions, major media institutions have in Europe developed differently for their various functions in the democratic process. The BBC, for example, can be likened historically to a massive top-down community network. The existence of these currents might make communities across Europe amenable to e-democracy concepts. Furthermore, if homogeneity of the sample population was a factor in the success of the concepts in Minnesota, the homogeneity common within European nation-states may result in the concepts being more easily institutionalised than among the heterogeneous populations common to the US. Finally, the Deweyan system is intended as a democratic counterweight to the anti-democratic tendencies of the new transnational regimes of information technology and mass media. The implementation of this counterweight may, therefore, gain political and economic support and acceptance more easily elsewhere than in the country in which many of the transnational regimes operate. In other words, a Deweyan system might find currency as a potential antidote in part to both Americanisation and globalisation.

In Europe, as elsewhere, the emergence of a Deweyan public is a consequence of the increasing use of computer-mediated communication. At this point, regardless of how elites act, individuals will participate in usenet newsgroups, e-mail listservs and electronic bulletin boards. For example, in the UK the "uk.politics" usenet newsgroup has become so popular that a vote was taken among users to subdivide into a number of new usenet newsgroups including uk.politics.electoral, uk.politics.misc, uk.politics.philosophy and uk.politics.announce.

Partly as a result of such activities various individuals and groups in Europe have expressed interest in e-democracy concepts in general and in MN E-Democracy in particular. Interest and activities have been rather intense compared to the US. For example, a "Decision Guide/Teledemocracy" project is under way at the Institute for Public and Policy in the Netherlands. Individuals in the Swedish government invited Steve Clift for consultation on e-democracy and government online issues. The Academy of the Third Millennium in Munich, Germany is organising a major international conference at the European Patent Office to address issues involving the Internet and politics. Two projects in which I am involved in the United Kingdom, Nexus and UK Citizens Online Democracy, are inspired by and/or modelled on MN E-Democracy. Projecte de Democracia in Barcelona, Spain is modelled on MN E-Democracy and UK Citizens Online Democracy. In the US large corporations have begun to dominate the discourse on online politics, while a variety of actors from a variety of spheres are involved in Europe. This bodes well for Deweyan systems - and, in fact, Habermasian systems - being given consideration by societal elites.

Perhaps there is in Europe fertile soil to use the new tools to gauge the state of civil society among the politically active population online. By simultaneously investigating how the citizenry reacts to these tools and how they are absorbed into existing and newly forming institutional structures it might also be possible to design structures that act as catalysts for civic renewal.

These are clearly among the aims of Nexus and UK Citizens Online Democracy. Because I am involved in these projects it will be possible to collect a variety of data, including the experiential data reflected in the successes and failures of new institutions, as well as the content that is generated by a community of users within interactive forums. It will be possible to compare this data with data from the uk.politics* usenet hierarchy, data collected in Minnesota, and data collected elsewhere. This will provide a foundation of hard empirical evidence to create a transnational hub for a research enterprise emanating, originally, from Minnesota in the US and Cambridge, England in Europe. By further analysing the Minnesota data as it has changed in time, and by comparing the experiences of embryonic structures and the quality of interaction within those structures in North America and Europe, it will be possible to create a matrix for cross-cultural analysis of the e-democracy concepts.

Once such a matrix is formed it will be easier to analyse systematically further developments elsewhere in North America, Europe and the rest of the world, to co-ordinate research efforts in an increasing range of geographic locations, and study research reports globally. On one level, the research enterprise will potentially provide a vast data set gauging the well-being of civil society in various regions as well as creating the possibility for renewal when and where appropriate. On another level, the research enterprise may result in findings that help make it possible to construct formal e-democracy networks on a local, national and/or global scale.

Such a research enterprise engages serious issues concerning our understanding of citizenship. Perhaps the current understanding in which citizenship is defined by legal rights that result from one’s place of residence will come into conflict with a conception of citizenship as a unifying self-category. Earlier I referred to the former as a hollow understanding of citizenship coinciding with the erosion of civil society and the latter as an enriched understanding of citizenship.

The potential development in our understanding of citizenship presents serious issues for consideration, particularly in Europe where the long dominant nation-state is losing authority. It would appear that citizenship in a nation-state such as the United Kingdom is giving way to citizenship in a larger unit such as the European Union. However, given an enriched understanding of citizenship as a unifying self-category within a political community, such transformation does not appear straightforward. On the one hand, perhaps the new technology will enable the construction of a common culture among the European nation-states, paving the way for the universal acceptance of an allegiance to a meta-organisation such as the EU. For example, the talk.politics.european-union usenet newsgroup is quite popular. Such uses of the technology will certainly have an effect. Perhaps the organisation of such groups will result in a feeling of pan-European solidarity amidst relatively disparate populations.

On the other hand, perhaps the enriched conception of citizenship will reveal powerful fault lines among local, regional and global populations. It may, for example, transpire that these fault lines do not realign so easily in the short term. For example, as a medium coming from America, dominated by the English language, and, therefore, dominated by Anglo-Saxon world outlooks, citizens of the UK may find themselves situated globally in a way that separates them from other EU member states. Indeed, after a cursory inspection of uk.politics.misc and talk.politics.european-union one finds a thread variously divided into the subject-headings, Britain is a democracy. THE EU IS NOT and Britain is NOT a democracy. Such a thread reveals issues and divisions that are both deep and of vital significance. The British tradition of Parliamentary democracy shared with members of the Anglo-Saxon world is perhaps invoked against the differing political traditions in continental Europe. With the Anglo-Saxon world and Asian world spheres doing a great deal of business in the English language, and with information technology and communications products becoming pivotal sectors of increasingly globalised economies that increasingly disregard geographic boundaries, the deep cultural differences and affiliations across continents may increasingly have pragmatic significance.

This is but an example of how the new technologies are revealing complexities that ought not be overlooked by world leaders and policy makers. There is no telling what the interactions of a newly enabled global public, steeped in a numbing variety of linguistic and cultural traditions, will in time reveal. At this early stage it is, however, clear that the understanding of citizenship in a world of nation-states is undergoing transformation. As the understanding of citizenship undergoes transformation, the world of nation-states, for good or ill, will change dramatically as well.

At their best the e-democracy concepts will allow for a systematic appraisal of the fault lines of civil society. There is also a potential for the tools to act as a catalyst for civic renewal, as happened in Minnesota. In any event, a systematic and increasingly widespread research enterprise involving the organisation of a Deweyan public and the implementation of the e-democracy concepts might, in time, give us the knowledge we need as the influence of the nation-state recedes and our generation seeks to guide the readjusting the boundaries of our political communities.