Hi Michel,
 
Thanks very much for the below and I must confess to not having read the comments on Zeynep's original post. I found the comments, particularly those of "Parliament of Things" more or less directly parallel to my own thoughts.
 
I've never had a lot of interest in network analysis or network theory--thinking about it. I realize that the reason for this is that to my mind network analysis is a way of avoiding class or (in my case) community analysis where the issues are not simply about analysis but also about social change ("networks" are to "communities" (or P2P?) as "social and economic status" (SES) is to "class"--I go into this in a bit more depth in my little book "What is Community Informatics..." http://www.docstoc.com/MyDocuments/ ("Networks" in this approach, at least as presented in "network analysis" are statistical constructs a la SES and bear little relationship to the lived world of real networks, P2P associations, communities or whatever...
 
The issue is not, I think, some "iron law" (or statistical regularity) but rather what it is that one wants to do and what the best way is of accomplishing it. If one wants the opportunity for democratic participation then there are potential means for achieving this and examples where it has been done. If one believes that P2P relationships are the necessary underpinnings for democratic participation then one can work through ways of realizing these. Of course after the fact it is possible to design analyses that show why one or another approach is more or less useful in achieving the goal (or not), but the pragmatics of moving forward toward the objective are, as several of your commentators pointed to, rather more in the hands of the participants than they are constrained by any kind of social behaviourism.
 
(But maybe that's why I stopped being an academic sociologist 20 years ago or so... :-)
 
Mike
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Bauwens [mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 9:00 AM . 
To: P2P Foundation mailing list
Cc: Pedro Gioya; Michael Gurstein; Dougald Hine; Paul B. Hartzog
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] FW: Blogpost: Applying the ICT Lessons of Revolt to the Institutional Challenges of Reconstruction: They overthrew Hosni Mubarek, Now Can They Overthrow Robert Michels?

Hi Pedro,

I follow Zeynep closely and we've covered this particular entry in our blog as well,

these are if you will, the two sides of the same coin, and do not necesseraly contradict each other,

Michael points out the real changes that took place through the use of these media, and their further potential, while Zeynep points to the dangers  that do not just come from outside, but from within the peer to peer dynamic itself

from the blog,

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/preferential-attachment-in-p2p-networks-is-that-really-the-issue/2011/02/21

but especially this:

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/debating-the-iron-law-of-bureaucracy-and-the-power-law-knowing-networks-as-an-alternative-to-scale-free-networks/2011/02/18

Paul Hartzog also had a comment on this,

Michel

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:30 AM, Pedro Gioya <pg@institutodeliderazgo.com> wrote:
Hi
Look at this post on the same issue but with different  perspective (Sure you know, but anyway....)
 
Pedro
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: [P2P-F] FW: Blogpost: Applying the ICT Lessons of Revolt to the Institutional Challenges of Reconstruction: They overthrew Hosni Mubarek, Now Can They Overthrow Robert Michels?

This is really brilliant Michael and I warmly recommend it to our listmembers,

Michel

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 4:11 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein@gmail.com> wrote:
Michel,

I think this is one that you will find interesting...

M

---------------------------------------------
http://wp.me/pJQl5-5Z

"In this, I think that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have access to
skills and resources which were unavailable to earlier movements that is-the
Internet, social networking, mobile telephony and perhaps most important,
the experience and knowledge of how to use these in support of collective
social ends."




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