| I argue that a cluster of properties of internet communication contributes to the emergence of efficient solutions for a variety of large-scale collective action problems. These properties include a large user population, the reduction of transaction costs, efficient information flows, and the self-organization of web traffic into a small number of focal sites. Entrepreneurs and groups capitalize on these properties to create inexpensive platforms to organize the collaboration of large numbers of heterogeneously and non-heroically motivated agents.; These new organizational capabilities enable efficient solutions to collective action problems in a variety of strategic settings. I analyze three distinct phenomena: the innovative uses of internet communication by social movement organizations; the production of reputation management systems to overcome trust problems; and the peer-production of order and other goods by virtual communities.; I argue that these organizational capabilities generate new opportunities for a variety of previously 'latent' political players, and deepen the background conditions and the organization of political competition. Simultaneously, they function as a driver for the creation of collaborative platforms for large-scale voluntary cooperation.; These developments challenge the validity of 'participationist' and 'contestationist' models of democracy, which are particularly manifest in the works of John Dewey and Joseph A. Schumpeter that I explore. These salient models of democracy present two fundamental positions about the institutionalization of the idea of self-government in contemporary social, political, and technological realities.; Novel opportunities for organization, mobilization and intermediation challenge the Schumpeterian model, which focuses on competition among leaders as the emblematic feature of democracies. I claim that the Schumpeterian model of democracy fails to accommodate the new opportunities for large-scale collaboration in solving public problems, and the expansion of political competition. However, these new opportunities do not spontaneously generate the Deweyian model of self-government as a fully communicative and collaborative communal life; when agents favor interaction and organization with like-minded or similarly-situated, it is more likely that these opportunities result in fragmentation and 'advocacy explosion,' rather than in a 'great community.'... |
