Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life

securing a more democratic future also requires fresh attention to how online spaces organize, constrain, and enable everyday politics.

Conway’s Law is a celebrated truism in software development: technical systems tend to resemble the communication structures of the organizations that create them.

Perhaps leaning so hard as I have on democracy will only cause it to snap. Perhaps we need another word; perhaps the word can be refurbished and put to better use. Either way, technology is sure to be drafted in the cause. A further fruit of Langdon Winner’s reflections on artifacts and politics is an observation about the amnesia that surrounds in

implicit feudalism, the dominant design pattern for online spaces, in which all power derives from founders and admins, and most users lack opportunities for direct, instrumental effective voice.

Perhaps leaning so hard as I have on democracy will only cause it to snap. Perhaps we need another word; perhaps the word can be refurbished and put to better use. Either way, technology is sure to be drafted in the cause. A further fruit of Langdon Winner’s reflections on artifacts and politics is an observation about the amnesia that surrounds in

if people are given a real chance to self-govern, with the guidance and infrastructures they need to do so, they will rise to the occasion.

Democratic practices can emerge among feudal technologies. Administrators may feel rhetorical or social pressure to respect the values of community members in how they exert their otherwise absolute authority. Feudal networks can thereby exhibit forms of accountability that political scientist David Stasavage calls “early democracy,” resembling the

The button to leave is always there, but actually using it might incur personal or professional costs. It might mean losing friends or access to one’s culture.

While a stack run from above provides mere service, a governable stack can introduce experiences of shared power.