Page 35 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Information and Political Change
my primary aim to predict the future of the information revolution and
American politics, a risky temptation to which a number of writers have
succumbed. I restrict myself instead to analyzing the nature and causes
of changes under way in American democracy at present. I intend this
book to be an argument for conceptualizing the evolution of information
as an important contributor to political change at the largest scale – not
information defined narrowly as the quantifiable messages exchanged
by rational agents in signaling games and the like, but as a universally
important ingredient in political processes.
Much of my thesis is based on the observation that elites exercise
a powerful influence on the organization of democracy, through their
capacity to influence public opinion, set agendas, mobilize citizens into
collective action, make decisions, and implement policies. The identity
and structure of elites is neither fixed across time nor random in its
changes. Many factors affect the identity and structure of elites, and the
state of information is one of them. Exogenous changes in the accessi-
bility or structure of information cause changes in the structure of elite
organizations that dominate political activity, and these in turn affect the
broadcharacterofdemocracy.
I develop this theoretical claim in two steps, one historical and one
contemporary. First, I reinterpret parts of American political history in
informational terms. I argue that information regimes exist in American
political history as periods of stable relationships among information,
organizations, and democratic structure. The features of an information
regime are: (1) a set of dominant properties of political information, such
ashighcost;(2)asetofopportunitiesandconstraintsonthemanagement
of political information that these properties create; and (3) the appear-
ance of characteristic political organizations and structures adapted to
those opportunities and constraints. Information regimes in the United
States have been interrupted by information revolutions, which involve
changesinthestructureoraccessibilityofinformation.Theserevolutions
may be initiated by technological developments, institutional change, or
economic outcomes. An information revolution disrupts a prior infor-
mation regime by creating new opportunities for political communi-
cation and the organization of collective action. These changes create
advantages for some forms of organization and structure and disad-
vantages for others, leading to adaptations and change in the world of
political organizations and intermediaries. This is to say that democratic
power tends to be biased toward those with the best command of political
information at any particular stage in history.

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