Thank you for your response to my theoretical reflections. Actually, it is true that my views on digital activism in general, and on the Saffron Revolution in particular, are permeated by an ongoing interest in the non-institutional, informal processes of political change – as well as by a qualitative research perspective.

What is interesting about the Burma case study is that it opens up the chance to make serious comparative research with other cases. It is very appropriate that Mridul mentioned the contrast between the Saffron Revolution with the Zapatista case in Mexico. What happened in this later, is that after the global articulation of networks of support, the armed rebel forces in Mexico eventually retreated to the realm of civil society, becoming a powerful internal force to bring accountability to the government. It might be debated that the globally-supported (and pioneer in digital contentious repertoires) “cyberzapatista war” was part of the demise of the 70 years of informal dictatorship of the PRI political party. Still, digital activism and the subsequent articulation of networks of international civil society became a very important component of the complex process of democratization.

I agree that, in authoritarian regimes, internal forces continuously struggle to achieve voice and visibility, and even more so for significantly influencing political processes. It might be the case that, as Bruce points out, the impact and output of internet activism in advanced democracies can be measured in the context of electoral politics (e.g., Obama’s online fundraising and networking). Yet, in the case of the Saffron Revolution, the simple fact of people having a voice, and getting that voice out, was somehow a victory in itself – it was the concerted effort of acting together.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on Burma and the future of the recently activated networks of support. What is important now is to assess the political and social meaningfulness of cyberactivism in the full spectrum of political contexts (from left to right, and from more open to authoritarian regimes). It is true that analysis has to be careful in recognizing the good, the bad and the ugly of digital activism (such as in the context of the Russia-Georgia conflict) but there is nonetheless a growing need of re-framing political activity in a way that is more suitable for a changing social model that is becoming more liquid, reflexive, and networked.

I look forward to hear more about the recent I&D research and conversations!

Thanks very much for your thoughtful response to our Burma case study. In one sense, I totally agree with you. The way that we understand and measure the importance of online social mobilization is not as simple as a binary success/failure assessment. A multi-disciplinary approach is really needed, and each discipline will have different measure of importance, success and failure. However (and perhaps this is based on too much time in the government/donor community) I still feel that if we only say that the Internet’s success is based on “process-based” outputs we may miss or underestimate its potential to have a real impact on the political process in the US and around the world. Looking at successful models (as well as failures—in a purely political sense) can help us understand what works and what doesn’t; what should be replicated and what we should learn from something that didn’t work out as well as organizers might have hoped. For example, I’m pretty confident that Democrats, Republicans and independents of all stripes will assess who had the most impact online and why online after the US election–and learn from those that were most successful. Finally, we feel that “success” in the case of Burma is a totally debatable question—which is why we did not end the case with conclusions, but instead debatable hypotheses, that we are glad to see has sparked conversation. Thanks so much for your contribution!

Non-institutional political engagement of citizens in general is an area that is perhaps under-researched. Looking at the Saffron Revolution from that lens surely highlights important points, such as the power of citizens in digital era to hold governments somewhat ‘accountable’, not bring about regime change, which is a very difficult goal to achieve anyway. Accountability in that authoritarian regime is not what we generally understand by the term – but it is more like self-restraint of the government in using violence.

One of the important points that the paper tries to highlight is that for countries such as Burma which are dependent on neighboring countries for economic and military support, significant change often cannot happen from within if forces outside the country are not adequately aligned with the movement. The purpose of the paper was not to express “disappointment that the Saffron Revolution did not lead to political change” but to highlight that in this highly globalized world, internal forces are often not enough.

This is also a proactive activism, not just passive as blogging, and now, with in reach of the internet, there are much more information at hand, and without supervision than, for example, the 60-80 decades…

We can also need to take in account the Halloween Mails from Microsoft, and all that information leaked to the internet, this is so important than a wiki called wikileaks.org, this is also a type of activism.

Right now, we can only accept that are in a new dimension of information flow and people with access to this information can create new ways of activism…

This is only beginning…