by Daniel S. Papp and David S. Alberts
What will the world be shaped like in the Information Age? Who will the primary players be? What will their interests be, and how will they function? Those are the trillion dollar questions that must be asked and answered as we try to decipher the future impacts of the Information Age on international actors and the international system.
The preceding chapters provided us with insights on how specific areas of human endeavor and specific types of human institutions and organizations might be affected by the Information Age. In this concluding chapter, we provide our perspectives on how the Information Age in more general terms might affect international actors and the international system.
The chapter is divided into three parts. First, we offer four observations that are applicable not only to international actors and the international system, but also at lower levels of analysis, that is, within individual states, corporations, organizations, and institutions. We term these "multi-level impacts of the Information Age." Second, we assess possible impacts of the Information Age on the main types of current international actors. Finally, we offer four observations that apply primarily to the international system. We term these "system-level impacts of the Information Age."
As the technologies of the Information Age become more widely diffused and adopted, certain impacts will have similar effects at the international system level of analysis, the international actor level, and within individual states, corporations, organizations, and institutions. Here, we present four of the most prominent.
Increased Quantity, Dispersal, and Flow of Information. As advanced information and communication technologies become less expensive and easier to use, they will be more widely adopted and increasingly employed. They will no longer be limited to "leading edge" industries and organizations nor will they be limited to only select organizational functions and processes. In fact, these technologies will become the typical means of doing business in all kinds of fields and organizations. As a result, more and more information will inevitably become accessible at every level from the international system level to the individual actor level. More and more people, institutions, and organizations will have more access to and need for information. Except for the most sensitive national and corporate data, this increased quantity of data will be accompanied by increased dissemination and access as the locations at which information is located and can be accessed proliferate.
The increased dispersal of information will offer significant advantages. First, because it will be available at more sites, more users will be able to access information. Second, as a general rule, gaining access to information will also be easier. Users will have access to information closer at hand, and information will be available on a 24-hour basis, virtually eliminating limitations imposed by time dependency for users regardless of the level of analysis.
Some disadvantages will also accompany the increased dispersal of information. As discussed earlier, one disadvantage is uncertainty over the accuracy and validity of information. In addition, dispersion also exacerbates existing privacy-related concerns that sensitive personal information such as credit reports and social security data may be too easily available. Increased dispersion also exacerbates security concerns by requiring more "containers" and "pipes" to be secured. At the national level, the development of high-quality privately owned satellite and remote sensing capabilities has increased concern that sensitive military information and intelligence data may be compromised.
Decentralized Decision Making. As information becomes more widely available, the ability to analyze it will undoubtedly become more widespread. Thus, more individuals and organizations will be in a better position to make decisions that "specialists," "experts," or "headquarters" now make. This will be especially true in advanced industrial and newly-industrialized states, in multinational corporations, and in other institutions and organizations that value education and initiative. The proliferation of the ability to analyze information will likely carry with it a demand to decentralize decision making and empower more people in decision making processes.
In many quarters, this demand is likely to make good sense to those in positions of authority and to be perceived as improving efficiency. In these cases, demand from below for decentralized decision making may well be joined by initiatives from above for the same end result. In all likelihood, then, decision making will become more decentralized as the Information Age progresses. Indeed, as discussed in earlier chapters, this is already happening in many areas of the business world, in banking, in government and the military, and in other sectors of society as well.
Conversely, some international actors, institutions, and organizations will seek to maintain centralized control of decision-making capabilities, especially in more traditional societies, institutions, and organizations. This, too, will be an understandable culturally dependent reaction. We already see this occurring as some states and other international actors seek to minimize the number of locations where information can be stored, to limit access to certain types of information, and to curtail the free flow of information.
Greater Permeability of Institutional and Organizational Boundaries. As the transfer of information becomes easier and easier, institutional and organizational boundaries will become increasingly permeable. Thus, the flow of information will increase not only within institutions and organizations, but also among them.
As with internal flows of information, some institutions and organizations will seek to curtail the inward and outward flow of information. The ongoing efforts of China and other countries to limit access to the Internet is just one example of the reluctance of institutions to permit the free flow of information and communications. While such efforts may be temporarily successful on a limited or case-by-case basis, as a general rule they are likely to fail, at least for those institutions and organizations that participate most fully in the information revolution.
Emergence of New Forms and Types of Actors. Since the technologies of the Information Age will aid and abet individuals and organizations in widely scattered locations that have similar interests, outlooks, or objectives to communicate easily with one another, it is highly likely that the Information Age will witness a proliferation of the formation of "virtual" entities that stake claims to a role in international affairs. Many of these virtual entities will be ephemeral, coming into existence for short periods of time and concentrating on single issues. Most could be and probably will be ignored by the well-established international actors. But some virtual entities may become players in their own right on the national and international scene, and this will change the dynamics at each level.
It is difficult to foretell specifically what impact virtual entities might have at any level of analysis. Their impacts are likely to vary tremendously depending on the quantity of resources available, the popularity of a given cause, and the dedication of those associated with the entity. There is little doubt, however, that such entities will come into existence, thereby further complicating an already complex decision-making environment.
Advanced information and communication technologies will be absorbed, diffused, and operationalized by different international actors in different ways and at different speeds. This differentiated pattern and speed of absorption, diffusion, and operationalization will lead to different types and rates of change. Factors that will influence these processes may be grouped into three broad categories:
1.) those that are functions of the technological process, such as:
a.) the technology (product) life cycle;
b.) technology purchase price; and
c.) technology maintenance cost.
2.) those that are functions of characteristics which exist within individual international actors, such as:
a.) an actor’s legacy equipment and systems;
b.) an international actor’s social and cultural receptivity to new technologies;
c.) the degree of insularity within an actor;
d.) the level and reliability of an actor’s human, technical and economic support infrastructures;
e.) the level and strength of traditional values and outlooks within a given international actor;
f.) the level of education that exists within a given international actor;
g.) the degree of technical sophistication of users and potential users of the advanced information and communication technology within an international actor;
h.) the levels of concern over sovereignty on the part of states, and over control of decision-making processes on the part of the international actors; and
i.) a host of other political, social, economic and cultural factors idiosyncratic to each international actor.
3.) those that are functions of the degree of cooperation that exists between international actors, such as:
a.) international tariff and trade policies and agreements;
b.) services offered by multinational corporations; and
c.) agreements on international standards.
Many of these factors will also influence how information and communication technologies, once absorbed, diffused, and operationalized, will be organized, managed, operated, and maintained.
How, then, will advanced information and communication technologies shape and form present-day international actors? This shaping and forming process will be complex, but it is worthwhile to speculate on how that process may unfold and how it may effect five major classes of international actors: states, international governmental organizations, multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations, and individuals and the media.
States. For three centuries, states have dominated the international system. Today, however, the advent of advanced information and communication technologies challenges the primacy of the state as the central actor in international affairs as never before. This challenge comes from three directions, all related to the reasons that states exist.
The primary objectives of states throughout the centuries of their domination of the international system have been to provide for the security and economic well-being of all or part of their population. In addition, those states that are nation-states during the last two centuries have also provided a "sense of belonging" to the dominant nationality within them. All this may be changing.
First, the Information Age has significantly affected a state’s ability to provide for the security of its population against the threats of information warfare. This inability to provide security comes at the same time as the importance of information and communication technologies is increasing within virtually every society. Given the immense reliance of advanced industrial states on electronic transfer of financial and other data, any disruption of such transfers could raise havoc, economically and otherwise, within a state. Similarly, given the reliance of most governments on electronic communications to maintain contact with their peoples, disruption of communications could significantly degrade a government’s ability to influence and maintain control over its peoples.
With the importance and the vulnerability of information and communication systems in mind, several countries, as discussed earlier, are developing strategies for information warfare. Beyond information warfare, the application of advanced information and communication technologies to intelligence gathering and analysis, to the creation of smart and brilliant weapons systems, and to achieve "force multiplier" applications raises serious questions about the ability of states to provide security for their populations in the Information Age.
This is not the first time that new technologies have raised such questions, so the degree of threat posed by these technologies should not be exaggerated. But neither should it be prematurely dismissed or underestimated. Indeed, there is reason to believe that as advanced information and communication technologies are increasingly applied to the tools of war broadly defined, the ability of any state to provide security for its population will increasingly be challenged.
Second, as pointed out in the discussion of business applications of information technologies, economic activity is increasingly being conducted beyond the confines of individual states. This increased internationalized economic activity has taken place in raw materials, components, industrial products, and finished goods. But a significant and growing percentage has been in information- and communication-related goods and services, with information itself becoming a significant commodity. Both the volume and relative importance of transborder trade in information is likely to increase significantly as advanced information and communication technologies are adopted, diffused, and operationalized.
This will have an immense impact on states. Outside of regulatory functions, as more and more international actors gain use of advanced information and communication technologies, and in so doing obtain the ability to act beyond the confines of a single geographically constrained state, the ability of states to provide for the economic well-being of all or part of their population will be further reduced. Because of advanced information and communication technologies, international actors not bounded by geography will increasingly gain the ability to act internationally with little regard to the desires of states.
This phenomenon is already occurring. As we have seen, international finance and banking has been transformed by the ability to transfer funds electronically throughout the world at a moment’s notice. Many other service sector and data-intensive industries have also internationalized because of capabilities provided by information and communication technologies, with more significant degrees of internationalization sure to follow.
This leads some to question whether states are losing their ability to achieve the second of their three primary objectives, to provide economic well-being for all or part of their population. And if so, why need states exist?
The same question may be asked regarding nation-states’ provision of a sense of belonging to the dominant nationality within them. There is no doubt that in the 1990s, nationalism has been on the rise. Nationalism contributed significantly to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, and is creating problems in Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, and elsewhere as well. At first blush, it would seem that nationalism virtually guarantees the survival of the nation-state, if not the state.
This may be so. However, one must remember that nations have not always needed states to consider themselves nations; sometimes, individuals who comprise a nation view themselves as linked to one another in some way, shape, or form in the absence of having control over land. The advent of advanced information and communication technologies enhances possibilities for peoples of a single nation to be geographically remote from one another but still retain a sense of identity complicated by neither time nor distance.
The extent to which advanced information and communication technologies allow individuals to conceptually overcome the boundaries of time and distance may have a significant impact on whether states remain necessary for nations to have an identity. Advanced information and communication technologies thus raise questions about the future validity of the third reason why states have existed.
None of this implies that states are in imminent danger of disappearing because of advanced information and communication technologies. In some cases, as in Argentina’s decision to outlaw call-back technology, Egypt’s decision to delay debit card telephone and telegraph charging, and China’s efforts to restrict access to the Internet, states are actively seeking to maintain their ability to influence if not control information and communication flows. In other cases, such as the European Union, NAFTA, and MERCOSUR, states are positioning themselves to take advantage of such technologies. Interestingly, however, at least in the EU’s case, this response heightens the possibility of a movement toward a post-state regionalized international era.
International Governmental Organizations. As creations of states, IGOs in most respects are hostage to the desires of states. The advent of advanced information and communication technologies promises to do little to change this. Nevertheless, since IGOs transcend state boundaries and often must cope with problems of time and distance, the capabilities provided by advanced information and communication technologies will help overcome some of the difficulties that IGOs face.
This does not mean that states will become more willing to accept the transfer of part or all of their sovereignty to IGOs. In all likelihood, IGOs will find it as difficult as ever, perhaps even more difficult than ever, to acquire supranational authority and capabilities.
Even so, to the extent that advanced information and communication technologies increase the ability of IGOs to perform tasks that states on their own can not successfully accomplish, advanced information and communication technologies may lead to the migration of more responsibilities from states to IGOs.
Multinational Corporations. Multinational corporations (MNCs) are already among the largest users of information and communication technologies, and they will continue to be at the forefront as even more advanced capabilities become available. Indeed, a significant percentage of advanced information and communication technologies is being developed by MNCs.
As we have already seen, businesses in the service sector distribute and exchange tremendous amounts of information throughout the world. In many cases, geography has little or no impact on decisions where service sector businesses locate their data processing facilities. The ability to transfer funds electronically throughout the world has also already had an immense impact on international banking and finance. With the ability to transfer funds electronically at a moment’s notice, some observers believe that the world is well on its way to becoming a single banking and financial market. Further advances in information and communication technologies will only accelerate this trend.
The trend toward regionalization and globalization of business will also accelerate as more and more companies acquire cost-effective access to international communications. Advanced information and communication technologies will therefore allow many more firms to become international and marketplaces to become regionalized or globalized. On a regional basis, this phenomenon was one of the factors that increased pressures in Europe for political and economic unity. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that similar pressures may build in East Asia, the Americas, and elsewhere as well.
Thus, for several reasons, there is little doubt that advanced information and communication technologies will enhance the role that MNCs play in international affairs. Several decades ago, a noted business professor observed that MNCs had the potential to hold state sovereignty at bay. In the Information Age, that observation has greater potential than ever to become a reality.
Non-Governmental Organizations. Since this group of actors is so diverse, advanced information and communication technologies may be expected to impact them in a wide variety of ways. Nonetheless, some general observations may be made.
Many of these actors have widely scattered memberships. Thus, many of them may be expected to benefit significantly from the increased speed, greater capacity, enhanced flexibility, and improved access afforded by advanced information and communication technologies. It is therefore reasonable to assume that many NGOs will become increasingly active, better coordinated, and more influential as advanced information and communication technologies become more widely available.
At the same time, many of the actors in this category are not well-off economically. However, if as predicted, the wider bandwidths that are becoming available drive down the costs of communicating, the relative lack of resources should not necessarily put them at a significant disadvantage. Also, it is not necessary to have the absolute latest in information technology to benefit enormously. The huge discounts off of original prices that are given for "last generation" technology makes these capabilities much more affordable. One may also expect to see a further proliferation of NGOs and related organizations (including the possibility of virtual organizations) as well as a networking of such organizations as a result of the capabilities afforded by advanced information and communication technologies.
Individuals and the Media. Meanwhile, at the level of individuals, telephones, electronic mail, and facsimiles already link people together in ways we never anticipated. Much of the personal use of these technologies is for social, educational, and business purposes. However, following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China and during the 1991 Soviet coup attempt, electronic mail and facsimiles provided an important link to the outside world—and vice versa—for individuals in China and the former Soviet Union.
At the same time, the ability of the international media to provide foreign perspectives and outlooks on a real-time basis to virtually every major media outlet in the world is creating a sense of global connectivity, if not community, that has never before been widespread among masses of the population. While it is too much to argue that this sense of connectivity is leading to changed views on the parts of individuals about their role and the role of their countries in the world, it is not too much to say that to many individuals, the international media is altering the way that they view the world.
To reiterate, given the diversity of this group of international actors, advanced information and communication technologies will have an extremely diverse impact on the role that these actors play in international affairs. Many will enhance their international roles as a result of the increased speed, greater capacity, enhanced flexibility, and improved access afforded by advanced information and communication technologies. And as costs continue to fall, demand for information and communication technologies from this group of international actors will increase, and their capabilities will increase relative to more traditional technology-rich actors.
Beyond the effects of the Information Age on individual types of actors, some of the impacts of the Information Age will be primarily at the system level of analysis. Here, we present four of the most prominent.
The Disruption of Current Power Relationships Between and Among Types of International Actors. For most of the last 300 years, states have dominated the international system. This domination may be coming to an end, driven in part by the advent of advanced information and communication technologies. These technologies will enable other types of international actors to challenge state dominance as never before.
This process has already begun. As discussed above, multinational corporations already electronically transfer large quantities of funds and information across national borders with little regard for demands of state sovereignty. Similarly, non-governmental organizations have also increased their importance in and impact on international affairs. The role of MNCs and NGOs in international affairs has often expanded at the expense of states and intergovernmental organizations, witness both the NGOs women’s conference outside Beijing, China, and recent efforts by NGOs to stop French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
This does not imply that the era of state dominance of the international system is over, nor does it imply that the role of the state as a class of international actor will significantly diminish during the near-term future. It does imply, however, that the concept of the sovereignty of states will be challenged as it has rarely been challenged before. It also implies that the analysis of international affairs and the international system can no longer be restricted exclusively—and in some cases primarily—to states.
Inevitably, then, struggles for power and influence will erupt between different types of actors as a result of the impacts of information and communication technologies, as these technologies help make the emerging system more diffuse and ambiguous and as current power relationships between classes of international actors become increasingly disrupted.
Enhanced Globalization and Regionalization. Raymond Aron once observed that the international system was like a billiard table, with events in one part of the world rebounding off each other and eventually having an impact on events on the other side of the world.
Aron’s observation is an accurate description of what happened in previous international systems, but his assessment will be even more accurate in the emerging international system. Given the greater connectivity that advanced information and communication technologies will provide in many areas of the world, future international systems, future international perspectives, and future economic systems will tend to become increasingly globalized.
But this is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. Conversely, these technologies may contribute to the development of a more regionalized world as opposed to a globalized world. To a certain extent, this is already occurring with the development of regional trading blocs such as the European Union (EU), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) zone. While it is incorrect to view these blocs as primarily the results of advanced information and communication technologies, the growth in importance of these blocs and even sub-regional blocs such as NAFTA and MERCOSUR is aided and abetted by advanced information and communication technologies.
The point to be made here is simple: there will be a trend toward consolidation, but the result of that trend could be either regionalization or globalization.
However, there will be opposition to both globalization and regionalization. Fearful of losing identity, control, or influence, some actors are, as we have already pointed out, seeking to restrain the use of advanced information and communication technologies in their areas of control. For example, several states have already outlawed certain technologies because of the adverse impact on revenue collections by national telegraph and telephone ministries. Similarly, in some areas, jingoistic nationalism, conservative traditionalism, or ideological or religious extremism may view advanced information and communication technologies as a danger to the nation, the culture, the ideology, or the religion, and act to curtail their use.
There is no doubt that advanced information and communication technologies will provide humankind with tantalizing new capabilities for connectivity far beyond any capabilities enjoyed in the past. This connectivity enhances the probability of globalization and regionalization, but does not pretermine either outcome.
Increasingly Skewed Patterns of Distribution of Wealth Among Actors and Within Actors. As we have already noted, not all international actors will adopt, diffuse, or operationalize advanced information and communication technologies at the same rate. Thus, some actors will benefit more than others from these technologies. In all probability, North America, Western Europe, and Japan will lead the way. Argentina, Brazil, India, several of the ASEAN states, and a few other countries will follow somewhat behind. Most of the rest of the world will lag behind still further.
However, even within those regions that lag behind, there will be users of advanced information and communication technologies. Those users will be certain MNCs, NGOs, individuals, and other non-state and non-IGO international actors. Regardless of their location, they will be in the best position to benefit from the capabilities afforded by advanced information and communication technologies. The implications of different rates of adoption of these technologies are immense both for the international system and for individual actors, especially states.
On the international level, to the extent that advanced information and communication technologies will create new wealth, these different rates of adoption, diffusion, and operationalization will likely increase the already skewed patterns of distribution of wealth that exist between states unless poorer states adopt a modernization strategy that leverages information and communication technologies to close the gap. As we have seen, a few states are in fact doing this. Outside these states, the Information Age has potential to exacerbate the North-South conflict.
At the state level, this could lead to greater tension between wealthy states and poor states. At the same time, given the empowerment that advanced information and communication technologies will provide other classes of actors, some NGOs, small groups, and even individuals could take it on themselves to attempt to redress real and perceived imbalances in the distribution of wealth between states. They may even choose to use advanced information and communication technologies in the form of information warfare to undertake such action.
Within states, much the same thing could occur. Again, to the extent that advanced information and communication technologies will create new wealth, skewed patterns of distribution of wealth will probably be exacerbated, increasing the potential for strife and conflict within states. And again, NGOs, small groups, and even individuals could take it on themselves to redress real and perceived imbalances in the distribution of wealth within states, by peaceful means or not.
As new wealth accumulates as the result of advanced information and communication technologies, decisions must be made about how this new wealth will be distributed. The stability both of the international system and individual actors within the system may rest with how wisely and well such decisions are made.
A More Diffuse International System. Taken together, the combined impacts of the Information Age indicate that for an extended period of time, the international system will be undergoing a transformation and the distribution of power will be quite diffuse. More information will be available at more places and flow faster and more freely than ever before. Decisions about subnational, national, and international actions will be made in more places than ever before. Boundaries between actors—states, MNCs, IGOs, NGOs, and so on—will be more permeable than ever before. New types of actors will emerge on the international scene, and more types of actors than ever before will play prominent roles in international affairs. Existing power relationships between and among actors will be disrupted. Tendencies toward regionalization and globalization will be strong, but to some extent mitigated by pressures of nationalism and localism. Already skewed patterns of distribution of wealth may well become even more skewed, with shrewd exploiters of these technologies becoming very wealthy very quickly.
The outlines of this future international system —some might call it lack of system—are already discernible. In some ways, especially for policymakers, it will be quite unsettling. More external nodes of decision will require attention than ever before. On occasion, a previously unimportant actor may become prominent virtually overnight. This will be especially true for non-state actors. Sometimes, it may be difficult to identify lines of responsibility for a given international event.
These realities will make international affairs in the Information Age more complex, more confusing, and less structured than in the past. Decision makers, and the institutions and organizations in which they work, must therefore be flexible, able to respond quickly and intelligently to unforeseen circumstances and situations.
Clearly, the Information Age promises to usher in a brave new world replete with uncertainties. The one certainty that will exist is, as it has always been, that of change. However, as observed earlier, we are in a sense fortunate, for we are now only at the dawn of the Information Age. Thus, we have a window of opportunity during which we can reflect about the impacts that the Information Age might have before its full impacts are upon us.
But this window is closing fast, and the full impacts of the Information Age are fast approaching. Thus, the time to begin examining the questions and issues raised in this anthology is now. The answers that we develop will allow us to influence trends, policies, and events that will play roles in determining what the Information Age becomes. For as Peter Drucker once observed, albeit paraphrased, assessing the future impacts of information and communication technologies on human affairs is not an effort to assess the future, but to assess the future of present decisions.
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