(1) Many scholars and activists have claimed that the Internet enables much more participatory politics than in the past. Do you agree? Drawing on the readings for the course, examine the ways in which the Internet has, or has not, affected political participation in areas such as communication activities (e.g. blogging and/or YouTube), electoral politics and activist politics.

(2) Does the Internet facilitate the spread of democracy to non-democratic regimes? Does it instead have neutral or perhaps even harmful consequences. Drawing on the readings from the course, take one case study of a non-democratic country or region of the world, and use it to examine in depth how the Internet affects the prospects for democracy being established in this country or region.

(3) There is a strong consensus that the Internet has substantially affected the politics of copyright, making it difficult for copyright holders in certain sectors (music, movies) to defend their intellectual property, and easy for others to swap and/or reproduce it. In a brief essay, use the readings from the course to survey the empirical evidence - then advance a policy proposal as to how a specific actor or actors (this could be government, business, individuals or any mix of the above) should address the new challenges to copyright emerging from technological change.

(4) Is the so-called “Digital Divide” a real problem? How might it be solved if it is? In a brief essay, survey both the debate over the existence of the digital divide and proposed solutions to it, using materials from the course. Then either evaluate a proposed solution (if you believe that a solution is appropriate and necessary) or provide reasons why you believe that no such solution exists/is appropriate (if you don’t so believe).

Required readings

Bruce Sterling, “A Short History of the Internet,” available here .

Ethan Zuckerman and Andrew McLaughlin, “Introduction to Internet Architecture and Institutions,” available here

View the demonstration of packet switching here .

Class Two: Early Takes: The Internet as a Political Space (September 13)

Required Readings

John Perry Barlow, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” available here.

David Post and David Johnson, “Law and Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace,” available here.

Stephen J. Kobrin, “Back to the Future: Neo-Mediaevalism and the Postmodern Digital Economy,” available here .

Debora Spar and Jeffrey Bussgang, “Ruling Commerce in the Networld,” available here.

Class Three - The Return of the State (September 20)

Required Readings

Larry Lessig, “The Laws of Cyberspace,” available here.

Henry Farrell, “The Political Economy of the Internet and E-Commerce,” available here .

Clyde Wayne Crews and Adam Thierer, “Introduction: Who Rules the Net?,” available here .

David Post, “What Larry Doesn’t Get,” available here.

Optional Readings

Michael Geist, “Cyberlaw 2.0,” available here.

Class Four - Is the Internet’s Underlying Nature Changing? The Politics of Net Neutrality (September 27)

Ed Felten, Nuts and Bolts of Network Neutrality. Available here.

Jonathan Zittrain, “A History of Online Gatekeeping.” Available here.

John G. Palfrey, “The Move to the Middle: The Enduring Threat of Harmful Speech to Network Neutrality.” Available here.

Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo, “Keeping the Internet Neutral?: Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo Debate.” Available here.

Class Five - Participation I - The Internet and Participatory Politics (October 4)

Required Readings

W. Lance Bennett, “Communicating Global Activism: Strengths and Vulnerabilities of Networked Politics,” available here .

Steven Johnson, “Two Ways to Emerge, and How to Tell the Difference Between Them,” here .

Natalie Glance and Lada Adamic, “The Blogosphere and the 2004 Election: Divided They Blog,” available here.

Henry Farrell, “Bloggers and Parties,” available here .

Optional Readings

Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell, “The Power and Politics of Blogs,” available here

Phil Agre, “Real-Time Politics: The Internet and the Political Process,” available here .

Class Six - The Internet and Participatory Politics II - Is the Internet Actually Empowering Democratic Debate? (October 11)

Required Readings

Cass Sunstein, Introduction: Republic.Com v.2.0. Available here.

Yochai Benkler, Chapter7: Political Freedom II - Emergence of the Networked Public Sphere.

Joi Ito, “Emergent Democracy,” available here.

Dirk Riehle, “How and Why Wikipedia Works.” Available here.

Nicholas Carr, “Rise of the Deletionists.” Available here.

Optional Readings

A . Michael Froomkin, “Habermas@ Discourse.net,” available here.

Pauline Borsook, “How Anarchy Works,” available here.

Class Seven - The Internet and International Interdependence (October 18)

Required Readings

Jack Goldsmith, “The Internet, Conflicts of Regulation, and International Harmonization,” available here .

Joel Reidenberg, “States and Internet Enforcement” available here .

Henry Farrell, “Governing Information Flows: States, Private Actors and E-Commerce,” available here .

Milton Mueller, “The New Cyber-Conservatism, available here

Optional Readings

Daniel Drezner, “The Global Governance of the Internet: Bringing the State Back In,” available here .

The GAO report on Internet gambling. Available here.

Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, “Power and Interdependence in the Information Age,” available here .

A. Michael Froomkin, “The Internet as a Source of Regulatory Arbitrage,” available here.

Peter Swire, “Elephants and Mice Revisited,” available here.

Class Eight - Domestic Transformations: The Internet and the Spread of Democracy (October 25)

Required Readings

Taylor Boas,”Weaving the Authoritarian Web: Liberalization, Bureaucratization, and the Internet in Non-Democratic Regimes.” Available here.

John Palfrey, “Local Nets: Filtering and the Internet Governance Problem,” available here.

Rebecca McKinnon, “Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China.” Available here.

Marc Lynch, “Blogging the New Arab Public.” Available here.

Optional Readings

“ONI Case Study on Internet Filtering in China,” available here.

Jonathan Zittrain, “Internet Points of Control,” available here.

Class Nine - Intellectual Property Rights I - Balancing Fair Use and Copy Controls (November 1)

Required Readings

Pamela Samuelson, “Towards a New Politics of Intellectual Property,” available here .

Lawrence Lessig, “Innovating Copyright,” available here .

Tyler Cowen, reading here.

Bruce Abramson, Digital Phoenix, Chapter Seven. Available on Blackboard.

Optional readings

Lior Jacob Strahilevitz, “Charismatic Code, Social Norms, and the Emergence of Cooperation on the File-Swapping Networks,” available here

Fred von Lohmann, “Fair Use and Digital Rights Management: Preliminary Thoughts on the (Irreconcilable?) Tension Between Them,” available here .

Class Ten - “Intellectual Property Rights II - New Forms of Collective Organization” (November 8).

Required Readings

James Boyle, “A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?,” available here .

Eric von Hippel, “Open Source Software Projects as User Innovation Networks.” Available here.

Brian Fitzgerald, “Has Open Source a Future?” Available here.

Yochai Benkler, Chapter 4: The Economics of Social Production.

Optional readings

Steven Weber, “The Political Economy of Open Source Software,” available here .

Dan Hunter and Gregory Lastowka, “Amateur to Amateur,” available here.

Kieran Healy and Alan Schussman, “The Ecology of Open Source Software Development,” available here.

Class Eleven - Emerging Problems I - The Digital Divide (November 15)

Required Readings

Pippa Norris, “The Worldwide Digital Divide.” Available here.

Helen Milner, “The Digital Divide: The Role of Political Institutions in Technology Diffusion.” Available here.

Carsten Fink and Charles Kenny, “Whither the Digital Divide?,” available here.

Taylor Boas, Thad Dunning and Jennifer Bussell, “Will the Digital Revolution Revolutionize Development?,” available here.

Steven Weber and Jennifer Bussell, “”Will Information Technology Reshape the North-South Asymmetry of Power in the Global Political Economy?” Available here.

Class Twelve - Emerging Problems II : Illegal Activities and Surveillance (November 29)

Daniel Solove, “Data Mining and the Security/Liberty Debate.” Available “here’:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=990030.

John Podesta and Raj Goyle, “Lost in Cyberspace?” Available here.

Mary DeRosa, “Data Mining and Data Analysis for Counter-Terrorism,” available here .

Heather MacDonald, “Privocrats vs. National Security,” available here .

Read Clayton Northouse, “Providing Security and Protecting Liberty.” Available here.

Optional Readings

Class Thirteen - Conclusions: Where Do We Go From Here? (December 6)

Jonathan Zittrain, “The Generative Internet,” available here.

Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado and Brian Willman, “The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution,” available here.

David Johnson, Susan Crawford and John Palfrey, “The Accountable Net: Peer Production of Internet Governance,” available here

Yochai Benkler, Chapters 11 and 12.