Cloud Agoras: When Blockchain Technology Meets Arendt’s Virtual Public Spaces

Abstract

The virtual public space of blockchain communities will make citizens think, engage and act more virtually. In other words, the virtual reality of cloud agoras will have an impact on institutions and the participants themselves; it will yield pressures for more open, transparent and accountable institutions and will result in more virtuous, that is, actively engaged, citizens. Whether cloud agoras will prove to be decisive public spaces and strong promoters of democratic processes that make wealth, power and privilege accountable or merely subaltern counter publics will depend on the intentions and actions of their participants. In other words, the answer to the question whether the virtual public space of global citizenship will have a decisive influence on global, regional and national public policy-making is not theoretical or scholarly; it will be a contextual one.