Summary

Part I

1) Representative democracy as we know it is based on the election of a limited number of political parties.

2) The internet is revealing that when given more choice, people shift away from supporting the 'hits' of the past, in business, culture or politics.

3) The internet will prompt the development of hundreds of microparties, allowing people to define their views in ever more detail rather than make the compromises associated with the manifestos and policy programmes of the past.

4) As the number of political parties grows to unmanageable levels, and the support for those that are represented sinks further, democratic systems will face a crisis.

Part II

5) A new framework for ensuring the legitimacy of states will be needed.

6) Initially, this will take the form of allowing people to opt in to or out of different policy frameworks – in effect casting a 'vote' which has immediate effect.

7) These policy frameworks will in effect be individual microgovernments. Governments as they currently exist will cease to exist.

8) The end of governments has implications for states and the traditional concept of sovereignty.

Part III

9) Apathy and disengagement are not the same, and while those who are apathetic will be difficult to motivate under any system of government, those who are disengaged can be both motivated and facilitated to participate in the political process.

10) Direct participation, and freedom to participate, can generate at least as much legitimacy for a policy outcome as representative democracy.

Part IV

11) Pressure from the bottom up, plus potential top-down leadership from politicians, will mean it is possible to begin breaking the link between governance and geography.

12) States and their frameworks will initially become virtualised and begin to compete for citizens, rather than assuming, as at present, that they have the unquestioned right to govern those within their borders.

13) The remnants of states as they are now will focus on border control, service delivery and law enforcement including ensuring that all policy choices are freely made.

14) States will not control the internet, nor will the internet control states. But the internet will be the platform through which new forms of democratic choices are made, evaluated and changed. The power to make choices will rest with each individual, and the accumulation of choices will decide how national and international issues are dealt with.

15) This is an internet-enabled definition of freedom which has not previously been feasible but which increasingly now is.