Professor Wendy Wong and student Peter Brown publish paper titled 'E-Bandits in Global Activism'

December 17, 2013

The December 2013 edition of Perspectives on Politics published an article written by political science Professor Wendy Wong and her student Peter Brown.

The article titled ‘E-Bandits in Global Activism: WikieLeaks, Anonymous, and the Politics of No One‘ was not only published by the journal, but also featured on the front cover.

An abstract can be found below:

“In recent years, WikiLeaks and Anonymous have made headlines distributing confidential information, defacing websites, and
generating protest around political issues. Although many have dismissed these actors as terrorists, criminals, and troublemakers, we argue that such actors are emblematic of a new kind of political actor: extraordinary bandits (e-bandits) that engage in the politics of no one via anonymizing Internet technologies. Building on Hobsbawm’s idea of the social bandit, we show how these actors fundamentally change the terms of global activism. First, as political actors, e-bandits are akin to Robin Hood, resisting the powers that be who threaten the desire to keep the Internet free, not through lobbying legislators, but by “taking” what has been deemed off limits. Second, e-banditry forces us to think about how technology changes “ordinary” transnational activism. Iconic images of street protests and massive marches often underlie the way we as scholars think about social movements and citizen action; they are ordinary ways we expect non-state actors to behave when they demand political change. E-bandits force us to understand political protest as virtual missives and actions, activity that leaves no physical traces but that has real-world consequences, as when home phone numbers and addresses of public officials are released. Finally, e-banditry is relatively open in terms of who participates, which contributes to the growing sense that activism has outgrown organizations as the way by which individuals connect. We illustrate our theory with the actions of two e-bandits, Anonymous and WikiLeaks.”

Click to visit the Perspectives on Politics webpage for this issue.

Wendy H.Wong is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Peter A. Brown is MA candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. The authors would like to thank DavidWelch; Mark Sedra; Ron Deibert; Todd Hall; Marcos Ancelovici; Stefania Milan; Stefan Kroll; Lilach Gilady; the participants of the Workshop for Transnational Linkages, Institutional Building, and the Reconfiguration of Rights and Justice Regimes; three anonymous reviewers; and especially Jeffrey Isaac for helpful comments. Brown’s contribution to the research has been supported by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada.