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Will communities without access to computers become the 21st Century's 'Fourth World'? |
THAT THE IT revolution has transformed the world's advanced economies is beyond dispute. Much less discussed are the implications for those within the world community whose lives, on the immediate level, have been least affected by new technology. If information and communications technology (ICT), and the internet in particular, are set to shape the patterns of 21st Century life, will those without access to networked computers fall yet further behind the rest of the world in income and opportunities?
Researchers at Robert Gordon University (RGU), writing in the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Private Law, suggest that just such an exclusionary phenomenon is now in process, and that it could limit the life chances of millions over the coming decades. The effect is potentially so profound, they argue, that it merits a new term: while 20th Century socioeconomics defined the First World of developed economies, the Second World of the Communist bloc, and the Third World of deprived regions, the 21st Century could, say the researchers, be scarred by the emergence of a 'Fourth World' of regions lacking access to ICT.
Mhairi Aitken and Diego Quiroz-Onate, of the Aberdeen Business School at RGU draw on the work of the renowned Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells Oliván. Castells's theory of the 'Network Society' holds that the vertical, centralised structures of traditional industries and organisations have been replaced, thanks to networked computing, by flatter and more flexible forms that can respond rapidly and flexibly to market dynamics. In this accelerated world, the internet is as important as the electrical grid and electric engine were to the industrial age, argues Castells: the net is "the technological basis for the organisational form of the Information Age: the network". |
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Aitken and Quiroz-Onate’s article considers the implications of Castells's theory within the context of economic development and human rights. If ICT is vitally important for economic success, it follows that having access to modern technologies is essential for an individual to fulfil their "right to development" as defined by the United Nations. This poses, say the authors, "ethical and legal questions… as to whether people have a right to technologies and, moreover, whose responsibility it is to facilitate this right". Under Article eight of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development, states are required to ensure "equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and the fair distribution of income". Aitken and Quiroz-Onate argue that implicit in this declaration is the right to ICT access. They write: "If we recognise that all human rights, including the right to development, are universal, indivisible, interrelated and interdependent, we cannot deny the central and extremely significant role of ICTs, and in particular the internet, to furthering social and economic development." |
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If we recognise that all human rights, including the right to development, are universal, indivisible, interrelated and interdependent, we cannot deny the central and extremely significant role of ICTs, and in particular the internet, to furthering social and economic development.
Mhairi Aitken and Diego Quiroz-Onate |
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For the RGU researchers, defining ICT access as a human right brings the issue within the scope of international law. "In principle", they write, "it can be maintained that States should apply their (limited) resources in a way which gives priority to fulfilling the right to development in an impartial way, adopting a manner of implementation that is participatory, transparent, non-discriminatory and accountable with a fair and equitable distribution of benefits."
Governments, in other words, are not legally obliged to dish out laptops to their populations, but they may be liable if they fail to provide sections of their society with at least the possibility of accessing ICT. If access to technology is a basic right, states can no longer simply allow the free market to decide who gets online.
Aitken and Quiroz-Onate conclude: "The role of... states... is not only to enable competition in the electronic communications markets, but to improve the functioning of the internal market so as to guarantee basic user interests that would not be guaranteed by market forces." Responsibility for securing and advancing these interests will, they add, go much wider, including ultimately all those who participate in, and benefit from, the networked world.
"ICT and the Emerging 'Fourth World': where does the responsibility lie?" by Mhairi Aitken and Diego Quiroz-Onate in Int. J. Private Law, 2008, 1, 14-21
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