This article aims to investigate how diverse social movements and resistance organizations can utilize BT to further their social, political, or criminal objectives. In particular, this article will explore how transparency advocacy groups, pro-democracy groups, hacktivists, revolutionary movements, as well as terror organizations, and even
criminal syndicates can leverage BT and associated organizational innovations such as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). The article argues that BT and DAOs could change the dynamics of social or civil resistance, its effectiveness, and its resilience in the face of countermeasures by governments. It will also provide policy
recommendations.
@article{bbefba97-b943-3f98-866c-df887c6422cf,
ISSN = {19440464, 19440472},
URL = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/26907412},
author = {Armin Krishnan},
journal = {Journal of Strategic Security},
number = {1},
pages = {41--58},
publisher = {University of South Florida Board of Trustees},
title = {Blockchain Empowers Social Resistance and Terrorism Through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations},
urldate = {2024-03-11},
volume = {13},
year = {2020}
}
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26907412
Shared by @CorujaTejedora in FRP-32: Socioeconomic effects of cryptocurrency redistribution in the Costa Rican rural town of Tinamastes.
Statement: Krishnan exposes the possibilities for social resistance to established power in the form of activism, as well as, terrorism, through DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and cryptocurrencies. Description: According to Krishnan, DOAs provide non-hierarchical, decentralized platforms to organize a variety of exchanges such as money, information, and goods, as well as archive keeping. The benefits are the incapacity of governments and Nation States to intervene and shut down DOAs that are free from their software. This freedom is used and misused by a variety of different agents in the pursuit of their own agendas. Technological advances question centralized power and economies, but also put in danger the capacity to maintain control of how they are used and therefore, can become dangerous for democratic regimes and human rights discourse.
Comments: Krishnan’s research is well-detailed and capable of explaining the variety of uses of Blockchains in a global and political landscape, he emphasizes on the possibilities BT offers for organized social movements, non-violent and violent. Nonetheless, he does not offer a deconstructed view of the stigmatization of activists as terrorists, his discourse could easily be abused by power structures that may feel confronted by activists around the world.
Evaluations: This research clearly pinpoints cryptocurrencies and blockchains as political technological innovations, it can help us bridge the ideology behind cryptocurrencies and socio-cultural responsibility.
Key Words: Cryptocurrency, Social Movements, Activism, Decentralized power.
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