ABSTRACT
Information revolution technologies armed those who would resist the coup and political oppression better than ever before in the seven decades of the Soviet reign. The political transformation of the Soviet Union, at least partially fueled by information revolution technologies, arguably emboldened lesser connected countries in some regions of the world, to experiment with more democratic rule. Electronic mail is the specific information revolution technology of interest for this inquiry because it enables people to communicate across national borders in ways that have not been possible since the time when borders were drawn around nation states. The interconnectivity measure is a composite measure of the number of nodes per capita for the four globally dominant electronic mail networks, Internet, BITNET, UUCP, and FidoNet, as tracked and recorded by the Matrix Information Directory Service. Now, it is revealed that information revolution technologies offer a new dual-use possibility, to foster global democracy, which resonates with hopes for creating a new world order.
