GreenPill Network Nations Ep:5 What Makes a Nation? Identity, Belonging & Digital Communities
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Nov 21, 2025 This discussion features Rainer BaubĂśck, a political theorist skeptical about online communities as real nations, and Liav Orgad, a legal scholar delving into digital citizenship and governance. Yancey Strickler, a Kickstarter co-founder, explores new models for collective organization. They tackle whether digital communities can foster genuine political belonging, the differences between coercive membership and voluntary associations, and the potential for cloud communities to redistribute political power, all while navigating the complexities of identity in the digital age.
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Network Nations As A New Civic Design Space
- Network nations are emergent civic communities using decentralized tech to govern and steward shared resources across borders.
- They aim to treat members as co-creators and cultivate sovereignty as a collective good rather than a private asset.
Coercion Distinguishes Political Community
- Rainer BaubĂśck emphasizes political communities differ from civil society because membership is typically non-voluntary and coercive.
- He argues territory historically bundled identity and coercive governance, which network nations currently lack.
Governance Is The Distinctive Feature
- Liav Orgad argues a key difference is governance: network nations embed decision-making within the group rather than representing from outside.
- He links this shift to a crisis of trust in existing governments and emerging decentralized governance experiments.