Papers by James Fennell
Widespread access to the internet and smartphones have radically changed the ways we organise soc... more Widespread access to the internet and smartphones have radically changed the ways we organise societies. Whether we like it or not, much of our social and work lives have moved from a space of places to a space of informational flows.It is not surprising that our territorial governance system is struggling to stay relevant. Nor that it proves difficult to use laws made for physical places to mediate the borderless informational space without accepting great losses of privacy and liberty. There is no doubt that new voluntary jurisdictions for this space will need to be created and nation states adapt to our new reality of informational spaces of flows.
The Pangea Software is a Decentralized Opt-In Jurisdiction where Citizens can conduct peer-to-pee... more The Pangea Software is a Decentralized Opt-In Jurisdiction where Citizens can conduct peer-to-peer arbitration and create Nations. Pangea uses the Panthalassa mesh, which is inspired or draws on Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) and Interplanetary File System (IPFS) protocols. This enables Pangea to be highly resilient and secure, conferring resistance to emergent threats such as high-performance quantum cryptography. Pangea is blockchain agnostic but uses the Ethereum blockchain for the time being. In the future, other chains such as Bitcoin, EOS and Tezos can be integrated with Pangea.
The Pangea Arbitration Token (PAT) is an ERC20 compatible in-app token for the Pangea Jurisdiction. The PAT token is reward of reputation for Citizens, issued on Pangea when Citizens accumulate non-tradable reputation tokens through creating a contract, successfully completing a contract or resolving a dispute attached to a contract. PAT is an algorithmic reputation token; an arbitration currency based on performance, rather than purchasing power, popularity, or attention.
The distribution mechanism for PAT tokens on Pangea is an autonomous agent, Lucy, which will initially launch on Ethereum as a smart contract. This mechanism is blockchain agnostic and can be ported to any viable smart contract platform. An oracle created by Bitnation will help to facilitate this (semi) autonomous distribution mechanism in a decentralized and secure fashion.
<abstract_ The Pangea Software is a Decentralized Opt-In Jurisdiction where Citizens can conduct ... more <abstract_ The Pangea Software is a Decentralized Opt-In Jurisdiction where Citizens can conduct peer-to-peer arbitration and create Nations. Pangea uses the Panthalassa mesh, which is built using Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) and Interplanetary File System (IPFS) protocols. This enables Pangea to be highly resilient and secure, conferring resistance to emergent threats such as high-performance quantum cryptography. Pangea is blockchain agnostic, but uses the Ethereum blockchain for the time being. In the future, other chains such as Bitcoin, EOS and Tezos can be integrated with Pangea. The Pangea Arbitration Token (PAT) is an ERC20 compatible in-app token for the Pangea Jurisdiction. The PAT token is reward of reputation for Citizens, issued on Pangea when Citizens accumulate non-tradable reputation tokens through creating a contract, successfully completing a contract or resolving a dispute attached to a contract. PAT is an algorithmic reputation token; an arbitration currency based on performance, rather than purchasing power, popularity, or attention. The distribution mechanism for PAT tokens on Pangea is an autonomous agent, Lucy, which will initially launch on Ethereum as a smart contract. This mechanism is blockchain agnostic and can be ported to any viable smart contract platform. An oracle created by Bitnation will help to facilitate this (semi) autonomous distribution mechanism in a decentralized and secure fashion.
Published by Think Defence, 2014 https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/02/experimental-stabilisatio... more Published by Think Defence, 2014 https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/02/experimental-stabilisation-manoeuvre-brigades-conceptoperations/ Stabilisation and Humanitarian Response are likely to remain core functions for HMG and NATO in the near future. While developing a successful stabilisation strategy proved elusive in the counter-insurgency environments of Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been very successful where the majority of the population were more permissive of international intervention -Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Kosovo are good examples -Libya and Mali may also be regarded as qualified successes. This paper takes some of the lessons learned during recent stabilisation operations and proposes a new concept of operations and an experimental stabilisation manoeuvre brigade to develop these ideas within the British Army and NATO.
1 | P a g e he Arab spring has begun a difficult transition towards more plural politics in the M... more 1 | P a g e he Arab spring has begun a difficult transition towards more plural politics in the Middle East. Yet other parts of the Islamic world, Pakistan and Afghanistan in particular, stand on a very different prerevolutionary precipice, at the end of a process of politicisation of the majority that has been misunderstood and condoned by the increasingly remote and self-obsessed Pakistani state. Widening gaps in state-society relations are usually a recipe for longer term instability. While these chasms have opened-up in Pakistan to benefit the ruling class, they have also unwittingly created space for a populist but divisive sectarian and militant mass politics -a theological totalitarianism.
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The idea of nationalism is one of the most generally misunderstood in the modern world. The imper... more The idea of nationalism is one of the most generally misunderstood in the modern world. The imperialists do not even try to understand it; they simply call it sedition and hand it over to the police." R. Lynd, 1919 1 Summary Like many post colonial African states, especially those that straddle the Islamic/animist/Christian divide, Nigeria did not have a political settlement at independence. Perhaps the mistake of the 19 th century European imperialists was slicing West Africa in the wrong direction -north-south rather than eastwest -but pre-colonial trade routes and political trajectories were increasingly north-south, and this analysis does not hold water.
Disasters, Jan 1, 1998
... if we publicly say that we were wrong and that moral values exist, and henceforth we shall do... more ... if we publicly say that we were wrong and that moral values exist, and henceforth we shall do what we must to establish and illustrate them, don't you think that would be the start of hope?
Drafts by James Fennell
Between independence in 1948 and the coup d'état of 1962 there was a significant Muslim insurgenc... more Between independence in 1948 and the coup d'état of 1962 there was a significant Muslim insurgency in Rakhine state, while most Muslims failed to achieve citizenship. During military rule force was used to contain the ethnopolitical genie in Rakhine in an ill-fitting bottle – at least partially – but in 2010 the bottle was uncorked once more in Rakhine state, and maybe Burma more widely, with the onset of elections. It was the issuing of voter registration cards to Muslims which may well have created expectations that Muslims would be given full citizenship in due course, a process that alarmed " Rakhine " people and emboldened Muslims. These heightened tensions were probably the real trigger for violence in 2012. And the issuing of these cards may have been part of a broader government strategy to ensure that " Rakhine " ethnic secessionists did not gain a majority in a state with important oil and gas resources. Whatever the causes, conflict in Rakhine in state has not been checked, and unless the ethnic foundations of Myanmar/Burma politics are diluted, Rakhine may yet become a harbinger of future racially motivated conflict across the country if the greater expectations of economic and political representation that all ethnicities will demand from the reform process are not met equitably. The key conflict implications of these rules of the game for Myanmar/Burmaare: • Ethnopolitics is concerned with a spatial hierarchy of controlled access, to limit the territorial expansion of rival peoples – especially to urban areas and areas which have access to resources; • Focuses political concerns on controlling demographic expansion; and • Thus controlled access, ruralisation, expulsions, denial of citizenship, expulsions and ultimately pogroms or even genocide become useful options for political action. This analysis suggests that the creation of a political platform around promoting the idea of a universal de-ethicized set of citizenship rights and freedoms is urgently required. Bringing together the myriad separate peace processes under this banner could be an excellent start-point, and one which the international community and programmes such as Pyoe Pin could help catalyze. A single overarching peace 'umbrella' under which the same rights and freedoms form the basis for each individual peace process could help both build longer term stability between ethnicities, and more importantly, create a broader Myanmar/Burma citizenship platform that can eventually take the place of the current patchwork of fragmented ethnic groups, and form the context in which parliamentary democracy might prove a more effective system for embracing political choice and competition. Yet even in the context of concerted government, opposition and international will to bring about change, escaping its ethnopolitical past will be a difficult task for Burma/Myanmar. Ultimately government policy will need to place new emphasis on providing access to the universal benefits of the state. A focus on universal citizen benefits such as social insurance provision – perhaps learning from models elsewhere in Southeast Asia – and equality before the law may be good places to begin.
" Experience shows that Princes who have achieved great things have given their word lightly, hav... more " Experience shows that Princes who have achieved great things have given their word lightly, have known how to trick men with their cunning, and, in the end, have overcome those abiding by honest principles " Niccolò Machiavelli, 'il Principe' 1513
Talks by James Fennell
ISIS, Europe and the Refugee Crisis
Conference Presentations by James Fennell
2012 Rakhine State Conflict Analysis 3 Between independence in 1948 and the coup d'état of 1962 t... more 2012 Rakhine State Conflict Analysis 3 Between independence in 1948 and the coup d'état of 1962 there was a significant Muslim insurgency in Rakhine state, while most Muslims failed to achieve citizenship. During military rule force was used to contain the ethnopolitical genie in Rakhine in an ill-fitting bottle – at least partially – but in 2010 the bottle was uncorked once more in Rakhine state, and maybe Burma more widely, with the onset of elections. It was the issuing of voter registration cards to Muslims which may well have created expectations that Muslims would be given full citizenship in due course, a process that alarmed " Rakhine " people and emboldened Muslims. These heightened tensions were probably the real trigger for violence in 2012. And the issuing of these cards may have been part of a broader government strategy to ensure that " Rakhine " ethnic secessionists did not gain a majority in a state with important oil and gas resources. Whatever the causes, conflict in Rakhine in state has not been checked, and unless the ethnic foundations of Myanmar/Burma politics are diluted, Rakhine may yet become a harbinger of future racially motivated conflict across the country if the greater expectations of economic and political representation that all ethnicities will demand from the reform process are not metequitably. The key conflict implications of these rules of the game for Myanmar/Burmaare: • Ethnopolitics is concerned with a spatial hierarchy of controlled access, to limit the territorial expansion of rival peoples – especially to urban areas and areaswhich have access to resources; • Focusses political concerns on controlling demographic expansion; and • Thus controlled access, ruralisation, expulsions, denial of citizenship, expulsions and ultimately pogroms or even genocide become useful options for politicalaction. This analysis suggests that the creation of a political platform around promoting the idea of a universal de-ethicized set of citizenship rights and freedoms is urgently required. Bringing together the myriad separate peace processes under this banner could be an excellent start-point, and one which the international community and programmes such as Pyoe Pin could help catalyze. A single overarching peace 'umbrella' under which the same rights and freedoms form the basis for each individual peace process could help both build longer term stability between ethnicities, and more importantly, create a broader Myanmar/Burma citizenship platform that can eventually take the place of the current patchwork of fragmented ethnic groups, and form the context in which parliamentary democracy might prove a more effective system for embracing political choice and competition. Yet even in the context of concerted government, opposition and international will to bring about change, escaping its ethnopolitical past will be a difficult task for Burma/Myanmar. Ultimately government policy will need to place new emphasis on providing access to the universal benefits of the state. A focus on universal citizen benefits such as social insurance provision – perhaps learning from models elsewhere in Southeast Asia – and equality before the law may be good places to begin. Finally, the political, economic and social dimensions of ethnic segregation in Myanmar/Burma and Rakhine state pose specific challenges to the DFID and British Council's Pyoe Pin's approach. Inparticular: 1. On the face of it, the formation of community-based 'user groups' – a central tenet of the programme – has the potential to shift attention from a mobilisedethnic
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Papers by James Fennell
The Pangea Arbitration Token (PAT) is an ERC20 compatible in-app token for the Pangea Jurisdiction. The PAT token is reward of reputation for Citizens, issued on Pangea when Citizens accumulate non-tradable reputation tokens through creating a contract, successfully completing a contract or resolving a dispute attached to a contract. PAT is an algorithmic reputation token; an arbitration currency based on performance, rather than purchasing power, popularity, or attention.
The distribution mechanism for PAT tokens on Pangea is an autonomous agent, Lucy, which will initially launch on Ethereum as a smart contract. This mechanism is blockchain agnostic and can be ported to any viable smart contract platform. An oracle created by Bitnation will help to facilitate this (semi) autonomous distribution mechanism in a decentralized and secure fashion.
Drafts by James Fennell
Talks by James Fennell
Conference Presentations by James Fennell
The Pangea Arbitration Token (PAT) is an ERC20 compatible in-app token for the Pangea Jurisdiction. The PAT token is reward of reputation for Citizens, issued on Pangea when Citizens accumulate non-tradable reputation tokens through creating a contract, successfully completing a contract or resolving a dispute attached to a contract. PAT is an algorithmic reputation token; an arbitration currency based on performance, rather than purchasing power, popularity, or attention.
The distribution mechanism for PAT tokens on Pangea is an autonomous agent, Lucy, which will initially launch on Ethereum as a smart contract. This mechanism is blockchain agnostic and can be ported to any viable smart contract platform. An oracle created by Bitnation will help to facilitate this (semi) autonomous distribution mechanism in a decentralized and secure fashion.