and connectivity facilitate the creation of political authorities ‘within’ and ‘beyond’ the nation state, and how it lies at the core of the formation of automated forms of power and the emergence of a plethora of communities with global reach and outlook, affecting identity formation processes and social dynamics. These developments have important repercussions for politics and democracy. Politics in the Information Age becomes a ‘politics of presence’ and a ‘politics of becoming’, as expressed through multiple practices, connections and organizational forms, as well as the complex formation of political identities. In such a set-up, democracy comes to depend more on ethics and less on procedures.