But of course a free media and new communication technologies can help only at the margins, providing information and coordinating the demands and actions of those vying for more inclusive institutions. Their help will translate into meaningful change only when a board segment of society mobilizes and organizes in order to effect political change, and dose so not for sectarian reasons or the take control of extractive institutions, but to transform extractive institutions into more inclusive ones. Whether such a process will get under way and open the door to further empowerment, and ultimately to durable political reform, will depend, as we have seen in many different instances, on the history of economic and political institutions, on many small differences that matter and on the very contingent path of history.