Decentralized in the context of "Anonymous (group)"

Collaboration (from Latin com- "with" + laborare "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. A definition that takes technology into account is “working together to create value while sharing virtual or physical space.” Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group. Teams that work collaboratively often access greater resources, recognition and rewards when facing competition for finite resources.

Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication. Such methods aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem-solving. Collaboration is present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common use of the term. In its applied sense, "[a] collaboration is a purposeful relationship in which all parties strategically choose to cooperate in order to accomplish a shared outcome". Trade between nations is a form of collaboration between two societies which produce and exchange different portfolios of goods.

Control theory in sociology is the idea that two control systems—inner controls and outer controls—work against our tendencies to deviate. Control theory can either be classified as centralized or decentralized. Decentralized control is considered market control. Centralized control is considered bureaucratic control. Some types of control such as clan control are considered to be a mixture of both decentralized and centralized control.

Decentralized control or market control is typically maintained through factors such as price, competition, or market share. Centralized control such as bureaucratic control is typically maintained through administrative or hierarchical techniques such as creating standards or policies. An example of mixed control is clan control which has characteristics of both centralized and decentralized control. Mixed control or clan control is typically maintained by keeping a set of values and beliefs or norms and traditions.

Fengjian, literally "demarcation and establishment" but often (controversially) described as Chinese feudalism, was a governance system and political thought in Ancient China and Imperial China, whose social structure formed a decentralized system of confederation-like government. The ruling class consisted of the Son of Heaven (king or emperor) and aristocracy, and the lower class consisted of commoners categorized into four occupations (or "four categories of the people", namely scholar-officials, peasants, laborers and merchants). Elite bonds through affinal relations and submission to the overlordship of the king date back to the Shang dynasty, but it was the Western Zhou dynasty who enfeoffed their clan relatives and fellow warriors as vassals. Through the fengjian system, the king would allocate an area of land to a noble, establishing him as the ruler of that region and allowing his title and fief to be legitimately inherited by his descendants. This created large numbers of local autonomous dynastic domains.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA; Arabic: الجيش السوري الحر, romanized: al-jaysh as-Sūrī al-ḥur) is a big-tent coalition of decentralized Syrian opposition rebel groups in the Syrian civil war founded on 29 July 2011 by Colonel Riad al-Asaad and six officers who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces. The officers announced that the immediate priority of the Free Syrian Army was to safeguard the lives of protestors and civilians from the deadly crackdown by Bashar al-Assad's security apparatus; with the ultimate goal of accomplishing the objectives of the Syrian revolution, namely, the end to the decades-long reign of the ruling al-Assad family. In late 2011, the FSA was the main Syrian military defectors group. Initially a formal military organization at its founding, its original command structure dissipated by 2016, and the FSA identity was later used by several different Syrian opposition groups.

The Free Syrian Army aimed to be "the military wing of the Syrian people's opposition to the regime", through armed operations and the encouragement of army defections. In 2012, military commanders and civilian leadership of the FSA issued a joint communique pledging to transition Syria towards a pluralistic, democratic republic, after forcing Assad out of power. As the Syrian Army is highly organized and well-armed, the Free Syrian Army adopted a military strategy of guerrilla tactics in the countryside and cities, with a tactical focus on armed action in the capital of Damascus. The campaign was not meant to hold territory, but rather to spread government forces and their logistical chains thin in battles for urban centers, cause attrition in the security forces, degrade morale, and destabilize the government.

Fourth-generation warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the distinction between war and politics, and of the distinction between combatants and civilians. It is placed as succeeding the third generation in the five-generation model of military theory.

The term was first used in 1980 by a team of United States analysts, including William S. Lind, to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times.