Governing Global Electronic Networks: International Perspectives on Policy and Power

The burgeoning use and transformative impact of global electronic networks are widely recognized to be defining features of contemporary world affairs. Less often noted has been the increasing importance of global governance arrangements in managing the many issues raised in such networks. This volume helps fill the gap by assessing some of the key international institutions pertaining to global telecommunications regulation and standardization, radio frequency spectrum, satellite systems, trade in services, electronic commerce, intellectual property, traditional mass media and Internet content, Internet names and numbers, cybercrime, privacy protection, and development. Eschewing technocratic approaches, the contributors offer empirically rich studies of the international power dynamics shaping these institutions. They devote particular attention to the roles and concerns of nondominant stakeholders, such as developing countries and civil society, and find that global governance often reinforces wider power disparities between and within nation-states. But at the same time, the contributors note, governance arrangements often provide nondominant stakeholders with the policy space needed to advance their interests more effectively. Each chapter concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the promotion of an open, dynamic, and more equitable networld order.

Contributors: Peng Hwa Ang, Jonathan D. Aronson, Byung-il Choi, Tracy Cohen, Peter F. Cowhey, William J. Drake, Henry Farrell, Rob Frieden, Alison Gillwald, Boutheina Guermazi, Cees J. Hamelink, Ian Hosein, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Don MacLean, Christopher May, Milton Mueller, John Richards, David Souter, Ernest Wilson III, Jisuk Woo.

William J. Drake is a senior associate with the Centre for International Governance at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.