Between reason of state and reason of market: the developments of internet governance in historical perspective

“No sovereignty, no elected government, no authority, no borders”. It was exactly twenty years ago, John Perry Barlow proclaimed his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. And those were his keywords. Today, we can say that the development of Internet governance as a global policy arena is the answer to the questions that Barlow believed irrelevant to the proper development of cyberspace. If founding myths about an ungovernable, borderless, and intangible Internet have been demolished, what power relations have emerged in the Internet governance arena? What are the ideas –or the normative values– that sustain and legitimize the political role of governmental and nongovernmental actors? And, finally, is the multi-stakeholder model capable of grasping the real conflicts over political power, or is it part of those conflicts, a narrative supporting specific interests and coalitions? The main aim of this article is to consider these issues by analysing the developments of political conflicts over Internet governance, from the IAHC to WSIS, until recent processes such as the WCIT and NetMundial.“Ninguna soberanía, ningún gobierno electivo, ninguna autoridad, ningún confín”. Hace veinte años, John Perry Barlow proclamó su Declaración de Independencia del Ciberespacio. Y estas eran las palabras clave. Hoy día, podemos afirmar que el desarrollo del Internet Governance como ámbito de policy global responde a las preguntas que Barlow consideraba irrelevantes precisamente por lo que al desarrollo del ciberespacio se refería. Una vez que los mitos fundadores de un Internet sin confines, inmaterial y falto de estructuras de gobierno han sido derrotados, ¿cuáles son las relaciones de poder que han emergido en el campo del dominio del Internet? ¿Cuáles son las ideas –o los valores normativos– que sostienen y legitiman el papel político de los actores gubernamentales y no gubernamentales? Además, ¿el modelo multi-stakeholder sabe distinguir los conflictos de poder reales, o él mismo parte de esos conflictos, como un discurso de apoyo de los intereses y de las coaliciones en juego? El objetivo principal del artículo es analizar esos cuestionamientos a través del análisis del desarrollo de los conflictos políticos respecto de la gobernanza de la red: del IAHC al WSIS, hasta llegar a los procesos más recientes, como el WCIT y el NetMundial

From ethical consumerism to political consumption

This article reviews some of the recent literature in geography and related disciplines on ethical consumerism and political consumption. Many geographers began their engagement with questions of ethics, politics, consumption and consumerism inspired by critical theory, commodity chain analysis and a sense that geographical knowledge might have a central role to play in progressive social change. Since these early engagements, it has been established that consumption practices are rarely the practices of rational, autonomous, self-identified consumers, and so-called ethical consumption practices are rarely detached from organisations and their political activity. Over time, therefore, some researchers have gradually shifted their focus from consumer identities and knowledge to consumption practices, social networks, material infrastructures and organisations of various kinds. This shift in focus has implications – both for the field of political consumption and for how the discipline of geography relates to this field

South American Expert Roundtable : increasing adaptive governance capacity for coping with unintended side effects of digital transformation

This paper presents the main messages of a South American expert roundtable (ERT) on the unintended side effects (unseens) of digital transformation. The input of the ERT comprised 39 propositions from 20 experts representing 11 different perspectives. The two-day ERT discussed the main drivers and challenges as well as vulnerabilities or unseens and provided suggestions for: (i) the mechanisms underlying major unseens; (ii) understanding possible ways in which rebound effects of digital transformation may become the subject of overarching research in three main categories of impact: development factors, society, and individuals; and (iii) a set of potential action domains for transdisciplinary follow-up processes, including a case study in Brazil. A content analysis of the propositions and related mechanisms provided insights in the genesis of unseens by identifying 15 interrelated causal mechanisms related to critical issues/concerns. Additionally, a cluster analysis (CLA) was applied to structure the challenges and critical developments in South America. The discussion elaborated the genesis, dynamics, and impacts of (groups of) unseens such as the digital divide (that affects most countries that are not included in the development of digital business, management, production, etc. tools) or the challenge of restructuring small- and medium-sized enterprises (whose service is digitally substituted by digital devices). We identify specific issues and effects (for most South American countries) such as lack of governmental structure, challenging geographical structures (e.g., inclusion in high-performance transmission power), or the digital readiness of (wide parts) of society. One scientific contribution of the paper is related to the presented methodology that provides insights into the phenomena, the causal chains underlying “wanted/positive” and “unwanted/negative” effects, and the processes and mechanisms of societal changes caused by digitalization

The emotional infrastructure of a cybercrime collective:Evidence from Dark0de

Complex cybercrime markets face collective action problems. As they involve disparate networks of individuals, they cannot use in person persuasion or coercion to ensure cooperation. They face a tension between being open to new members and opportunities, and regulating participation. We propose that collective emotional regulation plays a crucial part in managing members’ behaviours within illicit marketspaces. We take one critical case, Dark0de, which was a leading English language cybercrime market. Drawing on a publicly available dataset of internal discussions, we use Qualitative Thematic Content Analysis and Conversational Analysis to investigate how through mutual emotion regulation, this cybercrime collective managed collective action dilemmas deriving from the context of its activity, containing conflict among members and fostering cooperation along with competition. We conclude that emotional micro-dynamics are key to maintaining cybercriminal marketplaces as relatively stable communities, circumscribing individuals’ actions and aligning them with emergent normative orders, enabling those communities to remain operable in adverse environments. Dark0de can be seen as a representative case for a category of digital environments where the community develops its own emotional ethnopsychology which uses displays of semi-ironic abuse and attack along with cooperation on emerging projects

Regulatory reform, development and distributive concerns

This survey reviews the relationship between regulation and distribution, focusing on regulatory reform in developing countries. The characteristics of these countries impose constraints on appropriate regulatory policies. These constraints condition: i) the terms of the trade-off between firms' rents and efficiency, including the commitment problem in the presence of sunk investments; and ii) the probability of success of removing cross-subsidies. The choices made at reforming infrastructure industries may have a significant impact on perceived distribution and development, and this impact will drive attitudes toward reform. Distributive problems are channeled through politics and institutions, conditioning the potential solutions to the commitment problem. These issues have been extensively explored by the academic literature, which provides guidance on how to address second-generation regulatory reforms.regulation; privatization; infrastructures; development; distribution;

Cities and global governance: State failure or a new global order?

International society, so long the resolution to problems of collective political order, now appears to be failing in its capacity to deal with transnational challenges such as climate change, global security and financial instability. Indeed, the structure of international society itself has become a significant obstacle to such pressing issues of global governance. One striking response has been the reemergence of cities as important actors on the international stage in recent decades. This article will show how these two issues are intrinsically linked. Cities have taken on new governance roles in the gaps left by hamstrung nation-states, and their contribution to an emerging global governance architecture will be a significant feature of the international relations of the twenty-first century. But do the new governance activities of cities represent a failure on the part of states, as some scholars have argued? Or are they a part of an emerging form of global order, in which the relationship between states, cities and other actors is being recalibrated? This article argues that the remarkable renaissance of cities in recent decades has been a result of a shift in the structure of international society, and assesses the causal drivers of this shift. It goes on to draw out some of the implications of the recalibration of the relationship between the city and the state for how we understand the emerging form of global order

Socio-technical transition processes: A real option based reasoning.

Using a real option reasoning perspective we study the uncertainties and irreversibilities that impact the investment decisions of firms during the different phases of technological transitions. The analysis of transition dynamics via real options reasoning allows the provision of an alternative and more qualified explanation of investment decisions according to the sequentiality of pathways considered. In our framework, flexibility management through option investments concerns both the incumbent and the future technological regime. In the first case it refers to ex-post flexibility management and in the second case to ex-ante flexibility management.

Advancing digital disconnection research: Introduction to the special issue

Over the past decade, scholarly interest in “digital disconnection” and related concepts has grown in media and communication studies, and in related disciplines. The idea of digital disconnection explicitly references digitalization as a key societal development, creating conditions of intensified and embedded media involvement across social life. The notion of digital disconnection thereby represents a critical response to mediated conditions that characterize our societies and permeate our everyday lives. In this special issue, we take stock of the contributions, challenges, and promises of digital disconnection research. We showcase how digital disconnection scholarship intersects with other developments in media and communication research, and is part of debates and empirical analysis in related disciplines from tourism studies to psychology. We argue that one of the key strengths of the emergent work is the variety of social domains and conceptual debates that are included and explored in digital disconnection research. On the other hand, we also point to the need for further methodological development, conceptual consolidation, and empirical diversity, particularly in the face of global inequalities and ongoing crises.publishedVersio

The New Politics of US Health Care Prices: Institutional Reconfiguration and the Emergence of All-Payer Claims Databases

Prices are a significant driver of health care cost in the United States. Existing research on the politics of health system reform has emphasized the limited nature of policy entrepreneurs’ efforts at solving the problem of rising prices through direct regulation at the state level. Yet this literature fails to account for how change agents in the states gradually reconfigured the politics of prices, forging new, transparency-based policy instruments called all-payer claims databases (APCDs), which are designed to empower consumers, purchasers, and states to make informed market and policy choices. Drawing on pragmatist institutional theory, this article shows how APCDs emerged as the dominant model for reforming health care prices. While APCD advocates faced significant institutional barriers to policy change, we show how they reconfigured existing ideas, tactical repertoires, and legal-technical infrastructures to develop a politically and technologically robust reform. Our analysis has important implications for theories of how change agents overcome structural barriers to health reform